My view on gender identity has been challenged
In August 2010 I created a series of posters that tried to define 7 Mental Disorders. My aim was to start a dialogue in the digitally savvy community and hopefully raise awareness by spreading the posters. As a long term goal I wanted to involve a mental health charity. I shelved the project due to time constraints.
I have since decided to remove one poster from the series. Here’s why.
As part of this series I included Gender Indentity Disorder (GID). A number of people have expressed discomfort with the definition of GID as a disorder. Here are a few of the comments:
‘I would like to throw it out there that I don’t view my gender identity as a disorder. I am not ill nor do I need to be cured. There are likely others out there who have ‘mental disorders’ who feel the same way.’
‘Gender Identity disorder is actually really offensive to trans people. When was the last time you heard of a mental disorder being cured by plastic surgery? That’s because G.I.D is not really a disorder.’
‘I’m in line with some others here though, that “Gender Identity Disorder” is along the lines of how homosexuals are often interpreted as needing spiritual counseling to “reform”.’
Art often encourages people to pick up an offense. As a therapist who works with people with different abilities and ‘disabilities’ including Gender Identity ‘Disorder-Dysphoria-Incongruence-Distress-Diversity-ETC’ your work speaks to me and does exactly what you wanted it to. As a human being who struggles with an anxiety ‘Disorder’ I receive help in what ever form it may come. Being able to conceptualize my anxiety in the form of a poster helps in a small way and may help others. A young person seeing your GID poster may have helped them at the very same time offending them. Censorship may have a place but that place should not be in the area of art. This saddens me.
Thank you for owning up to your mistake and taking down the poster. I appreciate that
[...] El diseñador hoy pide disculpas por uno de los posters publicados como un desorden de identidad sexual para más información cheque este link. [...]
I honestly don’t think this was that much of a “Mistake” as rk put it.
Gender Identity Disorder exists. It is defined as a disorder. It is included in the name. I ran into the same criticisms when I created a piece of artwork about GID my senior year of high school, including it in a series about 12 different mental disorders.
I have several transgendered friends and I am a lesbian myself, so it isn’t that I don’t understand the way transgendered people look at it. But when the brain chemistry and body composition does not align, there is something not right. When something is not right, it is often classified as a disorder. It is progressive that the cure for GID IS the gender reassignment surgery process. If the cure were medication, I would not be as okay with this label as I am at this point.
Gender identity disorder is not just a separate preference like homosexuality, it is a fundamental disconnection between what you are and what you should be. There is something wrong with transgendered people; they were born into the incorrect gender. It doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with them as a person. If you think about it, all mental disorders are the same in this way. There’s nothing personally wrong with a schizophrenic person, but there is something medically wrong.
I don’t know. I could go on for a while about this. It pisses me off when people second guess their artwork. I’m standing by my piece and you should stand by yours.
I agree with M in that if there is something ‘not right’, it is a disorder.
I believe the ‘disorder’ in GID does not lie in the fact that the person identifies as different from his or her physical sex.
I believe the ‘disorder’ lies in the confusion, depression, angst, hatred, etc resulting from having conflicting self-gender identification.
Being something you are not creates a huge amount of personal unrest. People who believe they were born in the wrong bodies very commonly cannot achieve inner peace until something is done to rectify the situation.
The disturbance of inner peace due to a specific phenomenon is, in fact, a disorder.
I think in the DSM it is worded very poorly, and the diagnosis could actually be changed around so that it helps many people get through their struggles with gender identity.
Maybe instead of removing the poster, you could create a new one that encompasses the whole idea of what gender identity conflict really is for the person experiencing it.
Thank you for your comments.
I ‘removed’ the poster for GID from the series of Mental Disorder posters as I feel the controversy of it’s definition is strong enough for me to exclude it. This series was never meant to be an exhaustive list or one that challenged medical or social definitions.
