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Friday, November 20, 2009
In honor of the 2009 Transgender Day of Remembrance, Dr. Sam Winter has just issued a strong appeal for the removal of gender identity variance from the psychiatric diagnostic manuals.
Time is pressing on in the psychopathologisation debate. The WHO and APA proceed in revising ICD and DSM respectively, the increasingly international STP-2012 (Stop Transpathologisation) Campaign gathers force, more and more research articles detail the links in the chain leading from psychopathologisation to illness and death, books on the subject (most recently Kelley Winters’ painstakingly careful analysis) get published..
The issue of psychopathologisation is of course a health issue, in that it is all about the view we take of transpeople’s mental health. But it is a health issue on many more grounds too. The psychopathologisation of GIV and GV engenders stigma, cultivates and/or supports prejudice and discrimination, contributes to social and economic marginalisation and poverty worldwide for transpeople, and is ultimately a health issue, raising the risk of poor mental health and well-being (and self-damaging and suicidal behaviours), social isolation, risk behaviours (including sexual), involvement in prostitution (often through lack of other employment possibilities), and HIV/AIDS risk.
Full article:
http://web.hku.hk/~sjwinter/TransgenderASIA/call-for-depsychopathologisation.htm
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Transgender Rights Project of GLAD notes:
GLAD is collecting stories about people’s experiences with health insurance coverage related to gender transition, to help us determine how we can best address legal concerns in this area.
If you have a story to share, please complete our brief survey at:
http://www.glad.org/health
Please note: because GLAD’s work is focused in New England, we are specifically interested in stories from people in the six New England states. If you know of others who may have a story to share, please feel free to forward this post.
All information will be kept confidential. Thank you!
Further reading
Transsexual transition and insurance
http://www.tsroadmap.com/reality/insurance.html
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Posted by
Andrea James on 11/10 at 11:05 AM
Well-Being •
Permalink
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Peter Ian Collins (born 1955) is a Canadian forensic psychiatrist. He works at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), a Toronto mental institution charged with serving gender-variant clients in the area. It has become widely known as one of the most notorious facilities in the world in terms of controlling access to medical services.
With Ray Blanchard, Collins coined the term “gynandromorphophilia” to describe attraction to transgnder people (specifically to trans women who have not had vaginoplasty). He is one of the few people who has ever used the term “she-male” in an academic paper to describe trans women as a demographic group.
Psychiatrist Vernon Rosario has called labels like these “scientifically reifying” when applied to trans women and their admirers.
Full article:
Peter Collins on transsexualism
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/peter-collins.html
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Ray Blanchard at Toronto’s notorious Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) has accused me of spreading “misinformation” about him, so let’s get all his biographical details out on the table in order to make my point more clearly.
Blanchard is widely reviled by transsexual people. He once declared that a trans woman who has transitioned is merely “a man without a penis,” and said of trans men, “They get a kind of lump that in the best, most expensive, $100,000 cases, kind of, maybe, look like a penis from across a room.” His comments on trans people’s genitalia echo his fixation on “phallometrics,” the measurement of penile length, width, and tumescence when subjects are exposed to erotic stimuli. The field of “phallometrics” was developed by Blanchard’s mentor at CAMH to determine if army recruits were gay or not. Blanchard, who has not disclosed his own sexual orientation publicly, is considered an expert in determining the size and tumescence of male genitalia.
Blanchard took umbrage at my publication of his 2008 taxpayer-funded salary and my comment that he and Zucker both left America for Canada during the Vietnam War. Why is Blanchard so touchy about military matters, and what personally motivates his life’s work? What drives this key figure in the oppression of sex and gender minorities? Since he feels entitled to ascribe labels and motivations to others, let’s turn the tables. Why is Ray so reticent about revealing his own sexual interests and behavior, when his career involves “catching” people not being open and honest about their sexual interests and behavior?
This article examines Ray’s childhood, family life, sexuality, Catholic upbringing, and interest in penile tumescence. It also examines how CAMH became the world’s largest publicly-funded forced feminization sex dungeon and transgender reparative therapy clinic. Finally, it examines what Blanchard’s most important legacy will be: the broad expansion of “paraphilia” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) to further oppress sex and gender minorities as mentally disordered.
In this section:
* Ray Blanchard motivations for oppressing sex and gender minorities
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-motivations.html
* Toronto: epicenter of pathologization of sex and gender minorities
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-hypotheses.html
* Ray Blanchard’s problematic place in history
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-history.html
* Notes, updates, further reading
http://www.tsroadmap.com/info/ray-blanchard-notes.html
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Lynn Conway notes:
This interactive map reveals that the Centre for Addiction and mental Health (CAMH) not only controls the fate of gender transitioners in Ontario, but in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland too. It also reveals that CAMH requires a two-year RLE in all cases, in non-compliance with the WPATH Standards of Care.
Sex reassignment surgery in Canada: what’s covered and where
http://www.xtra.ca/public/Ottawa/Sex_reassignment_surgery_in_Canada_whats_covered_and_where-7706.aspx
Province-by-province breakdown of SRS coverage
http://www.xtra.ca/BinaryContent/stories/77/06/7706/7706-SRS/212_SRS.swf
This is talk, not advice. See Terms of Use for details.
