Someone played a cruel joke on us the other day. A bogus press release was sent out, supposedly from the American Psychiatric Association (APA), but really it was just a doctored version of their recent statements condemning reparative therapy for gays and lesbians. Let me quote from the phony release. Remember this is not for real. "The American Psychiatric Assn. board voted unanimously Friday to reject Gender Identity Disorder as a diagnosis saying that the diagnosis itself is harmful because it implies people have a disease and that in and of itself can cause depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior." "Transsexual activists applauded the decision. Many were quoted as saying, 'We knew all along we were just born this way'." Now, I must tell you, this obvious hoax was immediately flashed around the world via the modern miracle of the Internet. And of course anything that you read on the Internet has got to be true, don't you know. Amazingly, it was accepted without question. |
Probably most of you have no idea what I am talking about. Can you imagine growing up not only thinking that you are crazy for being gay or lesbian, but having the American Psychiatric Association confirm your worst fear? Well if you were around before the '70s, that's exactly what you would have felt. Did you know that homosexuality was still listed as mental disorder in the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-II) until 1973? Gender Identity Disorder is still listed as a mental disorder in the DSM-IV. So to the world those of us who are gender nonconforming are suffering from a mental disorder (i.e., we're crazy). And to many of us who have not found community to give us a sense of self-worth, the fear that we are mentally ill is enough to bring on depression, distress, and impairment in social and occupational situations. The latter are part of the diagnosis of GID. |
Isn't this a classic Catch 22 situation? You're distressed because you think you are crazy, and you must be crazy because you are distressed. The diagnostic criteria are rather interesting. Little boys who play with Barbie's and little girls who refuse to wear dresses are typical candidates for GID diagnosis. (I must admit that although I knew that I was a girl since the age of four, I never had a Barbie doll until recently. Now I have more than a dozen, of all colors and nationalities, a virtual United Nation of Barbies.) It was under the guise of this insidious stereotyping of gender roles, and with the supposed authority of the great APA, that unscrupulous homophobic charlatans locked up innocent boys and girls and tortured them to dispel the demon homosexuality. Thank heavens that the APA finally came out with their denouncement of coercive reparative therapy. At least that is one abuse of GID, which cannot be justified in the future. It may have been a cruel hoax to send out that press release, but it did make us stop and think. The perpetrator of the hoax later came forth with the announcement that it was just a piece of "performance art." In that light, she succeeded. It grabbed us emotionally, and brought out visions of a world where gender variance is not a pathology. Where our human rights are not predicated on a diagnosis of mental disorder. Where our lives and happiness aren't subject to the whims and vagaries of some god-like psychiatric expert. |
You
see, transgender people have been living under the shadow of
insanity for such a long time, that this announcement brought
forth an immediate emotional outpouring from most of us. The
clouds have vanished; the sun has shone though.