#1 2008-05-14 16:32:33
I hadn't seen this on one of the "gay news" blogs yet (yes, we all take our marching orders from "the pink fax"), so I emailed it to them. Full article.
If you were not already aware, the DSM is the text by which those in the psychiatric professions identify and code various disorders, conditions, syndromes, etc. It does not describe how various therapeutic modalities are undertaken.
The naming of certain individuals to the task force specifically responsible for the fifth revision of this book casts into an unfortunate light the power such a small group of narrow minds might have on the impact of treatment, insurance coverage, and further institutionalization of "Conversion/Reparative" therapy, which is summarily laughed out of most professional circles.
It's like asking a pedophile to the committee for designing a daycare security system.
A short time ago, I'd discussed the movement to have "Gender Identity Disorder" (GID, a.k.a. "Gender Dysphoria") removed from the DSM-IV or reclassified, and how we needed to work to ensure that any such change was an improvement on the existing model, rather than a scrapping or savaging of it.
Lynn Conway reports that on May 1st, 2008, the American Psychiatric Association named its work group members appointed to revise the Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders in preparation for the DSM-V. Such a revision would include the entry for GID.
On the Task Force, named as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair, we find Dr. Kenneth Zucker, from Toronto's infamous Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Clarke Institute). Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative (i.e. "ex-gay") therapy to "cure" gender-variant children. Named to his work group, we find Zucker's mentor, Dr. Ray Blanchard, Head of Clinical Sexology Services at CAMH and creator of the theory of autogynephilia, categorized as a paraphilia and defined as "a man's paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman."
Drs. Blanchard, Zucker, J. Michael Bailey (whose work has even gone so far as to touch on eugenics) and a small cadre of others are proponents of dividing the transsexual population by sexual orientation ("homosexual transsexuals" vs. "autogynephilic") and have repeatedly run afoul of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH, formerly HBIGDA), and openly defied the Standards of Care that WPATH maintains (modeled after the original SoC developed by Dr. Harry Benjamin) in favor of conversion techniques. Blanchard and Bailey supporters also include Dr. Alice Dreger, who re-stigmatized treatment of intersex, controversial sexologist Dr. Anne Lawrence, and Dr. Paul McHugh, who had set out in the begining of his career to close the Gender Clinic at Johns Hopkins University and has been one of our most vocal detractors.
An additional danger that gay and lesbian communities need to be cognizant of is that if Zucker and company entrench conversion therapy in the DSM-V, then it is a clear, dangerous step toward also legitimizing ex-gay therapy and re-stigmatizing homosexuality.
Inclusion in that book is tantamount to saying the therapy to make people un-gay is healthy or proper, which is not to imply the book hasn't been revised several times in my life alone, and that homosexuality was removed as a mental disease only in 1974. It is a consensus evaluative tool, meaning that it's usually up to a lot more people what gets in or gets taken out. Unfortunately, there's a whole appendix on things like "culture-bound syndromes" and other diseases that might be in 'contention.' For the "Ex-Gay Movement" to get their foot in the door here would be very, very bad.
Last edited by pALEPHx (2008-05-14 20:57:28)
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#2 2008-05-14 18:37:36
I'm not getting a link to an article -- & I'd like to read it. Pale, have you read any of the Bems' work on this? I think the popular name of their hypothesis is something along the lines of "The exotic becomes erotic."
Are the members of these work groups chosen by people who are invested in pathologizing normal variation? It's bad enough women are being encouraged to get their labia clipped back to stubby nubbins of immobile scar tissue, but I can see how cosmetic surgeons can make huge money from people with disposable income and dog-show aspirations of "beauty." On the other hand, since they're making homosexuality & transgender seem impediments to leading a healthy life, wouldn't lengthy reparative psych treatment for "gender disorders" be covered by at least some insurance, and wouldn't insurance companies balk at covering something this ridiculous?