I do stand by my interpretation of GID and this may be revisited in a future piece of work. As for censorship, I believe I am addressing this by not deleting the poster, but simply changing it (with lines striking through the original design). This has clearly started a new and welcome dialogue.
Some though-provoking arguments on both sides. I don’t have anything to add here, other than I look forward to seeing how this progresses/develops, so please keep us updated!
Of course, I meant thought-provoking!
It IS offensive to view gender identity as a disorder! Well done for changing your mind and for owning it. Anyone who cannot see it the same way should take a look at what is holding them back.
To continue to pathologise gender identity is in fact a very very frightening way to go.
First off brain chemistry has nothing to with perceived gender. Gender is a cultural development not a binary by birth, what you maybe thinking of is sex. Yes the two are different. To say that Gender Identity Disorder exist would be to first say that there are only two different genders that are the same everywhere. The need to transition from one sex or one gender to another should not be classified as a disorder. To argue that one needs to be fixed because there brains are not hooked up the same way allows the same argument to be made for a gay or lesbian person since they are also born that way.
@M: I wonder how close these friends of yours are with views like that. Stating that something is clearly defined has no merit as definitions do change as time goes on.
I’m writing this as a mental health therapist who works with families that include transgendered parents. I concede that my experience is limited, and it is only my own, and that you can be an expert on yourself. Also, I am not trying to explain the cause of Gender Identity Disorder.
Nobody has yet to broach the issue of what violence against gender does to gender development. I believe that everyone faces some form of violence that has the intent to mar his or her gender. It should go without saying that as we seek to restore or develop the meaning of the word gender, our response to violence in gender development must be carefully considered. This leads me to the conclusion that everyone is on the spectrum of Gender Identity Disorder. Please do not say that it does not exist, though diagnosing it may be problematic.
At a basic level most people with GID wish to have it treated. Usually done through pharmaceuticals (sorry M that is pretty much a given for anyone wanting to transition – though I admit not all) +/- surgery.
It is a disorder that can be treated, giving patients (sorry old fashioned but I still have patients) a body that is more congruent with their identity. That’s a bit simplistic, but I hope you get my drift.
The treatment does not strive to change the underlying sense of people’s gender. That would be the affront, to deny a person’s sense of self.
To deny it is a disorder is to deny there is anything to correct. It is somewhat simplisctic in the DSM- IV TR, but it still does surfice. May be the question should it be is it a psychiatric disorder?
To compare it to homosexuality then is not technically correct as homosexuals do not need intervention on a pharmaceutical or surgical level to become more congruent with their sexuality. And thankfully not many people want to change their underlying sense of their sexuality.
Keep making the posters, and keep learning.
Actually, from an artistic point of view, the gender issue image with the name crossed off really made a statement to me as I scroll down through your works. I thought you were making the point that society views it as an illness when in reality it isn’t…I didn’t even realize it was an error until I clicked this link! lol It just goes to show that all art is interpreted differently by each viewer, some positive, some negative. You can’t please everyone…and shouldn’t have to.
[...] diseñador Patrick Smith comenzó en el año 2010 a crear unops póster de estilo minimalista representando diversos [...]
[...] Find out why I have removed Gender Identity Disorder from the series. [...]
Gender Identity Disorder isn’t cured by plastic surgery either – it’s exacerbated.
Please look at it like this – imagine a person with two legs of unequal length. Each leg is within normal bounds, they just don’t match. Which leg do we pathologize? Which is too long or too short?
The answer is we pathologize the one we can successfully treat. If we can medically shorten legs we say the long one is “diseased” even though, CONSIDERED ALONE, there is nothing wrong or unusual. Conversely if we can lengthen legs.
In transsexualism the body and the mind do not match. But the reason transsexualism is not a psychiatric disorder is that every attempt to change the mind has failed historically. Conversely changing the body hormonally and surgically has succeeded.
Some would claim it has not succeeded, that women don’t become men and vice versa through pharmaceuticals and hormones. They need to understand the difference between medicine and science (biology). In medicine success is the achieved promotion of improved health. It is nothing more than that.
