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Recommendations for Nominations to the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group of the DSM-V Task Force The most pressing issue concerning the professional communities at this time is that the membership of the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group does not adequately include the diversity of clinical perspectives of professionals who work with gender-variant, transgender, and transsexual people. We are concerned that researchers and practitioners who are affirming of gender diversity and gender variant people are under-represented on the Gender Identity Disorders and Paraphilia sub-committees. Therefore, we ask trans-affirming professionals and clinicians to write the APA and recommend that the following names be added to the Sexual and GID Work Group: Michele Angello, Ph.D. 987 Old Eagle School Road, Ste. 719 Wayne, PA 19087 Curriculum Vita for Dr. Angello -- pdf file Michele Angello, Ph.D. works with gender-variant youth and adults. She offers individual, group and family therapy, as well as corporate education and training on a variety of issues of sexuality and has presented internationally on her work with trans-youth and working with children of transitioning parents. She facilitates several monthly support groups for transgender adults, youth and parents. Dr. Angello is often called on to speak as an expert on transgender issues to universities, corporations and the media. She has appeared on Larry King Live, the Tyra Banks Show, and various documentaries on transgender issues. She also developed the first graduate course in the U.S. that focused on clinical issues in transgender communities. Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D. 445 Bellevue Avenue Suite 302 Oakland, California 94610 San Francisco, CA 94110 Curriculum Vita for Dr. Ehrensaft -- pdf file Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D. is a developmental and clinical psychologist in the San Francisco Bay area, with a specialty in gender studies and psychotherapy/ consultation with gender nonconforming children and youth and their families. She is the author of "Raising Girlyboys: A Parent's Perspective" (Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2007) as well as the author of Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates (Guilford Publications, 2005), Building A Home Within (co-edited with toni Heineman, Brookes Publishing Company, 2006), Spoiling Childhood (Guilford Publications 1997), and Parenting Together: Men and Women Sharing the Care of Their Children (Free Press, 1987). In May 2008 she appeared on an NPRA All Things Considered program on transgender children, and as a result of the overwhelming stream of correspondence calling for a mental health perspective that generates positive mental health in gender-variant youth and adults, has decided to focus her present clinical, research, and writing activities on theory and practice that will promote the positive development of gender non-conforming children and young people. She is also a founding member of the Reproductive Technology Research Group at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California and specializes in clinical work with both adults and children in families that have used assisted reproductive technology to build their families. She has lectured and published nationally and internationally on the subjects of gender, assisted reproductive technology, parenting, and child development and is a member of the mental health professional group of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. She is also on the editorial board of the journal, Studies in Gender and Sexuality. Dr. Ehrensaft has served on the faculty of The Wright Institute, Berkeley, Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, Access Institute San Francisco, University of California, Berkeley, and Lone Mountain College, San Francisco. She is a Board Member of the Sections on Women, Gender, and Psychoanalysis and Children and Adolescence of APA's Division of Psychoanalysis and a founding member of A Home Within, a national non-profit organization serving the mental health needs of children and youth in foster care. Dan Karasic, M.D. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry University of California San Francisco 1001 Potrero Ave., Suite 7M San Francisco, CA 94110 Curriculum Vita for Dr. Karasic -- pdf file Dan Karasic, M.D. is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF, and has been employed by UCSF as faculty since 1991. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and the Immediate Past President of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, as well as past chair of the APA's Caucus of LGB Psychiatrists. His specialty areas are HIV and transgender care and he has one of the largest psychiatric practices of transgendered patients in Northern California. He is also a member of Bay Area Gender Associates, a peer supervision group of the San Francisco Bay Area's most experienced psychotherapists working with transgender clients. Dr. Karasic has chaired many sessions at the APA on transgender issues over the past fifteen years, including a symposium on the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders and DSM V at the APA's Annual Meeting in San Francisco in 2003. A few years ago, his name was submitted by the APA's Council on Minority Affairs as the proposed chair of an APA transgender issues task force, but the task force was not created that year. Dr. Karasic is co-editor of the book, Sexual and Gender Diagnoses of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM): A Reevaluation, published in 2005. He has spoken on the current controversy over the DSM V committee at the conference of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture, and at San Francisco General Hospital's Psychiatry Grand Rounds. Gail Knudson M.D., M.P.E., F.R.C.P.C. Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry University of British Columbia Department of Sexual Medicine Curriculum Vita for Dr. Knudson -- pdf file Gail Knudson M.D., M.P.E., F.R.C.P.C. is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia Department of Sexual Medicine. She is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the British Columbia Centre for Sexual Medicine at Vancouver Hospital and the Medical Director of the Vancouver Coastal Health Transgender Health Program. Dr Knudson received a Bachelor’s degree (B.Sc.) in Psychology from the University of Alberta, a Diploma in Education (Dip.Ed.) and a Master’s degree (M.P.E.) in Sport Psychology from University of British Columbia as well as her M.D. She completed a residency in Psychiatry at Dalhousie University and a fellowship in Sexual Medicine at the UBC Department of Sexual Medicine. In addition to teaching medical students and residents, she is involved in training physicians through Continuing Medical Education events and workshops. Since 2007, she has been a member of the Office of Faculty Development at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine. She currently serves as President of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH). Edgardo Menvielle, M.D. Children's National Medical Center Department of Psychiatry 111 Michigan Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20010 Curriculum Vita for Dr. Menvielle -- pdf file Edgardo Menvielle, M.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, at The George Washington University and an Attending Psychiatrist, at the Department of Psychiatry of Children's National Medical Center. He is also the Director of the Psychosocial Programs, Department of Psychiatry, Children's National Medical Center (Gender and Sexuality Development Program and Gender and Sexuality Advocacy and Education) and is Board Certified in General Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Menvielle has been practicing academic child and adolescent psychiatry since 1986. Since 1999, he has been engaged in providing clinical services for children and increasingly for adolescents who present with issues related to gender and sexuality. Around this time he started working with parents of children with gender-variant behaviors in a group format, a group which still meets. In 2003, together with a colleague, he published a parent guide brochure which was very well received. Inquiries from out of state parents and therapists prompted the development of an on-line group for parents, an electronic list-serve in which more than 300 families have this far participated. Dr. Menvielle has been involved in providing consultation as well as making presentations and workshops for pediatricians, mental health professionals and educators. He is currently involved in providing training on this topic to psychiatry residents, and other trainees in mental health disciplines. Dr. Menvielle is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and Member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), where he serves a committee member for the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues Committee (SOGIIC). He is also a collaborator in the writing of the Practice Parameters for the AACAP on sexual and gender identity issues and he is leading a task force appointed by the Washington Psychiatric Society to make recommendations to APA about GID for the DSM V. Herbert Schreier, M.D. Department of Psychiatry Children's Hospital Research Center Oakland California 94609 Curriculum Vita for Dr. Schreier -- pdf file Herb Schreier, M.D. is a child psychiatrist practicing in Oakland, California at the Children's Hospital. Over the years he has seen many children with gender-variant behavior and has not swerved from allowing these children to establish their identity in the warm nurturing environment that every child deserves. He started a parents' support group with Stephanie Brill at the hospital which now meets independently. He has lectured to pediatricians, in schools and writes occasionally for the popular press on this topic. Most recently he organize with his German colleague Dr. Birgit Moeller, and presented on the subject at the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professionals, in May 2008 in Istanbul. He is currently at work with colleagues on research in the area.