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#3 2008-05-14 20:13:59
PALE wrote:
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH... BLAH
Well, that didn't take long. I for one could fucking care less about "ex-gays" They are idiots from birth. Even though I have many trans-gendered friends, (all of which have had their surgeries paid for with insurance) they don't belong in the gay community. They should, and do have their own organizations.
So Phyllis, why doncha just keep this shit on your pissy fag website? And oh yeah, STFU!
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#4 2008-05-14 21:14:12
tits_matilda wrote:
I'm not getting a link to an article -- & I'd like to read it.
The link has been repaired (it had an extra 'http://...' for some reason). Bem sounds familiar. I've read many of the peer-reviewed--and quite a few of the NOT peer-reviewed--articles on the practice. The vast majority of the latter are anecdotal and unscientific, there being a decided lack of quantitative study, and by which any ex-gay fiddle-faddle should remain out of the DSM permanently. If, as phenomenological research, results cannot be reliably reproduced across a significant number of subjects, then its value in a text based on decades of research and statistical evidence is moot. The "opposite effect" argument also holds some water: If you can turn a person straight, then you should be able to perform the reverse through careful treatment (and usually a whole lotta alcohol).
Lurker wrote:
And oh yeah, STFU!
A vote has been taken. You first, darling.
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#5 2008-05-14 21:28:10
KAT FIGHT!
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#6 2008-05-14 21:47:15
I can't believe they allow that kind of bullshit in a workgroup of any kind. Why don't they just invite Tom Cruise to write a chapter on psychiatric meds?
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#7 2008-05-14 22:19:17
pALEPHx wrote:
A vote has been taken. You first, darling.
Votes, hah! We all know what those get us...
I wouldn't mind your diatribes if you actually had some REAL LIFE experience to share. You appear to have been skulking the halls of academia so long, you have had no time or desire to live in the real world. You can't seem to take a shit without analyzing it, whether it be from your own ass or what you pick off the end of your penis. There are some on this board who offer insight, facts, and conclusions that are informative and insightful. Thankfully, without the editorial bullshit. Whereas you come across a a pedantic piss-poor example of, well, frankly I don't know what. But I do know one thing, you are a condescending windbag. Maybe it's your over-bearing jewish mothers' (I know redundant) fault, but frankly sweetie, I don't care.
Anyone that looks to you for insight or advice on the gay angle of things will only walk away with a false idea of what the real gay dynamic may be. Which, by the way, is something very much akin and part of the ENTIRE human experience. A paradigm that is fluid, ever changing and cannot be explained.
Know this P, I DO NOT LIKE YOU, and I never will, there are far too many fags like you in this world.
Last edited by Lurker (2008-05-14 22:21:02)
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#8 2008-05-14 22:35:58
pALEPHx wrote:
The link has been repaired (it had an extra 'http://...' for some reason). Bem sounds familiar. I've read many of the peer-reviewed--and quite a few of the NOT peer-reviewed--articles on the practice. The vast majority of the latter are anecdotal and unscientific, there being a decided lack of quantitative study, and by which any ex-gay fiddle-faddle should remain out of the DSM permanently. If, as phenomenological research, results cannot be reliably reproduced across a significant number of subjects, then its value in a text based on decades of research and statistical evidence is moot. The "opposite effect" argument also holds some water: If you can turn a person straight, then you should be able to perform the reverse through careful treatment (and usually a whole lotta alcohol).
Thanks for fixing the link. Nearest I can remember from that lecture, the Bems (who were married, had children, and then each came out as gay/lesbian) suggest that many queers aren't born queer, but with a tendency to mature into queers with a lot of relevant input occurring before adolescence. Becoming well and truly gay depends on getting the right input/having the right experiences with opposite-sex playmates: children of the sex that they are not used to playing/socializing with (the "exotic," unknown gender) becoming sources of sexual arousal and curiosity (the "erotic").
According to this hypothesis, if parents wanted their sissy boys or butch girls to have a greater chance of maturing into heterosexual adults, they should steer their children into playing with children of the same sex while providing the sissy or butch toys and play that their children prefer, since it's not the traditional gender associated with toys and activities but the sex of one's playmates that influences sexual orientation. You could claim the opposite, as well -- again, what source could the data on this kind of thing come from.