Unfortunately, medicine, especially mental health medicine has lost its way. It has forgotten that it is the ART of healing and not the SCIENCE of life nor the BUSINESS of controlling patients.
For these reasons GID must be deleted from psychiatric manuals and GID treated only somatically. This would readily be achieved consequent to the availability of a process for changing one’s legal sex without having to produce medical evidence.
Unfortunately medicine has truly lost its way in the matter of transsexualism,
Although I certainly agree with others that I do not find my alternative gender identity a disorder, I certainly feel that with this poster you created great imagery with the feeling that I had for so long about being out of place in society until I was able to accept who I am. However, I do also agree with Rhonda in the fact that you crossing out the poster makes a great statement as well. If you were to continue the poster like this, I would give critique that you leave the words crossed out but remove the larger x, perhaps make it smaller over the main part of the image.
I think it’s fabulous that you took the time to make such stark peices of art to represent such complex physical and mental manifestations within the human condition. We ALL have something that someone thinks is a disorder. Those among us who think they are perfect are so very far from it that they could never hope to see the forest for the trees.
What a fabulous thing to draw a few lines on a page and open a discussion, through art – supposedly about art, that is so much more than the art. The subject of gender identity disorder is extremely complex and dialogue needs to be established and honed so that those who need help to transition and find a fit for the mind/body connection can do so and live happy, productive lives.
So sorry you may have felt attacked. So glad that the ‘attack’ brings attention to a subject all too often unexamined.
Not to be contradictory for the purposes of being contradictory, but to me Gender Identity Disorder is a disorder in the sense that your gender identity is not in order with your physical body. To me, once sexual reassignment occurs, then there is no longer a disorder, so to speak, because the person is now ordered between mind and body.
So they basically guilt you into changing your opinion. Anything that isn’t conform with nature is a disorder.. simple fact, you cannot embellish it out of fear of being called some “-phobe”.
people really need to look up the definition of disorder before they say that GID is not one. A disorder is ANY aspect in one’s life which causes problems with relationships and/or daily functioning. in other words, if it’s causing problems , its a disorder. there’s a reason why it’s defined as a disorder in the DSM-IV. having had experience in dealing with this with a family member, I can definitely say it’s a disorder.
Honestly, I am transsexual and while I understand that people don’t want to be seen as disordered… something needs to be done to force insurance companies and health care professionals to start treating us like people with a medical problem, rather than shrug us off as confused people undergoing “elective” surgery (or whatnot).
It sucks, but I have a problem. Just like someone with Autism has a problem, just like someone with Breast Cancer has a problem, just like someone with Depression has a problem… etc. I’m not a bad person for having a problem, but I need help and I need treatment. I am currently not getting help or treatment because my problem is not seen as “real”. Maybe if GID and Transsexualism was treated as an actual medical problem, I (and people like myself) could get the care needed.
If making GID a disorder and getting diagnosed with it would be what it takes to get proper care… I’m willing to sacrifice a bit of dignity.
But maybe I just don’t “get it”, I don’t know.
I actually think that the crossing out adds to the artistic point of view and also matching the emotions of those with GID…just my perspective
As a transgendered person myself, I obviously have an opinion on this matter; that’s a given.
Thankfully, that opinion has been eloquently stated already by Will.
Gender identity is not wrong; nowhere is it being said that gender identity *in and of itself* is something disordered. The disorder is the incongruency with gender identity and gender manifestation on a physical level, both in presentation to the outside world, and in aligning the physical body with the person’s sense of themselves in general. This goes for people on whatever place on the scale of gender identity, not necessarily an either/or situation. A good chunk of us identify closer to one end or another, but certainly not all of us.
But in any case, the disconnect between intrinsic identity and physical manifestation puts us in a chronically bad place, mentally and emotionally, and in my opinion…that’s a disorder.
