Friday, March 12, 2010
Controversy continues over APA and gender variance |
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The battle is heating up over how gender variance will be handled in the American Psychiatric Association’s update of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V).
Allen Frances, the previous DSM-IV general editor, listed two of transyouth reparative therapist Ken Zucker’s proposed changes as the worst ideas from the DSM-V drafts.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1522341?CID=rss&verify=0
That led to Zucker sending out a super-snippy retort.
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/dsm-v/content/article/10168/1526647
Dr. Renee Baker has written an excellent overview of the controversy in the Dallas Voice:
Mental illness can carry a heavy stigma. It can destroy families, end careers, cause health care to be turned down and even the most basic of human rights to be denied.
Just look at homosexuality as an example: It was once labeled a mental disorder, and the liberation of LGB people today continues to depend upon them having a clean bill of mental health.
But that same clean bill is routinely denied to freely expressing gender-variant people — from toddlers to adults — regardless of transgender identity. And though the liberating road ahead is anything but clear, many voices are speaking out amidst a firestorm of controversy, and they’re speaking to the American Psychiatric Association.
http://www.dallasvoice.com/artman/publish/article_12594.php
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