But I did help my then girlfriend with her thesis on GID...

If I think I am Napolean, I get treatment.

If I think my name is Bilda, I get breasts.

So long as Gender Identity Disorder remains in the DSM, some insurance companies will cover payments for sexual reassignment surgery and hormones as "treatment."

The second GID is taken off the books, the surgeries and hormones will be considered "cosmetic procedures" and therefore not eligible to be covered by insurance.

Yes to both questions. Remember "2001" when the ape decides to pick up a bone and use it as a club? Psychiatry reminds me of that scene -- it's been used to control people since it was a new idea.

How about: "Are psychiatrists mentally ill?" Most of the mental health care professionals I've met have been... a bit off. "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Right, it only LOOKS like a huge black dick... psychiatrists ought to be required to dress like witch doctors out of 1940s Tarzan movies.

The key qualifier in her quote is "in the absence of dysphoria." That refers to the need some trans people feel to physically change their bodies -people who generally identify as transsexuals like Dr Winters herself. This distinction allows her to still make the case that insurance companies should pay for trans-related surgeries. Thus, a trans woman who wants bigger breasts gets augmentation surgery covered, but a cis woman would need to pay out of her own pocket for the same proceedure. It's an obscene and unjustifiable distinction; real equality means we don't get special treatment.

That faith, any kind of religious faith whatsoever is not only a mental defect, but a criminally dangerous problem, I have to chuckle.

Since the condition often requires surgery to approximate the required gender identity, I find it hard not to see the condition as a disorder.

It strikes me, removal of the disorder definition, relegates gender reassignment to the realm of choice, which would only open up patients to more discrimination.

Essentially, I suppose the question is, if the disorder is mental or physical in origin. Is the problem that the mind wishes it were in a differnt body, or is the problem that the body wrongly developed in association with the mind.

It seems a bit of a chicken egg conundrum, and one that avoids the underlying issue.

Interferance with one's life is the general definition of a problematic mental condition. I cannot see a way that being transgendered individual would not interfer with one's life.

Whether you begin the transition early or late as the course of therepy seems beside the point. The issue is that a theraputic effort must be made to properly transition someone to the proper gender.

It is perhaps bothersome to have this aspect of your perosnality listed as a disorder, however, as with any challange, it's diagnosis is part and parcel for it's legal protections.

Perhaps, the transgendered should approach their claims of inclusion through the americans with disabilities act, in which case their diagnosis is central to their ability to make such claims.

Yes.

If transsexual people are just fine and don't have any sort of illness or problem at all, then what are all the surgeries for?

I understand the need to not discriminate against any section of the population, but the DSM-IV TR does not label "perfectly sane people as mentally ill" with GID. As the author mentions (and then duly ignores), any diagnosis is based on whether or not it causes a significant amount of distress in the life of the person in question (for ego dystonic conditions like GID) - no distress means no diagnosis. This is a significant departure from previous DSM versions' treatments of homosexuality, which was in fact defined as a form of sociopathy. The DSM-III based diagnoses in comparison to societal norms, which allowed this. These differing philosophies are what allowed every homosexual person to be labeled as mentally ill, but what prevents a trans individual from being automatically labeled. If they don't think there's a problem, there isn't, diagnostically speaking. End of story.

Dr. Ehrensaft makes a much needed argument that the mental health industry has a history of mistreating those who differ from societal gender norms. With the DSM-III and homosexuality, it was the industry standard and the expectation. With the DSM-IV TR and GID, however, how a person who might differ from gender norms is treated is a far more open concept. For some people experiencing distress, gender reassignment surgery might be a good option (and, as FemmeJr points out, funding for this surgery is often tied up with a formal diagnosis, in addition to other requirements). For others, it might be a form of therapy to remove the distress without reassigning them to a gender norm. Others might just benefit from somebody to talk to. Long story short, demanding the removal of GID from the DSM because it can be "misused by some people outside of psychiatry who wish to deny civil rights to trans and gender-variant people" is a bit like asking for a ban on cars because some people are bad drivers, instead of changing driving laws and policing them better.

The DSM-IV TR doesn't diagnose variants of gender identity, period. It diagnoses the distress. Using the Psychology Today "definition" was sloppy, considering it is wildly different from the DSM-IV TR definition actually being questioned by the activists.

People who take psychiatrists and psychologists seriously, people who entrust themselves or family members to the care of psychiatrists or psychologists, and psychiatrists and psychologists.

Anyone who prescribes what amounts to bug spray to people and tells them it is going to rebalance their brain chemistry is a freeking dnagerous lunatic.

But the pay is fabulous!

I don't know if gender dysmorphism is a mental disorder or not. I suspect it is, but then I believe that any feelings that result in massive rejection of ones body in a way that requires radical surgery is a disorder. The people who get repeated plastic surgeries in order to achieve a "perfect" body come to mind. That said, if somebody wants to have plastic surgery to change their appearance then they have a right to do so, whether those changes make them appear to be a different gender or simply give them bigger breasts or a larger penis or a smaller waist. It's their business and I will respect their choice even to the point of referring to people as "he" or "she" based on their chosen identify.

But it seems ridiculous to not list this as a mental disorder. There is no doubt that there are mental issues associated with wanting to be a different gender. It may be natural, the same way that my bipolar disorder is natural, but that doesn't mean that it can't be a mental disorder that should be addressed and treated so that a person can have a high quality life. We have to stop thinking of "mentally ill" as a pejorative term and start recognizing that all it is is a label that allows people with perfectly natural but highly disruptive conditions to be treated in ways that help them live with those conditions. For me, that is cognitive therapy and medication. For a gender identify victim that might be surgical changes.