Thanks so much for sharing your artwork and setting off this excellent discussion about gender. As a mental health professional with 20 years experience – both clinical and having trans friends and colleagues – I would like to point out that this is a socially created disorder. Gender runs along a continuum rather than identifiable at finite points. Only because our culture refuses to recognize and place value on all genders rather than two genders do our trans members of society struggle.
For a scientific read on gender you may want to check out the book Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto-Sterling.
And, for an easier read that will stretch your brain around the socially constructed concept of gender, check out Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation by Kate Bornstein.
In response to:
‘Gender Identity disorder is actually really offensive to trans people. When was the last time you heard of a mental disorder being cured by plastic surgery? That’s because G.I.D is not really a disorder.’
GID is a disorder as it is a stressor that causes behavior that deviates from the norm. The DSMIV is the dictionary of mental illness. It details all stressors and their symptoms. If it is in that book, it is a disorder.
Several mental disorders are abated through plastic surgery, including body dysmorphic disorder and gender identity disorder. The ‘cure,’ though, for disorders such as these is never plastic surgery. The treatment includes steps in getting the afflicted to become comfortable in his or her own skin. The ‘cure’ is accomplished when the afflicted is able to lessen the stressor and subscribe to a lifestyle that operates within society’s moral and ethical code- not when the afflicted has had enough plastic surgery to satisfy their current desires.
If the mental gender doesn’t correspond with the biological gender, there’s disorder, the individual can make the body correspond with the mind or the mind correspond with the body and find peace.
In other cases, the self and the environment or social context (OCD), or beind introverted vs extroverted (agoraphobia) can be seen under different points of view as a problem or not, or anything else.
So throwing that poster to the fire under one specific POV was a mistake, art fail.
I’d just like to say how big of you… even if you don’t agree with what your subscribers are saying the fact is that you offended or hurt people, unintenionally of coarse, and you were a good enough person to, rather than agrue the philosophical points, just removed the listing and on top of that appologize. If people like you ran countries there would be a lot less wars
I disagree, Jasmine. Reacting in response to someone being offended is what actually causes a lot of problems. Instead of accepting that not everything is meant to be taken offensively, understanding that not everyone shares your points of view, or that your opinion might in fact be wrong, trying to appease offended people has the effect of discouraging discussion and making those offended feel like they were justified.
RT @patwitted: My view on gender identity has been challenged http://bit.ly/fEgTnq
I have to add: The main factor missing from just about any discussion of definitions, anywhere, is that virtually all disorders include this line in the diagnostic criteria (taken here from wikipedia):
“Significant clinical discomfort or impairment at work, social situations, or other important life areas.”
That’s the important part, which people have addressed here in different ways. If you are down but functioning, it’s not depression. If you’re down and *because of it* can’t maintain a job or are having trouble just getting by, it’s Depression.
Same for bipolar: Mood swings are only a disorder if they create problems.
For GID, if you know what you are, are comfortable with it, and happy, it’s a resolved gender identity. If you are experiencing distress because your identity, biology and social environment aren’t getting along with each other, it’s classified as a disorder and there may be help – counselling or surgery or moving somewhere less discriminatory.
As my clinical psych lecturer put it – The diagnosis is only there for the case notes, deal with the person.
Just as “homophobia” is a political, not clinical term, the insistence on removing GID from therapeutic categories is politically driven by people who want to call something that’s clearly messed up right so they don’t have to feel bad or take any responsibility for themselves.
I have no problem with your inclusion of the poster and feel bad that you were made to feel bad because a vocal minority has jumped you.
[...] rối loạn bản sắc giới (gender identity disorder) với lời giải thích kỹ càng ở đây, sau khi bạn đọc bày tỏ ý [...]
As a huge supporter of trans-rights, I think it’s misguided to attack the status of GID as a disorder. I’d rather see it de-stigmatized than de-listed (as with any mental disorder).
If it’s not a mental disorder, can you make any argument that an insurance company should cover the costs of gender reassignment or hormone therapy?
