The National Association For Research And Therapy Of Homosexuality (NARTH) is again commenting on transgender issues, although their mission, vision, and previous leadership statements have indicated that their focus has “nothing to do with any social issue other than same-sex attraction.”
NARTH recently posted an article on their website entitled NYU Students Find Accepting Campus For Transsexuals. In the article, Christopher Rosik, Ph.D. (a member of the NARTH Scientific Advisory Committee) is quoted:
While transgendered students are clearly in need of our compassion, I suspect that simply affirming their disjuncted gender identity does them a disservice. A preferable first response would be to determine if any help can be provided to lessen the disjunction for these individuals.
Follow up studies of transsexuals have suggested that, while interventions such as sex change surgery reduced distress due to the perceived gender incongruity, their relational, vocational and emotional difficulties continued unabated. The collusion of NYU officials with these students’ psychological reality to the apparent exclusion of encouraging them to seek help is therefore ill advised.
The gist of Rosik’s message seems to be that he doesn’t believe New York University should be trans-affirmative. Since a significant number of post-operative transsexuals still have employment, relationship, and emotional problems, Rosik believes the goal of treatment shouldn’t be to affirm a transgender person’s gender identity, but rather to affirm that their gender be joined or rejoined to their natal sex. Rosik doesn’t clarify whether or not he believes joining or rejoining gender to natal sex would then, by itself, solve all of these individuals other employment, relationship, and emotional problems.
Beyond treatment, he appears to be implying that no government or private agency should recognize a person as transgender — again, because a significant number of post-operative transsexuals still have employment, relationship, and emotional problems after sex reassignment surgery.
He also appears to be implying that if transgender people seek assistance that isn’t help joining or rejoining one’s gender identity to one’s natal sex, and then these transgender people aren’t actually seeking help.
What Rosik is proposing is outside of mainstream medical thought. He wants NYU, and other public and private entities to adopt his minority medical opinion as policy instead of the Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care. The mainstream medical opinion indicates public and private entities’ trans-affirmative treatments/policies are appropriate for transgender people.
If Rosik and NARTH were actually interested in changing NYU policy on transgender people — or affecting public policy in general regarding transgender people — they would work within the system (i.e. American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, etc.) to change the standards of care for transgender people to non-trans-affirmative.
Or, an alternate strategy might also be found in NARTH adding transgender issues to their mission/vision statement, and then developing an alternate standard of care to rival the Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care. Then, they could argue to public and private entities that their standards of care are the ones that should be adopted as mainstream medical thought, and should be utilized for developing public policy instead of the Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care.
My suspicion is; however, that Rosik is merely voicing his opposition opinion regarding trans-affirmative public policies, and that’s as far as he and NARTH will go. He and NARTH likely have no intent to do anything about trans-affirmative public policies except to provide quotes for the future use of ex-gay and ex-transgender affirming organizations as to why trans-affirmative public policies are the “wrong” policies. Basically, NARTH doesn’t appear to have sufficient transgender mission identification or alternative documentation to offer real, actionable alternatives to the trans-affirmative public policies that NARTH (via Rosik) objects to.
Of course, why would the lack of a transgender issue mission identification statement or alternative documentation preclude either Rosik or NARTH commenting on transgender issues in the future? The lack of these haven’t stopped them previously — I doubt the lack of a transgender issue mission identification statement or alternative documentation will stop them in the future.
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David Roberts contributed to this article.
Right on Rosik! Finally someone from the “moral majority” gets it:
While transgendered students are clearly in need of our compassion, I suspect that simply affirming their disjuncted gender identity does them a disservice. A preferable first response would be to determine if any help can be provided to lessen the disjunction for these individuals.
Hence why I transitioned, to lesson the “disjunction” between my body and my soul!
I believe that the optimal SoC would be one similar to the SoC involved in any other medical treatment: determine if the patient is capable of making informed consent and inform them about the procedure. The HBIGDA SoC is guilty of denying trans people their basic humanity by needlessly denying us our right to self determination.
To support the HBIGDA SoC just because it is what is already accepted is a status quo logical fallacy (thought I would throw one back at ya).
