As for Swampfox’s original concern, of course; no invasive surgery should be undertaken lightly, without adequate thought and reflection. SuzyQ’s point was simply that to her it didn’t seem like any big dilemma as to whether to get it done or not.

You have to realize that most transsexuals will have been thinking and reflecting about this very thing since childhood, and aren’t doing it on any kind of whim. Why should the medical community, psychiatrists in particular, be any more concerned with how transsexuals decide to have corrective surgery than anyone else with a disfiguring birth defect or an annoying growth? Should a person born with harelip, for example, and who wants reconstructive surgery, be required to submit to a diagnosis of a mental disorder, then forced to spend a couple of years in therapy or seeing a psychiatrist, and a year or two wearing a prosthetic upper lip in public to make sure it’s right for them, before allowing it?

Just because the doctor or psychiatrist isn’t empathic or open-minded enough to understand, doesn’t somehow make the surgery any more “radical” (drastic, alarming, not to be undertaken lightly). It certainly isn’t so to the transsexual, at least for many of us–not all that different from breast reduction surgery for women who need it to relieve their back pain, really. And in any case it’s not anyone else’s decision to make, is it? The whole system as it exists now, thanks to the DSM classification, is patronizing and condescending at best.

Personally, I wouldn’t object to a medical classification on par with, say, harelip, cleft palate, or even medically-indicated breast reduction surgery, if it’s really needed for insurance coverage purposes. The point is, it doesn’t belong in the DSM any more than those other diagnoses do; it’s not a “mental disorder” by any reasonable definition of that term, and the effect of that classification has proven to be far more harmful than beneficial.

This thread takes an interesting tangent. I’m glad to be reading it for contrasting perspectives on the DSM and its treatment of/implications for transexualism.

I’m perfectly willing to admit that my transsexualism regularly causes subjective distress not related to conflict with society. That does account for about half of it, but the other half is due to direct conflict with my own body, not because of how others perceive me because of it.

On the other hand, the numb spot on my finger where I have nerve damage from a power tool accident causes subjective distress due to a conflict with my own body. So did the cyst I had on my backside, until I finally had it removed a couple of years ago, and the ganglion cysts in my hand and wrist, and the twinges I get from time to time from an old ankle sprain. So, for the sake of logical consistency, are you going to also insist these qualify as mental disorders, for which I should require a DSM code before I can get any kind of treatment?

I’m pretty sure Stephen Hawking’s ALS regularly causes him subjective distress due to conflict with his own body. So is that a mental disorder, too?

As for Asperger’s, without knowing much more about it than has been said here (though probably more than the average person in the street), I would have no problem backing its removal from the DSM. As far as I’m concerned, that book is largely a tool for the systematic pathologization and stigmatization of human variation.

I’m willing to say what I think you mean. I will say distress is caused not by transsexualism, but by ostracism from society and by transphobia. No-one likes being hatred for no good reason. But to tar a person with a mental diagnosis because they are hated is, quite simply, wicked and amoral. Zucker and his ilk are wicked and amoral.

In fact the DSM-IV-TR directly addresses this issue , see page xxxi, first paragraph in pertinent part “… Neither deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or SEXUAL) nor conflicts primarily between the individual and society are psychiatric disorders, unless the deviance or conflict is a symptom of dysfunction in the individual, as described above. …” (EMPHASIS added)

Thus, by the DSM’s own words. GID is NOT a psychiatric disorder (and should be removed from the DSM manual).

De-psychopathologization of GID and transsexualism will help greatly, as it did to homosexuality 35 years ago as of yesterday. It is mere scaremongering to suggest that treatments ALREADY PROVEN SUCCESSFUL will be abandoned merely because voodoo psychiatry is at last debunked.

Bill Ware said,
“Whoa, SuzyQ, let’s look at practice practicalities. Everything in the health care system is run be those pesky DSM generated numbers. Every physical and mental condition has a number. Insurance will not pay for services without a number.”

The fact is, the psychiatric DSM for transsexualism excludes far more people from care that it enables. Most good gender counselors don’t use it, as it sends up too many flags. With the exception of some psychiatrist visits (frequently NOT coded under transsexuality) most U.S. transsexuals foot the bill at all stages. Many, if not most, complete medical transition following WPATH standards without anyone in the medical system ever making or recording a DSM transsexual diagnosis. (Hormones and surgeries typically require letters from the caregivers) The lifetime outlook for these individuals is no different that someone that has come to terms with their homosexuality, (or for that matter, their heterosexuality) no better, no worse,

Your own words and those in other comments make the case for the stigmatization of transsexuals as having a higher incidence of functional impediments related to transsexuality vs gays having impediments as a result of coming to terms with homosexualty. There is no basis in scientific fact for that belief. You fell into the stigma trap, set by the original, faith based, DSM authors and those current groups like NARTH that would perpetuate the belief.