For many trans people, these are life-saving treatments, and are a medical necessity.
If GID is not a disorder, then these treatments become nothing more than cosmetic surgery.
While the discussions above about the nature of the word “disorder” are very interesting and thought-provoking, I wanted to comment that I was really touched by your whole process of removing GID from your (beautifully done!) series on mental disorders. I appreciate that you left it up, crossed-out, so that this discussion could occur, and also that you have the moral fiber and humility to reconsider your opinions in an intelligent way. Also, those designs are so well-done, all of them, including the GID one, regardless of its categorization. Thank you!
So what is the definition of a metal disorder? Cultural, ideological, and political pressure should have no place in medicine and psychology. It is just ridiculous that psychiatrist are forbidden from expressing their genuine expert opinion on these issues because of these pressures. There are man disorders where the patient is not aware of his/her conditions and even refuses to accept the situation. It is the job of psychiatrists not political pundits and activist to say if this is a disorder or not, but unfortunately we see how political and cultural activists restrict the them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity_disorder
It seems as much a disorder as thinking that you’re a different race or species. That is, a man who thinks he’s really a woman is like a white person who thinks he’s “really” black, or is a tiger. Something is obviously out of order somewhere.
I think you should include it. Maybe people who are content that their gender simply differs from their body in an uncomplicated way. For them this may not be a disorder. For me the issue is one of endless complication, misunderstanding, concealment and self-doubt. It is one of the more intense reasons underlying or perhaps simply expressing my deep loneliness. To say this is not a disorder seems wrong. For me, it is. Gyles/Jane
great series of graphic depictions of "mental disorders" http://bit.ly/eWhjEd but one was removed. here's why: http://bit.ly/dJCKW2
i think this is a semantic issue really. gender identity and gender incongruence are not the same thing. http://bit.ly/dJCKW2
Ridiculous.
How dare you take a condition with the word ‘Disorder’ in the title, and consider it a disorder?!?!
People need to stop trying to be so offended at every turn and just look at the INTENT of this article and the graphic.
Thanks, man, I appreciate your work. It actually disappoints me that you caved and defaced your own graphic like that because of the vocal offended.
- James
Thank you so much for your decision to remove this work from your series. Every little bit helps when it comes to changing the way people think about the differences between them. For something to be different, complicated, challenging, and/or new does not mean it is a disorder or needs to be fixed. We are all complicated, and all need understanding. Thanks again, Tess
[...] Lire pourquoi les troubles de l’identité de genre ont été retiré de la série. [...]
So basically, what your first commentator is saying could be equated to the idea that anorexia is not a disease either and could be cured with protein shakes alone. Is there a name for his mental disorder?
I think that independently of the fact that GID might or not be a disorder, might or not be correct, might or not exist, I think that you did a piece of art as part of a series based on someone else’s studies, opinions, views or whatever you want to call it; I don’t see anywhere in your art that you are agreeing or not on what it is based. It’s ART! For crying out loud! I can be an atheist and still do a piece on God creating man, is that wrong? I don’t think so. I don’t think you should apologize. Great job on the series, though. Keep it up.
[...] is the original post: My view on gender identity has been challenged Posted in Gender identity disorder Tags: being-cured, gender identity disorder, [...]
Inspiring work! People will always critique your work and they are entitled to their own opinions, of course. Stick with your art buddy, if you don’t no one else will.
Also I hope no one here (mis)understands GID and homosexuality to be the same thing, because they’re not.
I find it rather droll how many apparently cissexual/cisgender people seem to feel as if they have a right to define the lives of gender variant people as “disordered”. Kindly take your cis privilege and firmly insert it in whatever bodily orifice you may possess.
I don’t care if you “know someone who’s trans”, or if you “have a family member who’s trans”, or “your SO is trans”. If you yourself are not a transsexual person, you have no first hand knowledge of what it really means to be a trans person, let alone a trans person in our society, so sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and listen those those of us who are trans, and do know.