I think they may be onto something. Here's a personal anecdote that is, no doubt, just another turd in the cesspool: as Little_Tits, I hoped that puberty would eliminate my female-ness, not make it worse, and used to feed my dolls to rabbits and fires set in the brush. My biomom's response to this disregard of the feminine was to limit my time spent doing manly things with boys and men -- what & who I preferred -- and channel me into feminine things that I hated: ballet, swim team, & girl scouts because, as she told my dad when he gave me a trucker's wallet and thought some Frye engineer boots would look cute on me, "She's probably going to be a dyke, don't encourage her." I grew up to be a promiscuous heterosexual female who mostly doesn't "get" other women & has to stifle my impulse to use the men's room. I think I'd rather have been a well-adjusted, friendly, law-abiding dyke.
Last edited by tits_matilda (2008-05-14 22:42:58)
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#9 2008-05-14 22:40:17
tits, you do NOT want to use a men's bathroom....trust me.
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#10 2008-05-14 22:42:07
Lurker wrote:
tits, you do NOT want to use a men's bathroom....trust me.
That may be true, but that's the door I usually find myself starting to push through when I need to drain the lizard.
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#11 2008-05-14 22:42:10
Lurker wrote:
pALEPHx wrote:
A vote has been taken. You first, darling.
Votes, hah! We all know what those get us...
Anyone that looks to you for insight or advice on the gay angle of things will only walk away with a false idea of what the real gay dynamic may be. Which, by the way, is something very much akin and part of the ENTIRE human experience. A paradigm that is fluid, ever changing and cannot be explained.
Know this P, I DO NOT LIKE YOU, and I never will, there are far too many fags like you in this world.
Then wouldn't that make him part of the real gay dynamic? Who are you to dictate what the REAL gay dynamic might be? You're supposedly simultaneously a drag queen AND straight-acting. What part of the gay dynamic is that?
No offense, Lurky, but I think he's far better adjusted than you.
I'm just going by your propensity to flipthefuck out at the slightest (or even no) provocation.
No one should be making venomous personal attacks on an intelligent and helpful member of this dysfunctional family.
I'm going to go get some fresh meat for you to rip up. May the farce be with you.
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#12 2008-05-14 22:44:52
Fer Christ sakes..... This is what Stonewall ends up as? O, fuck a duck.
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#13 2008-05-14 22:52:55
sofaking wrote:
Lurker wrote:
pALEPHx wrote:
A vote has been taken. You first, darling.
Votes, hah! We all know what those get us...
Anyone that looks to you for insight or advice on the gay angle of things will only walk away with a false idea of what the real gay dynamic may be. Which, by the way, is something very much akin and part of the ENTIRE human experience. A paradigm that is fluid, ever changing and cannot be explained.
Know this P, I DO NOT LIKE YOU, and I never will, there are far too many fags like you in this world.Then wouldn't that make him part of the real gay dynamic? Who are you to dictate what the REAL gay dynamic might be? You're supposedly simultaneously a drag queen AND straight-acting. What part of the gay dynamic is that?
No offense, Lurky, but I think he's far better adjusted than you.
I'm just going by your propensity to flipthefuck out at the slightest (or even no) provocation.
No one should be making venomous personal attacks on an intelligent and helpful member of this dysfunctional family.
I'm going to go get some fresh meat for you to rip up. May the farce be with you.
Sofie, obviously you have been smoking to much pot. Also, I don't give a flying fuck what you think. I NEVER "dictated" any such thing, nor do I pretend to do so. He's a fucking windbag with ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY zip, zero, zilch life experience. It is only obvious to anyone who has their wits about them. As for the str8 acting drag queen persona, have you not been paying attention? That was fucking 15 years ago. And yes, there are "str8 acting drag queens" people who have a firm grasp on reality and can shift back and forth with the greatest of ease and perfection. Honey, you been hangin' round "Les Boys" too fucking long. Come back to the real world Sofatard.
