This is Scary.
5 May 2008 by gallinggalla
I’ll keep this short: The committee appointed by the American Psychiatric Association to revise the entry for Gender Identity Disorder for the DSM-V includes Kenneth Zucker and Ray Blanchard, both virulent transphobes who characterize trans* people as sickos and practice “reparative therapy” - in other words, brainwashing and child abuse - on trans* youth as primary members of the committee.
This has the potential to set back treatment of trans* folk back decades and completely eliminate access to hormones, surgery, and compassionate care. If Zucker and Blanchard (and their friends, like Bailey, Lawrence, Dreger, etc) get their way, we will see more suicides, more children being tortured in the name of “normalcy”, and the mainstreaming of “reparative therapy”. Gay and lesbian people have plenty to worry about here, as do intersex people, since Zucker and Blanchard are advocates of the “hack the infants up and intimidate their parents” mode of “treating” DSDs.
These people are fucking dangerous and must be stopped.
Links:
“DSD” itself is a construct from one of the Bailey / Blanchard allies, Alice Dreger. For some reason, she managed to convince some in the medical and intersex community that “Disorder of Sex Development” was less-stigmatizing terminology than “Intersex.”
The call is out there, and some in the trans community are listening. It now remains to be seen whether our GLB and medical community allies will stand with us, and how soon the APA will listen (I’m thinking positive).
Take care;
Mercedes
I’m using a GLBT health clinic - one that takes the “T” seriously - and have been very happy so far. They prescribe hormones on informed consent, bypassing WPATH (although they follow WPATH for surgury recommendations). But, I wonder what DSM-V will do to that, especially if Zucker and Blanchard get their way.
R.E. DSD, I wasn’t sure what term to use - DSD, VSD, or intersex - they all have their proponents and detractors within the intersex community, from my perusal of resources on the web. ISNA seems to prefer DSD.
Thanks for commenting.
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