I believe that transgendered people (whether pre- or post-operative) should definitely be dealt with compassion. However, I have often wondered exactly where the transgendered individual fits within the scope of gay/lesbian/bisexual.
Although there is definitely a human rights issue with concern to how transgendered individuals are treated and dealt with, I do not believe that their issues are with the same focus as the greater g/l/b community.
Therefore, I agree that NARTH should not be taking any type of position or stance regarding the transgendered community. I am by no means a qualified person to deal with the psychological issues that transgendered people face, but I am still firm in my belief (and forgive me if this sounds all NARTH-y) that most of the people dealing with the feelings of “one sex trapped inside another sex” are suffering from severe psychological trauma.
Please don’t mistake my comment for intolerance. I am a Christian man, and I believe that God makes everyone exactly how they are supposed to be. I am not against transgendered people – perhaps I just don’t fully understand their plight and motives.
“Follow up studies of transsexuals have suggested that, while interventions such as sex change surgery reduced distress due to the perceived gender incongruity, their relational, vocational and emotional difficulties continued unabated. The collusion of NYU officials with these students’ psychological reality to the apparent exclusion of encouraging them to seek help is therefore ill advised.”
The general conception is that we transgenders undergo SRS to overcome our relational, vocational and emotional difficulties. And when these issues are not solved, the SRS is blamed as a wrongful solution.
I am in the opinion that most transgenders know going through SRS or not, it does not solve the the transgender’s relational, vocational and emotional problems. How the person lived before the SRS, it shall be same after it.
What is important about SRS is having the sexual organ changed. With that we have no problems swimming with our swimsuits, biological females would feel more comfortable with our prescence, and most importantly we do not need to go through the backdoor with our partners any longer.
At no time should any tangible improvement of life be expected from any parties, even NARTH. Sex change surgery personal. The relational, vocational and emotional matters are separate issues altogether.
“Please don’t mistake my comment for intolerance. I am a Christian man, and I believe that God makes everyone exactly how they are supposed to be. I am not against transgendered people – perhaps I just don’t fully understand their plight and motives.”
Actually as a Christian transgender I agree with you, Frank. God’s ways our higher than ours. God make us exactly the way we are for our own special journey. You as the norm would have yours. And as a transgender, I have my share of adventures too. But His light shows me the way.
Please don’t mistake my comment for intolerance. I am a Christian man, and I believe that God makes everyone exactly how they are supposed to be. I am not against transgendered people – perhaps I just don’t fully understand their plight and motives.
My cousin had a baby who was born with only one ear. He will soon be undergoing the first of several surgeries to construct an ear. Is this an interference with God’s will?
Do you understand how you were talking out of both sides of your mouth in that post? You acknowledge that you really don’t understand trans issues, yet you feel compelled to judge them anyway, right after you’ve said NARTH shouldn’t do the same.
It’s okay to not understand, but wouldn’t it be better then not to jump in with unsupported opinions about “psychological issues” and other firm beliefs based on something you appear to be admitting you know little about? If it’s wrong for NARTH, shouldn’t it be wrong for you?
The situation regarding a public official in Largo, FL might help you Frank.
You can find the story a http://www.pamshouseblend.com
Mr. Steve (?) Stanton, has served the city of Largo for over fifteen years. He is well liked and has a family.
He recently announced that he will be undergoing a MTF sex change.
And…he was promptly forced to resign, based on what his fellow board members perceived as an ‘inability to continue his duties’.
Pam provided the letters and comments sent and it was horrible what hateful and mean spirited reactions came.
Indeed, a black female supporter tried to leave fliers and she was accosted and arrested for doing so.
There is an invisible supremacy clause written into people’s hearts. It speaks the same volumes that require that competence and skill don’t matter. If this same man had needed to have some sexual organ removed for any other medical reason, would he be treated so harmfully? His livelihood and support for his family taken away?
Let’s call this exactly what it is on the part of the Largo city board:reactionary bigotry. Instead of learning more about this man’s condition, his needs and responses to it, and how it (if at all) a medical leave would affect his DUTIES, not competence-he was fired.