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#14 2008-05-14 22:54:13
Dmtdust wrote:
Fer Christ sakes..... This is what Stonewall ends up as? O, fuck a duck.
No, dusty, Stonewall is only a figment of your imagination, has no bearing on todays events.
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#16 2008-05-15 00:44:01
Lurker, at the risk of encouraging yet another storm of venom, I enjoy Pale's posts and I was very happy to see him return. You needn't read them; I don't read posts in which I am uninterested. Pale may be wordy, but he's literate, intelligent, and thoughtful, and his posts make me think. The fact that this post prompted a thoughtful and interesting response from Tits says a great deal about the poster and the topic.
I'm sorry you don't feel the same but, fortunately for everyone, there are other threads to read.
Last edited by Taint (2008-05-15 00:46:01)
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#17 2008-05-15 00:52:49
Taint wrote:
Lurker, at the risk of encouraging yet another storm of venom, I enjoy Pale's posts and I was very happy to see him return. You needn't read them; I don't read posts in which I am uninterested. Pale may be wordy, but he's literate, intelligent, and thoughtful, and his posts make me think. The fact that this post prompted a thoughtful and interesting response from Tits says a great deal about the poster and the topic.
I'm sorry you don't feel the same but, fortunately for everyone, there are other threads to read.
Not to prove your point, but
???
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#18 2008-05-15 00:57:56
tits_matilda wrote:
Taint wrote:
Lurker, at the risk of encouraging yet another storm of venom, I enjoy Pale's posts and I was very happy to see him return. You needn't read them; I don't read posts in which I am uninterested. Pale may be wordy, but he's literate, intelligent, and thoughtful, and his posts make me think. The fact that this post prompted a thoughtful and interesting response from Tits says a great deal about the poster and the topic.
I'm sorry you don't feel the same but, fortunately for everyone, there are other threads to read.Not to prove your point, but
???
Okay, now I'm confused now as to what you're confused about. This could be a long thread.
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#19 2008-05-15 01:06:31
tojo2000 wrote:
tits_matilda wrote:
Taint wrote:
Lurker, at the risk of encouraging yet another storm of venom, I enjoy Pale's posts and I was very happy to see him return. You needn't read them; I don't read posts in which I am uninterested. Pale may be wordy, but he's literate, intelligent, and thoughtful, and his posts make me think. The fact that this post prompted a thoughtful and interesting response from Tits says a great deal about the poster and the topic.
I'm sorry you don't feel the same but, fortunately for everyone, there are other threads to read.Not to prove your point, but
???Okay, now I'm confused now as to what you're confused about. This could be a long thread.
All I need to do now is embed several odious, slightly-out-of-synch autoplay audio files in my previous posts here and we'll be golden showers in the confusion thread. Would you prefer Kool Keith or Frente?
But really: "The fact that this post prompted a thoughtful and interesting response from Tits says a great deal about the poster and the topic." Can y'all sense my helmet with a chin strap so much of the time?
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#20 2008-05-15 01:10:51
tits_matilda wrote:
But really: "The fact that this post prompted a thoughtful and interesting response from Tits says a great deal about the poster and the topic." Can y'all sense my helmet with a chin strap so much of the time?
Not to speak for Taint, but I don't think he meant that as "As opposed to the usual lame crap she posts."
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#21 2008-05-15 01:11:12
tojo2000 wrote:
tits_matilda wrote:
But really: "The fact that this post prompted a thoughtful and interesting response from Tits says a great deal about the poster and the topic." Can y'all sense my helmet with a chin strap so much of the time?
Not to speak for Taint, but I don't think he meant that as "As opposed to the usual lame crap she posts."
Speak for Taint. Now there's a weird mental image.
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#22 2008-05-15 01:16:11
I haven't read the original post or any of the comments made about it, but I still think it's keen.........
