Jack Drescher, M.D., who is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, complied some interesting data with regards to, as he states it within his relevant paper’s title, “Queer Diagnoses: Parallels and Contrasts in the History of Homosexuality, Gender Variance, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual” which was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, April 2010 AD, Volume 39, Issue 2, pp 427-460. I will add bold and underlining emphasis for emphasis.
Interestingly, he cites John Godfrey Saxe’s “The Blindmen and the Elephant” tale which concludes the following about the blind men attempting to identify the elephant and coming to different conclusions, “each was partly in the right / And all were in the wrong.” He analogizes this with views of homosexuality as an assertion about how any view of homosexuality is not likely to be holistic but partial.
Activists argued, as in the case of homosexuality in the 1970s, that it is wrong to label expressions of gender variance as symptoms of a mental disorder and that perpetuating DSM-IV-TR’s GID diagnoses in the DSM-V would further stigmatize and cause harm to transgender individuals.
FYI: DSM refers to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and GID to Gender Identity Disorders.
Note a recurring theme which is that much of what has occurred within psychiatry (the study and treatment of mental illness, emotional disturbance, and abnormal behavior) and psychology (the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behavior in a given context) is based on socio-political activism and philosophical arguments. In this case a moral assertion was made that, “it is wrong” because it would “further stigmatize and cause harm.” Thus, apparently, psychoanalyses are to base their conclusions nor upon science but upon the most vociferous arguments de jour.
Drescher also relates the view that “As in the case of homosexuality in the 1970s, it is wrong for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to label expressions of gender variance [Drescher’s footnote, “Following Meyer-Bahlburg (2009), ‘The nomenclature in the area of gender variations continues to be in flux, in regard to both the descriptive terms used by professionals, and, even more so, the identity terms adopted by persons with GIV [Gender-Identity-Variants].’ Where possible, this author will use the term ‘gender variance’ to refer to individuals with gender atypical behavior or self presentations”] as symptoms of a mental disorder.”
In fact, he specifically refers to “scientific and clinical etiological theories that implicitly moralize about matters of sexuality and gender” with reference to etiology which is the branch of medicine that investigates the causes and origins of disease. Also, Robert Stoller, M.D. is quoted to the effect that, “We are in a new era in which diagnosis has…social and political implications.”
Also, Drescher states, “many, if not all, diagnostic categories have a social context.” For that matter, he also states:
Some have sought to discredit psychiatric diagnoses, regardless of their clinical utility, because all diagnoses are subjective and argue that psychiatric nosology is at best a “soft science” and, at worst, not a science at all. Yet the criticism of “subjectivity” can apply to even the “hardest” of sciences, as when the International Astronomical Union recently decided, by a membership vote, that Pluto is no longer a planet.
Of course, this is more like an excuse of sorts as psychiatry is mostly worldview based interpretations of observed behaviors, etc. Drescher also refers to “psychiatric theorizing” and to “the field of queer theory.”
This is nothing new as, for example, Drescher notes that in 1935 AD Sigmund Freud wrote:
Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development.
Drescher ads, “Yet, by the early 20th century, psychiatrists mostly regarded homosexuality as pathological.” For example:
…the first edition of the DSM (APA, 1952) explicitly and non-self consciously articulated a role for social values in making a diagnosis of the overarching category of sociopathic personality disturbances which included homosexuality:
“Individuals to be placed in this category are ill primarily in terms of society and conformity with the prevailing cultural milieu, and not only in terms of personal discomfort and relations with other individuals.”
Drescher notes that in the 1970s AD, “a common psychiatric belief that saw trans people as severely mentally disturbed.” It was in 1973 AD that the “APA’s Board of Trustees (BOT) voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM.” Also, some pondered, “What role should APA and the DSM play in changing society’s attitudes toward transgenderism?”
Thus ended the American classification of homosexuality per se as an illness. Within two years, other major mental health professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, endorsed the APA decision.
It is noted that “Clinical efforts with gender variant children aimed at getting them to reject their felt gender identity and to accept their natal sex were” not only “unscientific” but also “unethical.”
By the late1990s, as trans inclusion became a focus of LGBT civil rights organizations…
Like the gay community that argued to be taken out of an earlier diagnostic nosology, the trans community has adopted similar normalizing arguments to make the case for removal. These include…
• adopting and insisting upon the use of normative language to replace medical terminology (“homosexuals” become gay or defiantly queer; “gender dysphoria” becomes gender dissonance; “gender reassignment surgery” becomes gender confirmation, gender affirmation surgery, genital reassignment surgery, or bottom surgery);
• labeling theories that contradict affirmative perspectives as unscientific;
• ad hominem and ad feminam attacks on professionals who either believe homosexuality/transgenderism is an illness or use pathologizing language to make sense of homosexuality/transgenderism.
This is of the utmost importance as there is a behind the scenes activist effort to normalize homosexuality in its various forms by a form of re-education based on Orwellian thought policing of newspeak via monitoring and changing terminology: not only taking it upon oneself to be aware of “adopting” normative language but “insisting upon” as in demanding that others do so as well.
We are now in a new McCarthyism era the point of which is not to make attempts, however misguided or manipulated, to root out Communism which caused the deaths of hundreds of millions of people but so as to root out those who consider homosexuality to be abnormal, unethical, wrong, sinful, etc.
This is tantamount to the point made within the article Postgender Re-education of Culture with regards to the Postgender movement.
But the deeper point is to note that the normative-newspeak-language which is based on homosexual mores is meant to “replace medical terminology” the result of which is that “theories that contradict affirmative perspectives,” that is any scientific theory that contradicts the affirmation of homosexuality as normal, natural, ethical, etc., is to be labeled as “unscientific” not on scientific grounds but solely on the basis that it does not affirm homosexuality to be normal, natural, ethical, etc.
More militant still, calls are made for ad hominem and ad feminam attacks. Now, ad hominem ad feminam means to the man or woman and is a logical fallacy whereby one aims one’s attack (counter argument or answer) to the person whilst leaving the original argument or question unscathed. It is a fallacious manner whereby to attempt to divert the debate from the issue at hand to the persons making the arguments or asking the questions.
Now, in this case the militants call for illogical besmirching of “professionals,” not on a scientific basis but solely based on whether the professionals “believe homosexuality/transgenderism” to be “an illness” or that they “use pathologizing language”; this is no less than a form of censorship and the politics of personal destruction.
Jack Drescher points out:
Several years ago, members of the LGBT community protested the content of Northwestern University’s J. Michael Bailey’s (2003) book, The Man Who Would be Queen. While there were activists who primarily criticized the author’s arguments regarding transgenderism, some activists attacked Bailey’s character, reputation, and family members.
Some homosexuals are now working from within psychiatric organizations:
…there are hundreds of openly LGB psychiatrists advocating for organizational awareness of LGB rights, both within APA as well as in its allied organization, the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists (AGLP). There are very few visible trans psychiatrists within either organization.
The Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues often functioned as the default clearinghouse for queries to the APA about trans issues.