XGW Digest: May 2, 2008

9 Comments

1. 
   paul on May 2, 2008

   Disgust with what was termed the “gay lifestyle” was implicit in therapy. I remember Dr. Nicolosi telling me, in response to the question of whether one could easily contract HIV from semen, that if this were the case then gays would be “jerking off in hamburgers all over” to infect people.

   I learned to be a man: I was encouraged to play catch with my father, work out, watch football.

   Just highlighting a few comments from Gabriel Arana’s above listed article.

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2. 
   Boo on May 6, 2008

   Off topic- With all the outrage over reparative therapy, has anyone bothered to take note that the APA has made Kenneth Zucker, advocate and practitioner of reparative therapy on children, as chair of the DSM V Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group? Is there any room for outrage there?

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3. 
   Yuki Choe on May 7, 2008

   Boo, I came to know about the news only yesterday while reading Questioning Transphobia. I am still waiting for more to dig on. It will be here soon.

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4. 
   belledame222 on May 7, 2008

   Hey, folks, I dunno if you’re aware of what’s going on with the APA lately, since nominally this primarily affects trans folks at the moment; still, heads up:

   https://www.bilerico.com/2008/05/uh_oh.php

   A short time ago, I’d [Mercedes Allen] discussed the movement to have “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID, a.k.a. “Gender Dysphoria”) removed from the DSM-IV or reclassified, and how we needed to work to ensure that any such change was an improvement on the existing model, rather than a scrapping or savaging of it.

   Lynn Conway reports that on May 1st, 2008, the American Psychiatric Association named its work group members appointed to revise the Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders in preparation for the DSM-V. Such a revision would include the entry for GID.

   On the Task Force, named as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair, we find Dr. Kenneth Zucker, from Toronto’s infamous Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Clarke Institute). Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative (i.e. “ex-gay”) therapy to “cure” gender-variant children. Named to his work group, we find Zucker’s mentor, Dr. Ray Blanchard, Head of Clinical Sexology Services at CAMH and creator of the theory of autogynephilia, categorized as a paraphilia and defined as “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

   Drs. Blanchard, Zucker, J. Michael Bailey (whose work has even gone so far as to touch on eugenics) and a small cadre of others are proponents of dividing the transsexual population by sexual orientation (”homosexual transsexuals” vs. “autogynephilic”) and have repeatedly run afoul of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH, formerly HBIGDA), and openly defied the Standards of Care that WPATH maintains (modeled after the original SoC developed by Dr. Harry Benjamin) in favor of conversion techniques. Blanchard and Bailey supporters also include Dr. Alice Dreger, who re-stigmatized treatment of intersex, controversial sexologist Dr. Anne Lawrence, and Dr. Paul McHugh, who had set out in the begining of his career to close the Gender Clinic at Johns Hopkins University and has been one of our most vocal detractors.
   
   An additional danger that gay and lesbian communities need to be cognizant of is that if Zucker and company entrench conversion therapy in the DSM-V, then it is a clear, dangerous step toward also legitimizing ex-gay therapy and re-stigmatizing homosexuality…

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5. 
   Boo on May 7, 2008

   Actually, this already affectsLGBs, not just Ts, as the majority of the kids subjected to Zucker’s “treatment” grow up to be gay, not trans. I’m just wondering if any reaction to this will be seen outside of the trans ghetto.

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6. 
   Yuki Choe on May 7, 2008

   Boo and belledame222, I repeat again, we are on it. But let us get more information to get to the bottom of this. This comes in wake of the cancellation of APA’s symposium on homosexuality and religion. Expect an XGW response soon.

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7. 
   Joel on May 7, 2008

   When i read Belle’s comments, the part where it says,

   Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative (i.e. “ex-gay”) therapy to “cure” gender-variant children.

   I remembered the short talk i had with a theologian expert (with background on gay/ex-gay issues) about ‘being gay’. He could not say enough that it was a gender disorder. On the grounds that a MALE is attracted(supposed and presumed, on the grounds of anatomy and/or religion) to a woman. Since that is NOT the case then your gender is ‘broken’/disordered. To believe I wasn’t was just naive from my part.

   If these ppl consider ‘gender specific’ qualities to be the basis of considering a disorder, then i guess efiminate men and manly woman might be subjected to ‘treatment’ too?

   I dotn see how wearing/wanting to wear a skirt instead of jeans or make-up instead of nothing makes you ‘disordered’ in any way. Maybe its something deeper that im missing(like wanting boobs and such).

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8. 
   Yuki Choe on May 7, 2008

   Joel, that IS precisely how some ex-gays are treating LGBTs. For them there is no such thing as homosexuals or transsexuals. In the end it must be male and female, and both must relate.

   Ephilei nailed it on her comment at the latest post here on PFOX. We are no longer seen as independent inner beings with the ability to live and love. We must conform to standards based on how males and females stereotypically are supposed to behave and dress up. Any other diversions to these are considered distortions that needs to be corrected, regardless of what life and experiences prove.

   Failure to absorb into the community of heterosexual manly males and feminine females will be met with scorn and contempt. Funnily, in all this, the Holy Spirit that is defined as neither male or female does not exist anymore. What is left are men that must act according to the original penis, and women that must act according to the original vagina.

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9. 
   Boo on May 8, 2008

   Just to continue the hijacking of the thread:

   https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90247842

   Perhaps some ex-gay survivors could read the first account and tell us how it contrasts and compares?

   Couple things that struck me:

   “What had happened was that two 10-year-old boys had thrown him off some playground equipment across the pavement because he’d been playing with a Barbie doll — and they called him a girl,” Carol says. “So that sort of struck me, that, you know, if he doesn’t learn to socialize with both males and females … he was going to get hurt.”

   Notice how the onus is placed on the child for getting beat up. The child has to learn to socialize with people who beat them up for acting too effeminate. Not kids who beat up other kids need to learn to, you know, not beat the crap out of other kids.

   “Suppose you were a clinician and a 4-year-old black kid came into your office and said he wanted to be white. Would you go with that? … I don’t think we would,” Zucker says.

   1. As far as we know, that’s never happened.

   2. I’ve never heard of cases of 2 year old black kids acting “spontaneously white” or 2 year old white kids acting “spontaneously black.” Transkids exhibit a range of spontaneous gendered behaviors that simply have no equivalent in terms of race.

   And the kicker, at least from what is shown in the article, the transitioned kid is clearly having the better outcome so far.

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