August 13, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com)
– You are born with an XY or an XX chromosome, primary characteristics
that will objectively develop one genotype: male or female. But now you
can choose whether to be male, female, or something else—and when the
American Psychiatric Association releases their new manual, it will be
perfectly normal.
In May 2013, the APA will publish the DSM-5, the fifth edition of the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. A significant
change will be the reclassification of Gender Identity Disorder to
“Gender Dysphoria.” “Dysphoria” is a word meaning “emotional distress.”
Proponents of the change believe it is a positive step, removing the
stigma of mental illness from a group of people—not all of whom feel the
need for psychological counselling. Critics, on the other hand,
including one former president of the APA, maintain that the change is
motivated by politics, rather than science.
“We know there is a whole community of people out there who are not
seeking medical attention and live between the two binary categories,”
said Jack Drescher, a member of the DSM-5 Sexual and Gender Identity
Disorders Work Group. “We wanted to send the message that the
therapist’s job isn’t to pathologize.”
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The APA website defines a psychological state as a mental disorder
“only if it causes significant distress or disability.” It continues,
“Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing
or disabling, which implies that identifying as transgender does not
constitute a mental disorder.”
Dana Beyer, who helped the Washington Psychiatric Society make
recommendations on matters of gender and sexuality, told the AP, “a
right-winger can’t go out and say all trans people are mentally ill
because if you are not dysphoric, that can’t be diagnosed from afar. It
no longer matters what your body looks like, what you want to do to it,
all of that is irrelevant as far as the APA goes.”
But Dr. Anthony Duk, a psychiatrist at the Inland Psychiatric Medical
Group in Riverside, California, and member of NARTH (National
Association for Research to Treat Homosexuality), told LifeSiteNews that
the APA’s reframing would result in potentially harmful self-diagnosis.
“When you move from disorder to dysphoria, which is upset feeling,
you lose objectivity. You ask how the patient feels, if they think they
are dysphoric. Those that think they have a problem have a problem;
those that don’t think they have a problem don’t.”
According to Dr. Nicholas Cummings, former president of the APA and
Chair of The Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Foundation, the problem with
the redefinition is that it may limit how much help people with gender
identity issues are able to seek—and how much psychologists are
comfortable giving.
“I think that [psychologists] are afraid to address the topic
directly with their patients because they fear there will be
repercussions from the APA,” Dr. Cummings told LifeSiteNews. “They fear a
malpractice suit. It limits their response [to patients].”
Dr. Cummings explained that the APA believes gender identity is
immutable and any psychologist who tries to help a patient change it
commits malpractice, “which is interesting as there are patients who
seek change. Change is very difficult and happens only in a minority of
cases…but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
Dr. Duk expressed concern that under the APA’s new definition
children, who could normally experience gender identity confusion until
age eleven, will be offered medications that will delay puberty so they
can decide their sex.
“Pharmaceutical companies are trying to make money off of something
that is contrary to the use of science and the Hippocratic oath,” Dr.
Duk said.
Dr. Cummings said that the APA’s redefinition “ is more of a
political issue than it is scientific,” he said. “All this talk is based
on politics, attitude—not science. If you try to be scientific, you
choose to be a homophobe.”
“When treatment, whether psychological or medical, is determined by politics, it’s very frightening.”
