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Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays From the Struggle for Dignity

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What some sort of psychiatrists and psychologists are doing nowadays, as others did in the past against people that have an unexpected self-perception of gender, considering pathological all that is not "expected" by old concepts, is a so big problem, for those who suffer all their lives due to these old concepts.

Winters shows that madness. The madness of these "fake gender experts".

A special book for psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors and sexologists, also for parents, teachers, for authorities, for all that are in power to manipulate the lives of others.

An essential work.

The negative reviewer below, Hontas Farmer, has a personal vested interest in trashing this book due to ties with "gender mad" psychiatrists whom Kelley Winters exposes and critiques in this book. This reviewer has behaved in threatening and intimidating ways to various activists in the past and a simple google search should reveal all you need to know about his conflicts of interest in reviewing this book. Having read parts of this book, I would urge you to read this amazing book for yourself and do not consider the negative review from Hontas as objective or accurate. It is precisely because this book provides a searingly incisive exposé of psychiatric violations of genital autonomy and the rights of trans and intersex people (some of whom have been manipulated into serving as collaborators in their own oppression) that the subjects of this critique have attempted to suppress its dissemination. Read and judge for yourself.

Could it be that: 1) The diagnoses that label trans people as mentally ill are based largely upon the opinion of a handful of psychiatrists imposing their view of what is socially acceptable behavior? 2) These psychiatrists base their opinion almost entirely on studies of their own patients without considering the large number of transgender people leading well-adjusted lives who don't feel the need to see a psychiatrist? 3) These psychiatrists are suspiciously relentless in challenging the credibility of anyone who seeks to challenge their opinion? 4) Their opinion ignores significant studies by other professionals showing that most individuals who transition genders have positive outcomes? 5) The diagnoses are written in a way that removes the mental illness label for a patient who undergoes reparative therapy (which claims to make an individual not trans) but not for a patient who transitions genders, even if the outcome is positive. And 6) Some of these same psychiatrists happen to specialize in reparative therapy and therefore have a vested interest in labeling trans people as mentally ill?

You'll be hard-pressed to see these statements as anything but true after reading Winters' painstakingly researched book. Winters documents how the DSM-IV diagnoses of the American Psychiatric Association came to be and why reform is needed. She carefully shows that the diagnoses are based more upon difference from societal norms than distress or impairment caused by gender dysphoria, thereby labeling all gender non-conforming individuals as mentally ill - even those not experiencing distress.

Winters demonstrates how this "official" word of the APA is then used to justify job terminations, lack of insurance coverage and other types of discrimination. Even the HRC Corporate Equality Index, which aims in part to end transgender discrimination in the workplace, inadvertently causes it according to Winters. The CEI allows a corporation to score 100% by offering mental health counseling as its only transgender health benefit, and corporations overwhelmingly chose this benefit over four others, Winters asserts, because the DSM-IV recommends reparative therapy for those who seek counseling.

Gender Madness is a must-read for those concerned that some of the psychiatrists who helped develop the DSM-IV diagnoses, and who have a vested interest in maintaining them, have lead roles in the development of the DSM-V to be released in 2012.

Discredited crackpots and narcissistic rage

Dr. Winters is the last person I know whom I would consider either narcissistic or rageful. Her book is well thought out, and flows in spite of being built from a number of blog posts (as if that would discredit the facts and analysis within). Her blog posts generated feedback which she used to create a more holistic work, one which puts the lie to the canards of the Toronto/Northwestern axis of transphobia.

Yes, Ms. Farmer, brain sex is important, even though Dr. Winters doesn't delve into that field. The medical profession, which five years ago scoffed at the concept of gender identity, now recognizes gender variance as part of the human condition. The work of Dr. Reiner in the NEJM, preceded by the research of Drs. Diamond, Zhou, Kruijver and others, has proven that our gender identity is seated in our brains. Where else, pray tell? Our genitals? That humanity thought that was true until recently is quite telling, but we do have the capacity to learn. Now that we've lifted the veil of secrecy, the cone of pediatric emergency from the births of intersexed babies, we can acknowledge the remarkable sexual and gender diversity of our species. Transsexual men and women are part of that diversity, whatever the etiology - be it toxic, chromosomal, genetic, epigenetic, hormonal or idiopathic.

