Another Kind of Crisis
The United States has gone through a colossal amount of societal changes throughout its history as any developing nation would; but within the past two decades there has been a significant surge. The latest controversial issue flooding the U.S. is the debate on conflicting opinions regarding the LGBT community and specifically the rights for transgender individuals. The topic of debate is whether identifying transgenders suffer from a psychological disorder or that it is just one of many gender identifications. I am not very educated about this controversy so my curiosity lead me to a great deal of articles regarding the topic. As I clicked through numerous news articles, personal blogs, and medical forums, I found that almost every other source disagreed with one another, so its safe to say I will remain neutral on this whole debate for the duration of my blog.
Trans Student Educational Resources defines transgender as, "encompassing term of many gender identities of those who do not identify or exclusively identify with their sex assigned at birth." However according to the American Psychological Association transgender is defined, "people who experience intense, persistent gender in congruence can be given the diagnosis of "gender dysphoria." As you can see, there are some differing details of what transgender should be defined as. The LGBT community explains that gender identity and and sexuality is on a spectrum and is not a binary. Compared to medical related websites explaining that being transgender is an identity, however gender dysphoria and/or gender identity disorder is associated with it. Gender identity disorder is the wider known term but as of 2013, according to DSM V, the politically correct term is gender dysphoria, ultimately taking out the word 'disorder'. This was a move in the right direction for the LGBT community. Denmark is the first, and only, country in the world to declassify transgender as a mental illness.
The United States is slowly starting to accept and advocate for the LGBT community but there still is a large population that disagrees with transgenders being mentally stable. A lot of this population consists of doctors and psychiatrists as well as people who believe that gender/sex is a binary. A lot of medical professionals argue that people who feel trapped in the wrong body face a mental illness because that is going against our biologically born sex.
For example, at a Heritage Foundation Forum a pediatrician, Dr. Michelle Cretella, states that it is child abuse to feed into a child's mentality that they are gender confused and help them 'transition .' She goes on further to say that it is physically unhealthy to allow children to take hormones that change their "conclusion" because it acts as a puberty blocker which essentially messes with a natural biological process that all children go through. She also mentions that is is emotionally and psychologically unhealthy because it's "coaching a child into a fixed-false belief."
Another, more biologically centered, argument proposed by Dr. Anaya Mandal, states that gender dysphoria is due to hormonal confusion during pre-pregnancy. She explains that there is a possibility that "the anatomical sex from the genitals may be male, while the gender identity that comes from the brain could be female." This is all still very controversial because these doctors don't have concrete evidence to support their claims, only a few studies and theories.
The LGBT community has been progressively working for more recognition and acceptance since the 1960's when it was first associated with P.R.I.D.E. In 1970 the first LGBT parade was held in New York which shows how long their fight for their rights has existed. On June 26th, 2017, same sex marriage was nationally legalized, a big milestone for their community. But they still have a lot of other rights they are trying to get legally recognized, most of which are for transgenders. As I mentioned before they argue that sexuality and gender identity is a spectrum, meaning that there aren't only two identities or sexual orientations, there are many that people should have the right to define themselves as.
The World Health Organization, also known as the WHO, is writing a new edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) which is a reference for DSM's around the world. In this upcoming year the ICD has been approved to declassify transgender as a mental illness. (Yay!) Research has found that the reported emotional distress that transgenders experience stems from the stigmas associated with being transgender, not because it is a mental illness. And this is what the LGBT community is fighting for, acceptance. Unfortunately, the community will have to continue to fight against handfuls of political parties and religious groups in order to officially obtain their rights.
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| From Time Out |
Trans Student Educational Resources defines transgender as, "encompassing term of many gender identities of those who do not identify or exclusively identify with their sex assigned at birth." However according to the American Psychological Association transgender is defined, "people who experience intense, persistent gender in congruence can be given the diagnosis of "gender dysphoria." As you can see, there are some differing details of what transgender should be defined as. The LGBT community explains that gender identity and and sexuality is on a spectrum and is not a binary. Compared to medical related websites explaining that being transgender is an identity, however gender dysphoria and/or gender identity disorder is associated with it. Gender identity disorder is the wider known term but as of 2013, according to DSM V, the politically correct term is gender dysphoria, ultimately taking out the word 'disorder'. This was a move in the right direction for the LGBT community. Denmark is the first, and only, country in the world to declassify transgender as a mental illness.
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| From Salem State News |
The United States is slowly starting to accept and advocate for the LGBT community but there still is a large population that disagrees with transgenders being mentally stable. A lot of this population consists of doctors and psychiatrists as well as people who believe that gender/sex is a binary. A lot of medical professionals argue that people who feel trapped in the wrong body face a mental illness because that is going against our biologically born sex.
