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Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity Kindle Edition

by Kelley Winters (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 16 ratings

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More than three decades after the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder, those who do not conform to their assigned birth-sex, either by inner identity or outer social expression, are labeled mentally ill in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Resulting stereotypes of psychiatric disorder and sexual deviance pose grave consequences to their human dignity and civil liberties. For transsexual individuals, the current diagnostic categories of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and Tranvestic Fetishism also pose barriers to access to medical transition procedures. As the APA works toward its fifth revision of the DSM in 2012, these gender diagnoses provoke growing controversy while failing to explain the existence of countless well-adjusted transsexual, gender queer and gender transcendent people who have contributed to society for millennia.

Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity provides an overview of the literature and attitudes behind the current diagnostic nomenclature and a historical snapshot of the issues and challenges faced by gender transcendent people on the eve of publication of the Fifth Edition of the DSM. This book contains a collection of essays from the struggle for transgender dignity and health care access. They are expanded from pieces posted to the GID Reform Advocates web site in 2008 and incorporate the generous feedback and discussion from advocates and critics.

For students of psychology, sociology, anthropology and gender studies curricula, this book provides an overview of the literature and social context that led to the current diagnostic nomenclature. It offers a historical snapshot of the issues and challenges faced by the trans-community on the eve of publication of the DSM-V. For gender transcendent people, this book is a call for respect and celebration of the broad diversity that exists within our community. Yet, it is also a call for unity and solidarity in demanding change for psychiatric policies and stereotypes that harm all trans-people. For mental health clinicians who work with transitioning clients, this book is intended to provide some insight, from a trans-perspective, into the barriers to social legitimacy and access to medical care that are posed by the categories of current Gender Identity Disorder and Transvestic Fetishism.

For policy makers involved with the DSM-V Task Force, this book is a plea to listen to the concerns raised by those whose lives are so deeply impacted by the policies you will enact.

I hope that this book will encourage dialogue and understanding that lead to forward progress on reducing the terrible stigma of mental illness and sexual deviance that exists for all gender transcendent people and on reducing barriers to corrective medical and surgical care for those who need them.

Because our identities are not disordered.

Print length

221 pages
Language

English
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Publication date

June 9, 2011
File size

485 KB
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Editorial Reviews

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As long as our identities are regarded as a disorder we will never attain equality. Our rights and our lives depend on overturning this misogynistic idea. Kelley has been fighting for years to undo the damage this slanderous and dehumanizing diagnosis has caused.We all need to join this battle. --Denise Leclair, Executive Director, International Foundation for Gender Education

There is no one who has written more thoughtfully than Kelley Winters about the damage inflicted on transsexual and transgender people by pseudo-scientific psychiatric nomenclature and professional arrogance. In this book, she lucidly lays out the conflicts and some potential solutions for resolving the power struggle between some psychiatrists and psychologists, who are supposedly objective authorities, and trans people themselves, who are seeking autonomy, dignity and integrity. In the battle over DSM-V, this book provides some desperately needed understanding. --Jamison Green, MFA, author of Becoming a Visible Man

Review

As long as our identities are regarded as a disorder we will never attain equality. Our rights and our lives depend on overturning this misogynistic idea. Kelley has been fighting for years to undo the damage this slanderous and dehumanizing diagnosis has caused.We all need to join this battle.

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, with a front row examination of the APA Committee formed to determine the fate of the GID diagnosis.

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. Dr. Winters critiques the half-baked diagnoses of transvestic fetishism and autognyephila with a sharp scalpel, presenting lucid evidence for the lack of scientific data to justify these gender-related diagnoses. Most importantly, Dr. Winters outlines the damage caused to transgender, transsexual, and other gender nonconforming people who are labeled with a mental illness.

Dr. Winters examines the current membership of the APA committee who will determine the inclusion and language used in the revision of the DSM. She outlines the lack of diverse viewpoints represented on this committee and the varied responses of the transgender community to address these shortcomings. Dr. Winters 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, offering powerful proof that labeling someone "mad," may make them mad enough to fight back.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0055DZKM0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ GID Reform Advocates; 1st edition (June 9, 2011)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 9, 2011
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 485 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 221 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1439223882

Best Sellers Rank: #3,107,605 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #513 in Psychology Testing & Measurement
- #831 in Transgender Studies
- #1,581 in Medical Psychology Testing & Measurement

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Joanne Herman

Could it be that the DSM-IV is unfairly biased against transgender people?

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2009

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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.

7 people found this helpful

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Donovan Ackley III

Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2016

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Such an important topic, so much insight from both research and qualitative data -- lived experience of those on the receiving end of what too often is incompetent "care." Highly recommended reading for anyone who attempts to give care to transgender clients, consumers, patients -- particularly those leaning far too heavily on "qualitative" research based on a handful of transgender people without awareness of the diversity of the community and the prevalence of misdiagnosis and malpractice experienced by so many..

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CJ

Dated but, Excellent Analysis

Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2015

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Pre-dates the DSM 5 and makes an excellent argument as to replacing Gender Identity Disorder with Gender Identity Dysphoria which is not the correct diagnosis. Calls out discreted Dr. Kennith Zuck & Blanchard for their invention of damaging conversion therapy. It's a fairly quick read for the astute reader.

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Dana Beyer

Discredited Crackpots and Narcissistic rage

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2009

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.

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Jessica Bourgeois

Dr. Winters is a true professional

Reviewed in Canada on January 27, 2020

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This book clearly and explicitly details the flaws, prejudice, and outright corruption in professional psychiatric circles dealing with the transgender community. Dr. Winters is knowledgeable and a very powerful writer. She has missed nothing and i would recommend this book to any lay person who wishes to be educated on these things and especially to all professional persons in the field because sadly, most are vastly ignorant on what they need to know.

Dr. Z. Davy

DSM as a controlling force

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2013

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Winters provides an exemplary array of critiques of the gender ideologies underpinning the DSM diagnosis of GID. She reveals the paradoxes, incessant power games and rather strange obsession of psychiatrist`s insistence on, when utilizing criteria for diagnosing trans people

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Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity Kindle Edition

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