We all know individual that have struggled in life, straight, gay, transsexual, etc. We should all know better that to generalize that to a population.

A few large corporations are just beginning to cover the medical costs to treat transsexualism, but removal of the psychiatric DSM has won’t reverse this positive trend.

I am not the expert in this area,(Dr. Winters is: http://gidreform.org/) but, make no mistake, for U.S. transsexuals, the psychiatric DSM for transsexualism will not be missed one bit. Except it may help to dispel the stigma that exists, even within the LGBT community!

I wish your comments were true, then the nature of the debate might be different, but it is simply not the state of transsexual treatment in America at this time.

CiCi

Transsexuality isn’t a mental disorder. And psychiatry bears only a vague connection to science.

“So without a medical name, diagnosis, and treatment path, where is a transsexual left to turn?”

The name of what I was born with is transsexualism or HBS Harry Benjamin Syndrome and they are discovering that it has several genetic markers.

Further you speak like all outsiders to having the condition.

Life time of treatment and care is total BS. Most of us in the late 1960s and early 70s prior to the APA socially constructing us in to the mental illness model only saw psychiatrists as part of the screening process to insure we didn’t have a mental disorder.

This is quite a reversal to go from having to demonstrate I wasn’t mentally ill to people now having to demonstrate they have a mental illness.

At any rate there are the same sort of organizations lead by women born transsexual and men born transsexual WBT/MBT to remove GID from the DSM as there were L/G people who fought to remove homosexuality back when.

BTW I recall those in the homophile movement who argued it was better to be considered sick than perverted.

I will accept that it may not be a “mental disorder”, but you have a long way to go to establish that brain/body divide. Even if you could, you can’t honestly claim that there isn’t a medical condition that needs medical treatment.

What ever you want to call this condition, physical, mental, biological it is only “socially” constructed in the sense that gender is socially constructed and it still cannot be proven that “Transsexualism” would not exist in a society with full gender fluidity, since we have no real way to be sure if it is the physical sex or the gender identity that has to match the brain “sex”.

This whole problem is fundamentally different then the medical tagging of homosexuality because there is no “non-medical” solution for most transsexuals. You can’t talk it away, you can’t pray it away, you can’t just accept it and move on. You need to medically intervene. You need to mess around with body chemistry, you need to physically alter key functions of physical anatomy, you need to alter both internal and external perceptions. This isn’t fixed by “accepting” that you are just a guy/gal, unless you want to force them into a lifetime of hell. So without a medical name, diagnosis, and treatment path, where is a transsexual left to turn?

I can’t argue that there are those who would use the diagnosis against others, but there are those who use depression, bi-polar, and schizophrenia against others. Yet all these, like Transsexualism, can be treated and when they are the person is no different then anyone else. Also like transsexualism the root problem never fully goes away, it’s always a lifetime a of treatment and care. The solution isn’t to remove medical diagnosis and leave people flopping around without help. The solution is to remove the negative stigma attached to having such a diagnosis.

It’s funny because right now the same “remove the metal illness” game is being played with Asperger’s. A growing contingent of people want to remove the stigma of having a “mental disorder” and be treated just like everyone else. Yet the funny thing is having worked closely with a person who suffered Asperger’s if it wasn’t for the fact that he had a mental disorder he would have been fired on his third day at work. Of course talking with him I heard this similar argument, “they don’t have a problem it’s just an inflexible social system that doesn’t understand them.”

The reality is that we might as I said at the LA Christopher Street West Celebration in 1974 get together for a parade but most of the rest of the year we are off in our own communities.

I’m a radical old woman on my blog, http://womanrebel.blogspot.com I describe myself as anarcha-feminist and my range of issues are far broader than trans-specific ones. Same sex marriage is one, unionization and worker’s rights are others.

However there is one trans-issue I am involved in and that is the same issue I marched with L/G folks on 35 years ago. Transsexualism is not a psychiatric disorder but is a fiction made up by some pretty anti-LGBT/T people.

Also many of those who are pushing the hardest to keep GID in the DSM are associated with reparative therapy on queer kids and such organizations as NARTH.