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#23 2008-05-15 01:16:54
tojo2000 wrote:
Speak for Taint. Now there's a weird mental image.
It's got better mouth-feel than "Walk for Autism," & sounds like something I would make a charitable donation towards. This could be our ticket to wealth by constructing and embezzling from a charity.
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#24 2008-05-15 01:22:39
Oh, jeez. I'm sorry Tits. I really didn't mean it the way it sounded. I was really just referring to the interesting post you made, not expressing surprise that you posted it.
I've enjoyed your posts ever since you first darkened our doorway. No, wait...
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#25 2008-05-15 01:33:01
Taint wrote:
Oh, jeez. I'm sorry Tits. I really didn't mean it the way it sounded. I was really just referring to the interesting post you made, not expressing surprise that you posted it.
I've enjoyed your posts ever since you first darkened our doorway. No, wait...
Thanks, but there's no need to 'pologize. If I can't take the heat, I'll go over to the Ithacamoms forums or a similarly inane hellhole and subject myself to abuse from the juicebox-and-episiotomy set. I just wondered if I was being, you know, retarded retarded most of the time.
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#26 2008-05-15 01:50:06
Tits, High-Street is a better place because of you.
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#27 2008-05-15 01:52:21
Taint wrote:
Tits, High-Street is a better place because of you.
Oh Shit run Tits. He is having a conversion moment!
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#28 2008-05-15 02:04:38
Dmtdust wrote:
Taint wrote:
Tits, High-Street is a better place because of you.
Oh Shit run Tits. He is having a conversion moment!
After an emotional day of douchebag surprises, I don't know how to respond to either of these -- other than a three-legged "thanks." I like it here, & wish I could top off our flasks as we prepare to pace along the electric fence that borders the night ranch.
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#29 2008-05-15 07:46:08
[Lurker is now Ignored. Extra Fancy style.]
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#30 2008-05-15 09:14:48
That's pretty fancy.
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#31 2008-05-15 16:20:53
tits_matilda wrote:
Would you prefer Kool Keith or Frente?
I'm thinking both. Let's get some polyrhythms going (again).
tits_matilda wrote:
Can y'all sense my helmet with a chin strap so much of the time?
Yes...and we still want you to show us your tits. Your refusal to manifest the mammaries makes everything else you communicate that much less interesting. If you don't share a little of your vaunted promiscuity, we'll assume you're really a balding 50-year-old man with a wig and a permanently tuliped fundament. Assuming you really are female, then you were born to please the penis, and public degradation is the coin you accept with gratitude and sticky panties. Stop shirking your duties. Your evident brains are of little interest, not untill we've checked out the eponymous Australian gazongas.
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#32 2008-05-15 16:41:03
tojo2000 wrote:
That's pretty fancy.
I didn't want to do it, but his posts are like tossing strained peas and vitriol. I'm weary of it. I'll thank the rest for their kind remarks (let's not all get too soppy) and get back to our regularly scheduled programme...
According to this hypothesis, if parents wanted their sissy boys or butch girls to have a greater chance of maturing into heterosexual adults, they should steer their children into playing with children of the same sex while providing the sissy or butch toys and play that their children prefer, since it's not the traditional gender associated with toys and activities but the sex of one's playmates that influences sexual orientation.
The hypothesis is flawed; it gives too much credit to socialization, or nurture, to account for all the variations in child-rearing and the understood statistics about populations along a spectrum of sexual expression (people who are gay, bi, straight, whatever). Put simply, no one--as yet--raises "gay children." Parents may have their suspicions, and their own interests to preserve, but permissive styles of parenting don't produce orientations not inherent to a similar individual being brought up in a home where strict gender conformity is enforced (literally, through the toys given and things discussed at the dinner table...up to and including who made the dinner).