For example, at a Heritage Foundation Forum a pediatrician, Dr. Michelle Cretella, states that it is child abuse to feed into a child's mentality that they are gender confused and help them 'transition .' She goes on further to say that it is physically unhealthy to allow children to take hormones that change their "conclusion" because it acts as a puberty blocker which essentially messes with a natural biological process that all children go through. She also mentions that is is emotionally and psychologically unhealthy because it's "coaching a child into a fixed-false belief."
Another, more biologically centered, argument proposed by Dr. Anaya Mandal, states that gender dysphoria is due to hormonal confusion during pre-pregnancy. She explains that there is a possibility that "the anatomical sex from the genitals may be male, while the gender identity that comes from the brain could be female." This is all still very controversial because these doctors don't have concrete evidence to support their claims, only a few studies and theories.
 |
| From Wikipedia |
The LGBT community has been progressively working for more recognition and acceptance since the 1960's when it was first associated with P.R.I.D.E. In 1970 the first LGBT parade was held in New York which shows how long their fight for their rights has existed. On June 26th, 2017, same sex marriage was nationally legalized, a big milestone for their community. But they still have a lot of other rights they are trying to get legally recognized, most of which are for transgenders. As I mentioned before they argue that sexuality and gender identity is a spectrum, meaning that there aren't only two identities or sexual orientations, there are many that people should have the right to define themselves as.
The World Health Organization, also known as the WHO, is writing a new edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) which is a reference for DSM's around the world. In this upcoming year the ICD has been approved to declassify transgender as a mental illness. (Yay!) Research has found that the reported emotional distress that transgenders experience stems from the stigmas associated with being transgender, not because it is a mental illness. And this is what the LGBT community is fighting for, acceptance. Unfortunately, the community will have to continue to fight against handfuls of political parties and religious groups in order to officially obtain their rights.
Do you think that many remaining neutral and entertaining different definitions and theories is part of why the LGBTQ+ community has so much trouble gaining concrete recognition and acceptance? How can we as a public change this struggle?
ReplyDeleteI think that you should be careful conflating being transgender with having gender dysphoria, as they are not the same thing. Gender dysphoria means that someone identifies as a different gender than the one they express, which only covers transgender people who have not yet transitioned. On top of that, gender dysphoria is a diagnosable issue due to the increased rates of depression and anxiety that result from it, not due to it simply being outside of the norm; in fact, the APA recommends transitioning as a treatment for gender dysphoria.
ReplyDeleteYour discussion of the biology of gender is incredibly interesting! There has actually been research done on how our brains can be structurally different depending on our gender identity and how this might not correlate with our outward sex in some cases: hence the basis for becoming transgender. I included a link to an article from on this subject that I found intriguing below.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hormones-and-the-brain/201608/gender-identity-is-in-the-brain-what-does-tell-us
During my psych 138 course, we had to talk about how homosexuality and transgender people used to be considered to be "mentally ill". Most of my close friends are apart of the LGBT community so as one would imagine hearing things like this only got me fumed. The reason why it was classified as an "illness" was because when one would classify a disorder, it would have to cause distress to the person, those around them and be considered "abnormal" to the rest. At the time, many people were uncomfortable with homosexuality and the majority of people were not attracted to the same sex at the time. Because many of those people realizing that they are homosexual, they would become distressed since people were not as accepting as we as a society today are today. The articles you found were really interesting looking at a doctors perspective but it was pretty disappointing to know that transgendered are still considered to some as "mentally unstable"
ReplyDeleteIn response to both your writing and the comment above, I do think that remaining neutral can make LGBTQ acceptance difficult but I rather appreciated the fact that you talked about all the different views that are being passed around mostly because I would consider myself to be uninformed and not fluent with a lot of the terminology and so I was really able to learn from this blog.
ReplyDeleteWow. I can honestly say that this topic is strong and definitely a civic and controversial issue at hand. Like you, McKenzie, I want to try to be as neutral as possible, considering the fact that I am not entirely versed in this civic issue as others may be. As far as your post goes, I am so glad you incorporated both sides of this issue, explaining how much gray area is between the research, arguments, and viewpoints of people around the nation. I would also like to bring to your awareness that this topic, though it does engulf our nation currently and since the 70's, is also in debate around the world. While on vacation in Norway, I was introduced to a very similar protest, concert, support rally, public awareness event held in the center of the city I was visiting. The rally looked like the first image on your post from Time Out; however, the rally was a little more chaotic, social, and a bit less organized than the image you provided. I think it is important to note that this civic issue in our country also stands as a global dilemma people everywhere are trying to come to a conclusion, or more of an acceptance, about.
ReplyDelete