We’ve had it up to here and beyond with having our lives defined for us by the cissexual/cisgender kyriarchy, fuck you very much. We are more than capable of speaking for ourselves, and it is long past time that you people got out of our way and let us speak. If you think you know better than a trans person what it feels like to be, and means to be, trans, then I not-so-humbly suggest that you haven’t got the slightest fucking clue what you’re talking about, and furthermore, that you are deficient in your emotional, moral, and intellectual reasoning capacities.
Let us now put paid to some of the common tropes:
“GID is in the DSM-IV TR; therefore it is a disorder.” Healthcare professionals have never been wrong? There is a large and growing group of providers of healthcare to the trans community that is pushing for the complete removal of Gender Identity Disorder, or Gender Incongruence, as it is proposed to be included in the future, from the DSM-5, and redefinition of transsexuality in a more appropriate category in the ICD. People who are gender variant are not disordered, it is society which is disordered. Gender variance is a natural variation of human development, and any difficulties that gender variant people suffer in society as a result are well-covered under other, existing diagnostic categories.
“But if you remove GI/GID from the DSM-5, we won’t be able to get health insurance to cover the costs of transition.” This is a red herring. The push for removal of GID/GI from the DSM-5 is concurrent with the push to reclassify transsexuality in the ICD, which preserves the medically necessary diagnosis for healthcare financing and accounting purposes. Aside from this, so few people are actually able at this point to acquire health insurance which actually pays for transition that the argument is facetious.
I understand that the NHS covers trans healthcare, but the DSM is a US manual, not a UK manual. France, by the way, has already removed GID from its diagnostic manual. Are we going to sit idly by and let the French get ahead of us?
“But gender is nothing more than a sociological construction. We should be working to change society rather than changing people’s bodies.” Neuropsychiatric research is increasingly showing that sex is more than reproductive organs or chromosomes, and that gender is more than merely a construction of social conditioning. There are many, many factors involved in sexual differentiation in humans, and there are distinct physical differences in the brains of trans people that align with our “target” genders. Of course we should be working to change society, but no matter how much you change society, my brain is always going to feel as if it does not quite match my body. Imagine if you will, that the sensations your brain receives from the rest of your body don’t seem to match up with your physiology; that’s what it’s like to be trans. I am constantly off-balance because my body doesn’t move in the way my brain expects. While I have been able to compensate for much of this, it has been a lifelong problem. Gender does have a societal component, but it also has an inherent component. It is not 100% one or the other. This destroys the arguments of both the Queer Theorists and the Biological Essentialists at once.
I will not attempt to convince you that there is no debate within the trans community on the appropriateness of defining transsexuality as a disorder, or whether debating such definitions amounts only to a semantic exercise. What I am doing here is presenting to you the views of those of us in the community who are working for the destigmatization of gender variance, why it is we are doing so, and the scientific basis behind our views.
There is a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt is the world concerning transsexuality; no group of people is more aware of this fact than trans people, ourselves. We are, however, human beings, just like every other person on this planet, and we deserve the same respect offered to others, and the equal protection of our human rights. There is nothing “wrong” with us, we are not “disordered”. We’re just people, a little different in some ways, but our differences are not so great, nor is the process of making our lives more bearable through modern medical technology such an onerous burden to society, that we do not deserve to live healthy and fulfilling lives.
The problem with basing your art projects on the DSM… http://t.co/dOqM3B6
I’ll keep this short. This was a wonderful series of posters, you are incredibly talented, and it’s great to hear that you learned something during the process which opened your mind. Thank you for removing this poster. Good luck finding the right home for the rest of this series.
Honestly I’ve never thought about it that way =] Thank you for sharing!! I have GID and I’m into psychology so I’m used to thinking of myself as having a disorder. But I have to say, I think my text books can go shove it now. This is a very valid point and it’s kind of well, almost a relief. =]
Many people that believe they have been abducted by aliens may disagree that they have a mental disorder, as well as people that desperately need to amputate a limb because they believe it doesn’t belong to them.