This speaks to difference, or change in the minds of his colleagues= inferior and unworthy of consideration as the person with the same competence as before.
This, if I’m reading this right, is why trans people have the other professional, education and other relational issues going, sometimes.
It’s scary when you have NO idea how people are going to treat you, not based on how YOU treat them, but what you are.
You are right, again, Regan, it is scary.
In my case, even though I pass perfectly (as if that is all important, it’s not. Don’t go there, anyone.) it led to my children being snatched away from me and alienated from me by Dobson’s dogs (the ADF).
And why? Merely because I transitioned and had SRS. They noted how good a parent I had been and that if I had agreed to change back, they would have allowed all full contact with my two boys.
I also lost job offers (Booze Allen, SAIC, DIA)which were rescinded after the employers learned I was transitioning, and was kicked out of the Army reserve as an officer because of the bigotry of the Reserve Surgeon General (one person), despite the fact that I was attending a Command General Staff College (GCSC) course and was the high score on all assignments.
No one should suffer from this kind of reactionary ignorant bigotry and enforced oppression by the patriarchal heterosupremist majority. No human being!
Oh, and for the Rosiks and Franks, of the world, I am in a 12 year committed relationship, employed with a six fig salary, and liked by my subordinates (I do supervise) peers, churchmembers, in-laws and friends.
So obviously, SRS / GRS doesn’t turn people into disjuncted sociopaths.
Rosik is speaking out of his posterior. I have encountered many so-called experts who view everything psychological thru their christianist filters. They are an embarrassment to heir profession.
You know, that ” if ” there is an all powerful entity looking over us, I am positive, that it’s “Gender,” is neither Male, Female, Bisexual, Transgender, or Intersexed.
So, attesting to the saying, “Man, is made in the Image of God,” we should then theorize into law, the known facts, that because the Bible’s were written by Men, that there is a prejudicial, Male oriented dominated role here?
This planet, has, is, & will continue to evolve, with anomaly’s, that we, as mere human’s, cannot explain, to any great certainty.
Being that our brain, is the most misunderstood, complex, & mysterious organ we have, in our bodies, I am suggesting, that unprogressive, & judgmental human beings, immediately begin to explore, those untapped regions of their gray matter, directly related to progressive thought, as it pertains to sensitizing, understanding, & respecting others.
Arguments against, some human diversity’s, whether implied, or accused, as being unholy, and/or perverse, hold as much water as a sieve.
Until I am presented, with a “Perfect Human” on a pedestal, I will still continue to Educate others, on the frailties, imperfections, and the numerous anomaly’s, that are us.
“Live, & Let Live!”
No One, Should Ever Need, The Permission, Sanctity, Patronizing & Condescending Compassion, From Anyone, in Being Granted Basic Human Civil Rights, as well as Unequivocal Equality, in this broad spectrum, we call FREEDOM, HUMAN DIGNITY, CIVILITY, & LIFE.
Love, Peace, Equality, & Solidarity ~
~Mekah Gordon, Ph.D., L. E.~
Moderator Edit (DR): Extensive self-promotional material removed. Please post only comments.
most of the people dealing with the feelings of “one sex trapped inside another sex” are suffering from severe psychological trauma.
Umm sorry – but “trauma” is not a known cause of GID. That’s an old saw that the religious right wing keeps dredging up when talking about the GLBT until the weight of evidence against it renders it meaningless.
The only trauma that we experience is at the hands of a society that is openly hostile to allowing transpeople the freedom to live honest, authentic lives.
I am a transgender woman, in a successful career, successful relationship, successful as a parent, with no psychological traumas. I personally know a dozen transgender women (and some transmen as well) who are equally or more successful. The media and people like Rozik dwell on transgender prostitutes and misfits, who deserve compassion, but by no means represent all of the trans community.
Most people have never heard of a successful transsexual, though there are certainly plenty of recent descriptions if you look, including biographic books such as “She’s Not There“, from college professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, “Branded T,” by psychotherapist Rosalyne Blumenstein, Jamison Green’s “Becoming a Visible Man” Mark Rees “Dear Sir or Madam” and websites such as Lynn Conway’s “Transsexual Women’s Successes” and “Successful TransMen.” Amy Bloom’s “Normal,” while not written by a transsexual, also shows successful trans lives.