There will always be singularly maladjusted individuals (welcome to High Street!). If "reparative" therapy did what its namesake implied, then it would restore equilibrium to a patient's self-image and not enact a cryptoreligious agenda. Again, to use a couple fewer $50 words for the sake of clarity, I would have less of a problem with people thinking they could either be or make others "not gay" if the treatments weren't so closely tied to religious precepts and so readily capable of creating long-term discomfort and harm.
I think I'd rather have been a well-adjusted, friendly, law-abiding dyke.
While I think most of us will settle for your providing vidz with a bit more of an edge, I still find it remarkable that [some] people have progressed enough to see a "deviant" lifestyle for what it is: little different than any more popular orientation. There is nothing homosexuals do that wasn't invented by heterosexuals, and if it all boiled down to gender politics, I think we'd find fewer dissimilarities there than we've all been brought up to expect. If your current lifestyle demonstrates a greater desire for so-called aberrant behavior than your average [stereotypical] gay man, lesbian, or bisexual, then this is your personality, of which your sexuality is only a component.
NB: Just show Wilber any ol' set of tits. We used to ring a bell before flashing boobies at him, now he just salivates at the sight of breasts. See how we've conditioned socialized him?
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#33 2008-05-15 16:51:59
Lurker wrote:
Know this P, I DO NOT LIKE YOU, and I never will, there are far too many fags like you in this world.
Turkey, you're pissing into the wind with your mouth wide open.
Honestly, you don't have the brains for this forum. People here have IQs north of 130. Yours is south of 110. It's a bad fit.
You should find a nice little website for self-loathing faggots and stop bothering High-Street with your juvenile hissy-fits.
Or kill yourself, painfully, and send us the video. It would be your finest contribution.
Sincerely,
Your friend,
Wilber
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#34 2008-05-15 17:11:47
WilberCuntLicker wrote:
...we'll assume you're really a balding 50-year-old man with a wig and a permanently tuliped fundament.
That would be AWESOME. Maybe when my breasts have slid too far down my bumpy old ribcage, I'll go for transman surgery (keeping the pie, though, unless they can make really functional fat wangs by then) and hormone treatments. My second childhood could be even more creepy than the first.
Last edited by sofaking (2008-05-15 20:46:52)
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#35 2008-05-15 17:15:08
tits_matilda wrote:
WilberCuntLicker wrote:
...we'll assume you're really a balding 50-year-old man with a wig and a permanently tuliped fundament.
That would be AWESOME. Maybe when my breasts have slid too far down my bumpy old ribcage, I'll go for transman surgery (keeping the pie, though, unless they can make really functional fat wangs by then) and hormone treatments. My second childhood could be even more creepy than the first.
YAY! It's dancing time!
Last edited by sofaking (2008-05-15 20:47:17)
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#36 2008-05-15 18:02:53
WilberCuntLicker wrote:
tits_matilda wrote:
WilberCuntLicker wrote:
...we'll assume you're really a balding 50-year-old man with a wig and a permanently tuliped fundament.
That would be AWESOME. Maybe when my breasts have slid too far down my bumpy old ribcage, I'll go for transman surgery (keeping the pie, though, unless they can make really functional fat wangs by then) and hormone treatments. My second childhood could be even more creepy than the first.
YAY! It's dancing time!
Only if it's nasty.
Last edited by sofaking (2008-05-15 20:47:37)
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#37 2008-05-15 20:09:09
Side note: Someone seriously need to twiddle with the /youtube BBcode so it won't allow autostart/play "true" on these enquoted videos. It's highly disconcerting.
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#39 2008-05-15 20:55:05
Awww, Pale, cowboy up to the chaos! Hey wait, we can go back and undo what was undid...
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#40 2008-05-16 00:07:56
sofaking wrote:
Correct me if I'm mistaken, Sofie dear, but haven't you posted this before?
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#41 2008-05-16 02:46:11
pALEPHx wrote:
Side note: Someone seriously need to twiddle with the /youtube BBcode so it won't allow autostart/play "true" on these enquoted videos. It's highly disconcerting.
Don't be such a fag, pENIx. Polyrhythms are super-cool. So, for that matter, are tubas.
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