When was the last time you thought about GID reform? Chances are the answer to that question is a resounding "Huh?" You probably never thought about it, did you? You probably don't even know what I'm talking about, or what GID stands for. And why does it need to be reformed anyway? GID stands for Gender Identity Disorder. It is the psychiatrists' designation for those of us who are transgender. Gender Identity Disorder is diagnosis number 302.85. Truth is, I haven't thought about it for quite a while myself. Until a few weeks ago when Barbara Gittings was in town and I heard her speak at the GLSEN meeting at DePaul. Then is dawned on me… the transgender rights movement will never get anywhere without GID reform. In fact, it is intimately linked to our community's success or failure. Barbara Gittings has been an activist for gay rights for over fifty years… from way before Stonewall. She was an activist in the dark ages of gay rights, when it took a really remarkable person just to be out. The McCarthy era was in full bloom, and if you were gay or lesbian, you were called a pervert and lumped together with the "Commie pinkos." |
Of course there was a gay and lesbian social scene. But much of it was behind closed doors. People would meet in church basements or other secret places. They would use just their first name, or an alias. There was no such thing as Gay Pride.Then something happened in 1973… a half dozen years after Stonewall. This was something that ultimately had more impact on the gay community than Stonewall ever did. In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the DSM, the diagnostic manual of the American Psychiatric Association, also known as the APA. Being gay or lesbian was no longer classified as a sexual disorder. Suddenly millions of gay men and lesbians were "cured." Their disorder was expunged. They were no longer perverts. They were no longer mentally ill. Barbara Giddings was one of the activists that made that happen, along with the newly formed NGLTF (then called just NGTF). It was like the sunlight bursting through after a long, dreary, cold winter night. It was the beginning of Gay Pride! That's when it dawned on me. The transgender community is where the gay and lesbian community was before homosexuality was stricken from the DSM. Just look at our community… Meeting in remote hotels and halls. Introducing ourselves by first name only. Sneaking out of our homes so the neighbors don't see us. Changing clothes in sleazy hotel rooms that you rent by the hour. Fearing being stopped by police lest your name gets printed in the paper, and you are ruined for life. Oh, the shame. Oh, the humiliation. Oh my gawd! What if the boss finds out? |
GID is in a section of the DSM called "sexual and gender identity disorders." It is right next to "paraphilia not otherwise specified," a category that includes, among others, zoophilia and necrophilia. You can't build a successful civil rights movement when the APA puts you in their book next to animal lovers. And I don't mean pet owners. How can there be pride when you are lumped together with every perversion known to mankind. It's just like the 1950's. You're just another Commie pinko pervert. You would think that there would be a groundswell in the transgender community to get GID removed from the DSM. But as unthinkable as it is, the community is divided on this issue. Some feel that as long as we are listed as a disorder, we have a chance that our insurance will pay for gender reassignment surgery. Fat chance! Very few are successful at that. So I don't get it. We should be doing what Barbara Gittings was doing in the early '70s. We should be there at every APA meeting and convention, showing that we are just regular folks, with lives and loves and careers, just like them. We should be demanding that GID be removed from the DSM. We should be beating the bushes to try to find the transgender psychiatrist (we know you're out there) brave enough to stand up before the assembled wise men and sages of the APA, to say to them, "I AM NOT AN ANIMAL… I AM A HUMAN BEING!" We need you to tell them to take us out of their goddam book. Until that day, it is going to be a real struggle to achieve the pride, and the courage, to demand that our human rights be honored under the law. |
Miranda Writes...