I tell you what folks. I would rather, as someone who is not trans, or gay…have YOU teach ME what’s what about your lives.
I can’t and don’t appreciate the lecturing and hectoring that’s directed at the trans community.
I love it that there are more and more opportunities to learn. That there are websites, colleagues who transition, family who does-plenty of people willing and able to teach.
I’m only thankful that trans folks are so brave. I’m also glad that I’m not numb brained to such education.
This a privilege to be included, and I’m trying REALLY hard to encourage everyone to learn about this vital community. Shunning cannot serve interest or education or compassion.
It’s so blazingly SIMPLE sometimes, what has to be done at certainly no real sacrifice from those who don’t understand or don’t want to.
What is in their heads that’s worth all of what you went through Sharon…or what Ms. Stanton is going through.
Straight get WHAT out if it and at what cost?
Yeah, I know….they don’t really know either, they just REACT.
I have to admit, it’s hard to remain civil when such things like this happen to a neighbor.
Regan,
It’s not really all that complex or mysterious. Mostly, transgender people want to live a quiet, ordinary life – just not necessarily in the gender role we were assigned at birth.
In spite of numerous lurid images that the religious wingnut factions often focus upon, most are pretty ordinary folk who want to live amazingly ordinary lives.
More or less, it’s about “live and let live”.
Michelle, yes.
I live in the same house I lived in 10 years ago, have the same husband, the same children (though, my, how they’ve grown), the same friends, the same religious community. My main focus is the same it was 10 years ago, home schooling my kids. (I do have different cats, however.)
But now I walk in the world perceived by others as the same man I see myself to be. My family and I took on new challanges after I began dealing with my GID by making necessary changes. Now my husband and I are seen as a gay couple, rather than a straight one. We’ve learned many of the simple privileges we had 10 years ago are no longer automatically available to us, such as being able to hold hands or offer a quick good-bye kiss in public. We worry whether his insurance will notice and no longer cover me now that I am an M rather than an F, although we are legally married. As to that, in a state which does not allow same-sex marriage, could our marriage of 20 years somehow be legally annulled now that we are two men, rather than a man and a woman?
But as Michelle said, we “are pretty ordinary folk who want to live amazingly ordinary lives.” And, y’ know, as one can certainly find the sublime in the ordinary, I suspect that’s how most of us humans would like to live, no matter our gender, no matter who we love.
Les
I personally want to thank a few of you for twisting my words. Everyone has their own beliefs and/or opinions. I expressed my belief that transgendered issues are not related to l/g/b issues. I stated my reasons for this belief. And then I went so far as to indicate that I am not judging anyone and indicate that I don’t fully understand their “plight and motives.”
Boo – a reconstructed ear is not outwardly changing a person’s sexual identity. You will no doubt notice that I never once mentioned gender reassignment surgery in my first post. I was not passing any judgments against anyone, just stating my belief that it is a psychological issue.
SharonB – I am glad you are in a happy and secure relationship, but I personally don’t give a damn how much money you make. I never once made any mention or allusion that transgendered people cannot be happy or successful. Nor do I believe that transgendered people are “disjuncted sociopaths.”
Mekah Gordon, Ph.D., L. E. – That is your own opinion and you are entitled to it. I was not voicing my opinion about whether or not transgendered people should have rights, just if those rights fell in line with the l/g/b movement.
To the rest of the posters – thank you, I have personally gained a lot of insight into the issues which hinder the transgendered community.
I appreciate your input Frank and no one should feel so bound by Political Correctness that they can’t have a civil debate here about a germane issue. However I think on such an issue you also need to recognize the number of times a person may have been told that their life was all about psychological trauma.
I’m also not entirely certain that your own faith is a significant factor unless it is you who are dealing with the intersex issue. I say this as a firm, born again believer (though I am learning to dislike that description) who has heard my God’s name used to slander my own life many times. I’m glad you got some input that helped you, and I hope part of what you learned is to go easy on those who are possibly just tired of hearing comments such as those while you flesh this out in your own mind.