DSM-5 and Transvestic Disorder
By email forwarded from Professor M. A. Gilbert at York University:
DSM V & Transvestic Disorder
By Kelley Winters, PhD
May 28, 2011On May 5, the American Psychiatric Association released a second round of proposed diagnostic criteria for the 5th Edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). These include two categories that impact the trans community: Gender Dysphoria (formerly Gender Identity Disorder) and Transvestic Disorder (formerly Transvestic Fetishism).
While GID has received a great deal of attention in the press and from GLBTQ advocates, the second transvestic category is too often overlooked. This is unfortunate, because a diagnosis of Transvestic Disorder is designed to punish social and sexual gender nonconformity and to enforce binary stereotypes of assigned birth sex. It plays no role in enabling access to medical transition care for those who need it, and it is frequently cited when care is denied. http://www.gidreform.org/blog2010Oct15.html
I urge all trans community members, friends, care providers, and allies to call for the removal of this punitive and scientifically unfounded diagnosis from the DSM-5. The current period for public comment to the APA ends June 15.
The entry in the current DSM on Transvestic Disorder, like the former entry on Transvestic Fetishism, is authored by Dr. Ray Blanchard of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly known as the Clarke Institute). Blanchard has drawn outrage from the transcommunity for his defamatory theory of autogynephilia, http://www.gidreform.org/blog2008Nov10.html, asserting that all transsexual women who are not exclusively attracted to males are motivated to transition by self-obsessed sexual fetishism.
He is canonizing this harmful stereotype of transsexual women in the DSM-5 by adding an autogynephilia specifier to the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis.
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=189Worse yet, Blanchard has broadly expanded the diagnosis to implicate gender-nonconforming people of all sexes and all sexual orientations, even inventing an autoandrophilia specifier to smear transsexual men.
Most recently, he has added an “In Remission” specifier to preclude the possibility of exit from diagnosis.
Like a roach motel, there may be no way out of the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis once ensnared.What You Can Do Now
- Go to the APA DSM-5 website (APA 2011), click on “Register Now,” create a user account, and enter your statement in the box. The deadline for this second period of public comment is June 15.
- Sign the Petition to Remove Transvestic Disorder from the DSM-5, sponsored by the International Foundation for Gender Education.
- Demand that your local, national, and international GLBTQ nonprofit organizations issue public statements calling for the removal of this defamatory Transvestic Disorder category from the DSM-5. So far, very few have.
- Spread the word to your networks, friends, and allies.
See GID Reform Advocates (Winters, 2010) for More Information
Cross-posted with additional comments at the
http://gidreform.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/transvestic-disorder-the-overlooked-anti-trans-diagnosis-in-the-dsm-5/
GID Reform Advocates Blog.
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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox
Wow, the description for “transvestic disorder” is really broad, and I’d technically qualify for it.
It’s like, if you don’t tell us about your penis/vagina you won’t get through the gatekeeping, but if you do tell us about it you’re fucked anyway.
sebastianbound
1 Jun 11 at 6:56 am
I’m pretty sure it has to do with the fact that it just happens to be in the paraphilias section–actually, I’m praying that this is the case–but do any of you find it super creepy that the rationale talks a lot about “uncooperative patients” and “paraphilias that involve nonconsenting persons”?
Also, from the same section: “Such patients are not reliable historians, and they are typically not candid about their sexual urges and fantasies. The criteria have therefore been modified to lessen the dependence of diagnosis on patients’ self-reports regarding urges and fantasies.” I know they’re talking about sexual criminals but it’s super creepy in context of this diagnosis. Also, why are they talking about sexual criminals here again?!
The Untoward Lady
2 Jun 11 at 3:52 am
I agree that the important phrase is: “The criteria have therefore been modified to lessen the dependence of diagnosis on patients’ self-reports regarding urges and fantasies.”
NOT because they were referred as Criminals (that is the Bias of the Canadian writing this who works exclusively with sexual predators and…trans individuals).
BUT because the psychologists want to quantify all aspects out of ‘norm’ – indeed, they have a scale attached to help the person determine if ANY sexual thoughts are below, at or above average for this behavoir. If it is a ‘disorder’ then they determine treatment, which means the days of getting trans teens put in psych wards is back in a big way. If it is NOT a ‘disorder’ then only when it impairs function or threatens life would it come into a broader heading.
BUT to give you an example, from DSM III to DSM IV I went from ‘manic-depressive’ to Bipolar II (because the classifications went from 1 in DSM III to 4 in DSM IV to SIXTEEN in DSM V), the idea of defining every variation has no positive outcome (more people report being depressed now than when the DSM III came out – those who write this would say that is because they can now ‘express their depression’ – erg?) compared to an understanding and caring GP.
The T, or Trans has rarely if ever had the writers or advocates on the internet include cross dressing, though the T of Trans oft used was originally defined BY cross dressers. Don’t try to get this changed because one link to a GID site indicates, ‘it could be bad for a trans male’ or ‘it could be bad for a trans female’ but because it is bigotedly going after a group which has most often been defined as ‘don’t confuse ME with a transVESTITE!’
Why? Human is human and hobby or part identity is just that.
Elizabeth McClung
7 Jun 11 at 2:26 am
AFAIC, cross-dressers are part of the whole trans thing if they want to be. I don’t understand the exclusion.
Lisa Harney
11 Jun 11 at 1:39 pm
As someone who studies psychology and is trans, I see this new classification as a good thing. It focuses on the dysphoria (which is a problem) and not the transition. Since transfolk and sometimes other gender questioning people seek therapy as a means to start transition (or not), it is important to have guidelines about making sure the person is ready to start those changes. Just because there is a diagnosis in the DSM does not mean that psychology deems us “crazy.” After all, depression is a diagnosis, but we would not categorize someone is is depressed as crazy, would we?
That said, this Blanchard is a douchebag and is making a bad name for psychologists that work productively with transfolk.
Eliot
1 Aug 11 at 9:56 am
[...] is strongly positive, cut funding to the program in the recession. Other sources of authority have much less positive records on such issues. The process of civil rights activism is partly about putting a minority [...]
Managed Diversity | Pedestrian Observations
20 Oct 11 at 8:39 pm
Ray Blanchard reportedly spent many years measuring penii to try find a link between penis size and sexual orientation…all he discovered is playing with penisses is very nice…for guys like him. And his buddy Cantor…Cantor is openly homosexual…Blanchard is openly hypocritical…Blanchard says ‘perverts are short and fat’…he is tall and slim so obviously not a pervert with an interest in penii…nor is his liking for being in his office by himself at weeekends any indication of him being a pervert…he is just dedicated to his research into penii…so dedicated he asked men to put panties on in fron of tow way mirrors…purely for research you understand…if he had to pay it would be a live pornography sex show…
rose white
6 Aug 12 at 10:55 pm
Well, I think the outward details there are correct but I couldn’t begin to theorize or guess as to Blanchard’s sexual proclivities.
There’s some discussion of the inappropriate nature of his tests from googling “blanchard” and “plethysmography.” I think someone compared his “science” using that device to the practice of phrenology.
Lisa Harney
7 Aug 12 at 1:43 am