Unfortunately the medical profession is a seriously conservative profession, and psychiatry even more, so discredited crackpots can and are left in positions of power. Dr. Zucker has done a great deal of research, so he is rightfully accorded the respect due his prodigious labors. It is up to the rest of us to expose the bias in that labor, to unmask the prejudice behind terms such as "homosexual transsexual," and to demand the follow-ups, such as those provided by Hannah Rosin the recent issue of "The Atlantic," that showcase the failure and cruelty of his reparative therapy. That therapy will be joining the gay reparative therapy of the NARTH crowd in the dustbin of history, and soon Dr. Zucker's ideology will be seen in the same light Dr. Money's was ten short years ago.

Worse is the work of Ray Blanchard, with its pseudo-Freudian methodology and romantic constructs such as autogynephilia. That a profession such as psychiatry, which is moving inexorably into the 21st century based on science, as longed for by Freud himself, would even consider a concept such as autogynephilia, is a disgrace. I believe the profession will refuse to grant this nonsense the time of day when the time comes to consider the update for the DSM V. It will be even more unlikely after President Obama signs into law a "gender identity and expression" - inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act next year.

I agree with the two previous reviewers, Kelly Winters is spot on in her criticism of how the psychiatric institution in America ( also Canada ) has and is abusing transsexual as well as intersex people. These are not conditions to be treated in ways promoted by the Blanchard and ilk. It's not by being forced to touch one's own bit and that of one's therapist that one will suddenly cognite that they are " in fact " homosexual. Such witch doctor notions harm transsexual and intersex people and need to be denounced and stopped.

Huge applauds for this book.

Kelley Winters has compiled a remarkable collection of short essays

examining the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder [GID] in the DSM

and the role it has played in creating mental health problems for

transgender people. Dr. Winters has long been a leader in

deconstructing the psychiatric labeling of people with atypical gender

expressions and this book brings the discussion up-to-date.

Gender Madness in American Psychiatry examines a broad array of issues

from how the GID diagnosis is used to justify reparative therapy for

gender-variant children and the historical context for psychiatrically

labeling of sexual minorities. Most importantly, Dr. Winters outlines

the damage caused to transgender, transsexual, and other gender

nonconforming people who are labeled with a mental illness. She

challenges the APA committee to address ten specific issues with the

GID diagnosis, a challenge that will not be easy to ignore. Gender

Madness in American Psychiatry is a well-written, well-reasoned

argument for the reform of Gender Identity diagnoses in the

psychiatric nomenclature.

Arlene Istar Lev LCSW-R, CASAC, author of Transgender Emergence and

The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide.

(Pre-Publication Review, 2008)

I had high hopes for "Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity", Kelley Winters. I write for Wikipedia on the issues related to Blanchard's theory. I was looking for something that would meet wikipedia's criteria for a reliable source, written by a transsexual, on this topic. I thought maybe this book would meet that standard. It does not. Far from clearing the air Dr. Winters book is a prosaic primal scream of narcissistic rage embedded in a brilliant exposition of the barbarities inflicted on transgender folk by the psychological profession. The book is based heavily on blogs written by the Author with are freely available, and adds little value for the money it cost. That said I whole heartedly agree with and have experienced some of the ignorance of psychologist who don't work with trans folk on a regular basis. Her writings on Blanchard's theory reveal in her a narcissistic rage, a jealous sounding angst towards those labeled "homosexual" in that nomenclature. That said it makes important points about how the diagnosis of GID is used, and misused to oppress. However the way those points are made would only impress those who already agree. I can give this book no more than 2.5/5 stars. '' ½

