About Us
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Randall Ehrbar PsyD, Jamison Green MFA, Kelley Winters PhD and Lore Dickey MA, lead a roundtable discussion, "Gender Identity Disorder: Moving Toward DSM Reform," at the 2007 American Psychological Association Convention. |
We are mental health and medical professionals, clinicians, researchers
and scholars concerned about psychiatric nomenclature and diagnostic criteria
for gender-variant, gender-nonconforming, transgender and
transsexual people to be specified in the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), forthcoming from the
American Psychiatric Association.
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Madeline B. Deutsch, MD
Private practice
417 S. Hill St #201 LA, CA 90013
323-219-2469
www.DoctorMaddie.com
"GID" re-named and re-categorized into an adjustment disorder. Full medical (hormonal) treatment and some surgery (top/chest procedures, face procedures, etc...) on demand with informed consent model and elimination of all gatekeeping. Streamlined, limited, enabling gatekeeping for genital surgery. Comprehensive insurance coverage of all transition related treatments and procedures including fertility services.
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lore m. dickey, MA
Graduate Student, Psychology
University of North Dakota
lore is a graduate student at the University of North Dakota studying to become a psychologist. His training is deeply rooted in strengths-based approaches to client conceptualization. As such, the medical model of diagnosis and the pathologization that often occurs when one is diagnosed with any form of a gender identity disorder is problematic. He is committed to the removal of GID from the DSM and at the same time realistic in understanding that we may not see that change in the DSM-V.
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Virginia Erhardt, Ph.D.
Author:
Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay With Cross-dressers and Transsexuals
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Private Practice
Erhardt & Associates, Corporate and Academic Diversity Trainers
315 W. Ponce de Leon Avenue
Suite 1051
Decatur, Georgia, USA 30030
404.235.1178
www.virginiaerhardt.com
I am a clinical psychologist and gender specialist in private practice in Decatur, GA, and a member of the Georgia Psychological Association, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT), and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). I have offered presentations and facilitated seminars internationally on topics related to sexual orientation, transgender, partners of gender-variant individuals, and intersex conditions. I appeared in 2003 on a Dateline NBC segment about married couples who stay together when one spouse is transitioning from male to female. I am co-author, with Jeanne Shaw, Ph.D., of Journey Toward Intimacy: A Handbook for Lesbian Couples and author of Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay with Cross-dressers and Transsexuals. I believe that gender-variant people are unfairly pathologized, stigmatized, and marginalized by society in general and by many mental health professionals.
More of Dr. Erhardt's Statement
The hundreds of letters I have written during the past ten years, referring clients for hormones and surgeries, supporting name changes and transition on the job, have used descriptive language about life experience and feelings rather than a diagnosis of gender identity disorder. I do not believe that gender variance should be seen as a mental illness. If Gender Identity Disorder is to stay in the American Psychiatric Association's upcoming 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, I advocate reform of the title, diagnostic criteria, and supporting text. I believe that as long as it is to be included in the manual, Gender Identity Disorder should be placed outside of the section that includes sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias since it involves very different phenomena. I hope that some day, rather than a psychiatric diagnosis, a more relevant, physiological, medical diagnosis will be available for people with gender dissonance.
I strongly suggest that the Transvestic Fetishism diagnosis be removed from the DSM. The Fetishism diagnosis is sufficient. I do think, however, that it should be modified. I believe that Criterion C should be deleted from Fetishism, the descriptive material should be rewritten to exclude mention of Transvestic Fetishism and it should be made clear that Criteria A and B must both be present in order for someone to qualify for a Fetishism diagnosis. It makes sense to me to include several items that have nothing to do with women's clothing as examples of nonliving objects at the end of Criterion A.
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Jamison Green, M.F.A.
Author,
Becoming a Visible Man (Vanderbilt University Press, 2004);
Gender Diversity Trainer and Policy Consultant;
Gender Education & Advocacy, Inc., Board Chairman;
FTM International, Inc., past President.
www.jamisongreen.com
Gender Identity Disorder probably does exist, but most of the
hundreds of transsexual people that I've met don't have it. It is time for
GID reform so that transsexual and transgendered people can access quality
healthcare without being subjected to the stigmatizing diagnosis of a mental
disorder that is not their problem.
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Arlene Istar Lev, LCSW, CASAC
Choices Counseling and Consulting
321 Washington Ave.
Albany NY 12206
518.463.9152
www.choicesconsulting.com
Arlene Istar Lev LCSW, CASAC, is a social worker, family therapist, educator, and writer whose work addresses the unique therapeutic needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. She is the founder of Choices Counseling and Consulting) in Albany, New York, providing family therapy for LGBT people and is on the adjunct faculties of S.U.N.Y. Albany, School of Social Welfare, Empire College, and Vermont College of the Union Institute and University. Arlene is the author of The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide and Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and their Families, winner of the American Psychological Association Distinguished Book Award, 2006. She serves on the editorial Boards of the Journal of GLBT Family Studies and the Journal of Transgenderism.
Arlene is the organizer of this forum, Professionals Concerned with Gender Diagnoses in the DSM.
More of Ms. Lev's Bio and Statement
Arlene also serves on the Advisory Board of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Institute (Center on Halsted, Chicago). She is the Clinical Supervisor for Center Support: Counseling Services, a collaborative program between the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Council and SUNY Albany, School of Social Welfare. She maintains three nationally syndicated columns on LGBT parenting issues: "In a Family Way," "Dear Ari," and "Family Matters."
The DSM has a long history of diagnosing oppressed people with mental disorders. In order to receive medical treatments, transgender and transsexual people have historically had to prove themselves to be mentally "disordered"; in order to be granted civil rights, transgender and transsexual people must show the world that they actually quite sane.Approval for medical treatments must not depend on being mentally ill, but on being mentally sound enough to make empowered and healthy decisions regarding one’s body and life.
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Kelley Winters, Ph.D.
Founder, GID Reform Advocates
www.gidreform.org/blog.html
I am a writer on issues of gender diversity in medical policy. I advocate reform of the title, diagnostic criteria, supporting text and nosological placement of GID in the DSM-V to reduce harm inflicted by the current diagnosis. I feel that twin issues of stigma of mental disorder and barriers to hormonal and surgical transition care must be addressed together for forward progress on either. In the longer term, I hope psychiatric gender diagnoses are replaced with physical/medical diagnostic nomenclature that more thoroughly addresses these issues. I feel it is also important to remove the Transvestic Fetishism diagnosis and all reference to gender role nonconformity from the paraphilias section of the DSM. It is time for medical policies which, above all, do no harm to those they are intended to help.
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