The Webpage Zucker Attempted To Suppress

[Guest]

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/...o_suppress.html

It outrages me that Doctor Zucker tried to have this webpage removed. This website supports Doctor Lynn Conway.

Laura

[Sally]

Doctor Conway has one of the most informative and positive websites for the Transgendered Community, I have been there many times and have never read anything that even came close to being an attack on anybody.

Here list of successful trans women and trans men has got to be inspirational to so many.

I have sent links to her website to a number of people wanting information.

She is a role model, a very intelligent woman and much less biased than anyone in the actual news business.

I can't understand other than the old Doc sees the world leaving him behind and rather than reevaluate and follow the progress in this field he has decided to drop anchor and try to hold it all back.

That so seldom works!

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest]

If he was just another critic it would be no big deal. The problem is this guy is rewriting the DSM V relating to gender issues that will affect Transgender people for years to come. He's not on our side either. I had so many complaints about the Clarke Institute i took down their link 5 years ago. He used "Reperative Therapy" on children Which as you know I am vehemently opposed to. We have had people here in our suicide prevention online chat rooms attempt suicide because of this practice as well as those from Exodus style groups. Having him decide what our care and diagnosis should be is like having the butcher give cows a physical exam before the slaughter. That's just my humble opinion. Somehere on this site is the petition opposing his appointment. I'll go dig the link out. It's probably in my news section. I put it up months ago.

Laura

[Guest Jackson]

The problem is this guy is rewriting the DSM V relating to gender issues that will affect Transgender people for years to come.

No way. No way. Over my dead body is this guy going to be rewriting some of the DSM V. I've got to talk to my therapist about this. She's pretty up on all this kind of stuff.

How the heck does someone like this get hooked up with the DSM anyway? There has to be some regulatory process in place that doesn't let people like this get that kind of power.

[Guest Leah1026]

No way. No way. Over my dead body is this guy going to be rewriting some of the DSM V. I've got to talk to my therapist about this. She's pretty up on all this kind of stuff.

How the heck does someone like this get hooked up with the DSM anyway? There has to be some regulatory process in place that doesn't let people like this get that kind of power.

How does this happen?

http://www.gendermadness.com/

[Guest Jackson]

I have to do a little more research into this. Thanks, Leah.

[Sally]

Looks like I need to get my transition going and over with before 2012!

Sally

[Guest michelle.butterfly]

Ahh (Dr.) Lynn is my idol...

What's happening at the APA comes as little surprise to me, as it's an organization geared toward keeping itself in power and one that I view as particularly patronizing to those who are transgendered. I think it's beyond silly that I have to pay a therapist (one that even recognizes that I don't have any particular mental issues) $144 a session to listen to me tell my story, in order that I can have *permission* from the powers-that-be to make physical changes to my body for it to match my mind. What I have is a *physical* problem, not a mental one, and the day that "GID" is removed from the DSM will be a day I celebrate.

Zucker trying to supress Dr. Conway's site is, I believe, a mis-step on his part, and I'm happy that he's desperate enough to take such a tack. "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you. Then you win." (a quote likely mis-attributed to Ghandi but still a good one)

Just one girl's (not so) humble opinion.

Michelle

[Guest Leah1026]

Oops my second link was bad. It should have been:

http://www.GIDreform.org

[Guest]

Here's the link to the petition against Zucker. I'm told those posting it have been threatened by his lawyers. We have always had it posted here. We won't be intimidated.

Objection to DSM-V Committee Members on Gender Identity Disorders.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/objection...ntity-disorders

Being gay was dropped from the DSM years ago as a mental illness. It's time they did the same for us. GID by itself is not a mental illness. People are born that way and several studies show this. Things like depression and MPD/DID are caused by the trauma of forcing people to be someone other than themselves. This is multiplied by ostracism, discrimination, taunting and violence against Transgender people. Some don't even believe our suicide rate is real. Certainly it's difficult to prove as few are listed as transgender on a death c3ertificate due to family embarrasment. What we can prove is suicide attempts here that happen daily in our suicide prevention online chat rooms witnessed by thousands of people. Our moderators are certified in suicide prevention using the same course as hotline operators. I'd love to be able to tell you that our moderators have little to do. That however is not the case with many volunteering for 18 hour days or more. Ask any chat moderator here. They have saved thousands of lives and been with people right up until the ambulance arrives. I can tell you that suicide attempts in our community are very real. In a survey here 50% of Transsexuals have had at least one suicide attempt by age 20 with the youngest being age 7. Many have had multiple attempts.

"Dr. Kenneth Zucker's War on Transgenders"

http://www.queerty.com/dr-kenneth-zuckers-...nders-20090206/

Laura

PS. Leah i pulled the bad link. Whoops, looks like the petition is closed but look at all those signatures. If anyone knows of another one please post it here.

[Guest Jackson]

What scares me is that Dr Zucker is not part of the lunatic fringe. He's a "respected" member of the medical community. I can say that reparative therapy does not work. That's about what I tried to do for myself. I actually hate to think of what would have happened back a year ago had I not made the decision to actually give in and transition. I'm sure I would have finally ended up doing something drastic.

[Guest CharlieRose]

Being gay was dropped from the DSM years ago as a mental illness. It's time they did the same for us. GID by itself is not a mental illness. People are born that way and several studies show this. Things like depression and MPD/DID are caused by the trauma of forcing people to be someone other than themselves. This is multiplied by ostracism, discrimination, taunting and violence against Transgender people.

Hmm... Maybe not eliminated entirely. The standards of care that we like should be adopted, for sure, (I forget what their name is, but, you know, the good ones) but I think that transsexuality is a sort of illness. But a medical one, rather than a psychological one. It does only have psychological symptoms, though, and in its own right causes quite a few that it's important to keep a look out for, especially in kids who don't understand their condition or their mental anguish the same way as adults. It's a weird sort of in between.

When you bring up illnesses, it connotates a necessity for a cure, which in the past has meant just pressuring people to be content in a situation that makes it impossible to be happy, forcing us to live in our unmatched sex. Naturally that frightens us and we want to stay away from it. But transsexuality does have a cure: gender reassignment and proper presentation and recognition as one's true gender. Once that's resolved, we might as well be any other person. (Of course, presently complete gender reassignment and being recognized as the gender we are is proving difficult, however, if it were absolutely possible, we would have none of these problems at all, right?)

I think perhaps it would be best to have it in both psychological and medical books, as it deals extensively in the mind and body, at least at this point. Maybe in the future it will be an exclusively medical thing, if we could get past the ostracism and ridicule and perhaps start diagnosing and curing people earlier in their lives, so they don't have to go through most of theirs living through a foreign body.

[Guest Evan_J]

I agree.

<--Runs unashamedly to follow Sally ASAP.