There is much I can and do agree with in this book. Her major focus in this book is on the reformation of the way transsexual and transgender folks are treated by the medical, and psychological profession. Her main point being that the term "gender identity disorder" is maligning and misleading. That the presence of the word "disorder" leads people to think of this as something that needs o be cured. Which as she mentions cuts both ways. Open minded people and institutions recognize that the cure for gender dysphoria is transition to a new gender role. I agree that the use of the word fetishist to describe cross dressers, and that calling autogynephilia a paraphilia in line with bestiality, is a poor poor choice. I was pleased to find that throughout her book and in the glossary she defined a persons gender in the social domain, without going into ruminations about etiology and brain sex. According to her, and I agree, a person who is living in their Affirmed gender role full time regardless of op status is a transsexual. No second guessing. There were many other things I could agree with but will not enumerate. I also applaud her for exposing some of the more barbarous "treatments" that were used in the past by reparitve therapist. Shock treatments are just the tip of the iceberg, try conditioning crossdressers to become nauseated upon seeing womens clothes (I wonder if that ever worked what happened to those CD'ers when they saw women in public?) If a country did things like that to a segment of it's population...it's leaders would be put on trial at the Hague.

There are of course many things I dis agree with in this book as well. For example at one point she writes about GID being cited by Paul McHugh as justification for not helping people to transition. This is at least intellectually dishonest. It requires that the reader not consider the glasses through wich Mchugh viewed the world. He had become a transphobic man. Many of the cases where Winters says the GID diagnosis caused this discrimination, this injustice, or that illl treatment.... can be more easily explained by pure simple transphobia. Regardless of what it is called in the DSM trans reparatist (some of whom are gay , I have had gay transphobic psychologist) will still exist. Just as those who would "repair" homosexuals exist. She writes much about Occam razor and such but did not see that razor could cut her hypothesis, that language causes discrimination just as well. The correlation of GID being called "disorder" and ill treatment by some psychologist does not imply causality either. Right?

This takes me to the way she misrepresents Blanchard's theory in her book in particular with respect to homosexual transsexual/transgender folks. In "Deconstructing the Feminine essence Narrative" Blanchard writes that all anatomical males who are attracted to the same sex, have brains that are structurally and functionally similar to those of straight females. (various studies on homosexual males, that Blanchard had nothing to do with, have found just that.) "Homosexual transsexuals" are simply more neurologically feminized than homosexual non-transsexual males. This is a far off cry from the impression of that branch of Blanchard's theory from reading this book. According to this book homosexual transsexuals are merely homophobic homosexual males who do not accept themselves. I would argue to the contrary for a male in this society to come out as a transsexual, while at the same time be self accepting enough to embrace that small part of her psyche that is still a boy takes great self acceptance. To have SRS then pretend that you grew up 100% natal female, that is what is bread of homo and transphobia. This does not surprise me, since like so many other commentators on this topic she writes of it with a bit of rage, and angst about what the theory implies about her if it is accepted as even partially true. This blinds her to the real problems that one could have with the homosexual transsexual postulates of Blanchard's theory. For example she provides a list of problems with Blanchard's theory. 6/8 of them are about autogynephilia. Then there is the little detail that self identified autogynephiles definitely exist, as do people who have self identified as "homosexual transsexuals". Yet after so passionately and poignantly making the case against maligning language...she maligns those people who use that language for themselves in some way or the other.

The engineer then makes an excursion into criticizing scientific theory. For example the concept of equfinality. That being that two different complex systems, can given time and similar conditions, evolve to be almost if not totally identical. She derides this as unscientific. I would direct the engineer to the existence of the Ichthyosaur, and the Dolphin. Two very different creatures, who after millions of years in the same biological niche evolved strikingly similar body plans. This in spite of being biologically very very different indeed.

In conclusion this book does little to clear the air and only throws up more dust. This book preaches to a choir of the converted and I can't see how it would do anything to convince the powers that be to do anything to remove GID from the DSM. (Aside from replacing it with even more Blanchardian Language than what's there now.) The claim is made in a review published with the book. That Blanchard's ideas are crackpot and discredited.... but then the book notes in an appendix that Blanchard and a number of researchers who have collaborated with him are writing the newest edition of the DSM. Discredited crackpots don't get put in powerful positions by their peers. The book does an admirable job of unmasking some of the horrible things that have been done to "repair" transgender folk. However I wish that it had focused more on those type of barbarities. The fact that this book is available in the form of Kelley Winters Blogs, is enough for me to say wait for this one at your local library. Save your money... (libraries buying this book ought to more than cover the publication cost, worry not. Dr. Winters will not be starved.)