And if the mental health establishment decides that those people are actually correct, and not suffering from a disorder, does that make it so?
There is no moral judgment here, but what is the difference in someone that needs to check the stove ten times before bed and a person that believes they have to remove their sex organs so they can live as the opposite sex? Isn’t it all just brain chemistry that is telling that person that they are incorrect? Isn’t that a disorder?
Again, I am really morally neutral on this subject, but I can’t imagine why one thing is a disorder when the other isn’t. Are there no disorders? Wouldn’t that be like saying a paranoid schizophrenic has the right to choose their own reality if it makes them feel more important?
Did you know that all members of the human race are related?
The controversy here has to do with the word disorder having such a negative connotation in its general use. The people that are insulted by suggesting they have a disorder simply need to realize that the scientific/medical meaning for the word is neutral, not insulting. I have a diagnosis of a different mental disorder and felt the same way about the label until I spent a lot of time studying mental health issues. No one is insulting you by using that word. The fact that you are insulted is an attitude you need to correct. Define the word this way – A disorder is when something deviates from the natural order. It’s natural/normal for someone to be born feeling they fit the gender of their body. People with GID do not.
When I stumbled across your page, I was rather interested in the artwork of the disorders. I currently hold a BA in psychology and intend to pursue a further degree. I have taken Abnormal Psychology many times and this question comes up quite a bit.
Disorder is not a label to mean “not right,” or even “abnormal.” It means that you have something that causes you emotional, psychological, or social distress. You, as a patient or a client, have identified this as causing you distress. We merely categorize it. Disorder does not mean “wrong” despite what many laypeople would assume.
The GID community often takes offense to the term because, quite frankly, they’re ignorant of its professional use. They jump to offense and start to associate their grievance with the removal of homosexuality as disorder. This further shows ignorance of psychological history. The DSM-III removed homosexuality because its inclusion was due to social distress caused to society. Society called it wrong, therefore it was included. We moved from this to a much more self-oriented distress model.
Gender identity disorder is, in fact, a disorder. Being born the wrong gender feels those who are born with the wrong genitalia with distress in some nature. Depending on that distress, the best treatment is simply to have them embrace their gender. This is massively removed from previous treatments to force the conversion to the biological sex.
So, as a homosexual man, I implore those with GID to not rush to offense. Nobody is labeling you as “wrong” or less a person. That is your perception of the word and your perception of mental health. You perceive that the word “disorder” causes you to be less than. The word itself does nothing more than state that you feel distressed by something being wrong.
It is sad when one person feels that another must be just like them to have something intelligent to say on a subject in which the one person has personal experience. It tends to make that person appear to think they are the only possibly credible voice on the subject, which of course is the height of conceit. Like others who have commented, I appreciate everyone’s contribution to this dialogue and am glad that it is not the majority of trans-gendered people who feel that their voice is the only relevant one–to the exclusion of the voices of all those of us who love and attempt to support what I believe are the legitimate struggles of trans-gendered people. It seems to me that a philosophy that holds that nobody can talk sensibly with me if they’re not just like me would be a very isolating one. The truth is that some trans-gendered people, like Gemma, feel that including GID in the DSM perpetuates a harmful stereotype. Ok. Others, like my “Cole,” want the insurance-covered support of a licensed therapist as she works to find a better place in her world. It’s important to the Gemmas and the Coles that we can see that each of their voices have legitimacy. Let’s not start thinking our own perspective has more value to the world just because it feels more true for us personally than the perspective of another. Make love, not war.
Make sure you are basing your research off the most current version of the DSM. A new one is released every few years. Next edition comes out VERY soon!!!
Guy does poster on mental illnesses, including Gender Identity Disorder. Transsexuals gang up on him. Hilarity ensues: http://t.co/04LBkmYd
Given that Gender Identity Disorder DOES exist, and even though I am myself trans, I cannot see what the problem with your poster was. That’s all I have to say.