Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Oh, Ken Zucker decided to mess with the wrong person when he sent Lynn Conway a letter accusing her of libel. She has, in turn, filed an official complaint against him.
You can find the actual letter here, along with all the supporting evidence. The short version can be found in this article on Queerty.
On the Task Force, named as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair, we find Dr. Kenneth Zucker, from Toronto infamous Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Clarke Institute). Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative therapy to Ccure gender-variant children. Named to his work group, we find Zuckers mentor, Dr. Ray Blanchard, Head of Clinical Sexology Services at CAMH and creator of the theory of autogynephilia, categorized as a paraphilia and defined as man paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.
Also Dr Ann Lawrence, a supporter of his JUNK SCIENCE.. is understood to be in consideration as an alternate member.
We, the undersigned hereby object to their inclusion on this committee, and object to the hurtful theories they promote.
In order to have any credibility in the field of gender identity, the DSM must not include discounted theories or junk science. We ask that they be removed at once as members.
(Thanks to the 1000+ of you who have already signed.)
For those who are astounded by the news that Blanchard has been appointed to the Work Group for Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, consider this: the chair of that group is Dr. Ken Zucker, who believes transgender kids can be cured with reparative therapy.
Read this story, from NPR, about the difference between therapists in how to treat children who are brought in with gender issues. And then consider that Zucker is in charge of the work group working on GID for DSM V.
If you are a psychologists or know any, please ask them to contact anyone they know at the APA to advise against Zucker as chair of this work group.
(crossposted in several places, and people are welcome to forward this on freely to others in the transgender and GLBT communities, as I see this as being very serious — Mercedes)
A short time ago, I’d discussed the movement to have “Gender Identity Disorder†(GID, a.k.a. “Gender Dysphoriaâ€) removed from the DSM-IV or reclassified, and how we needed to work to ensure that any such change was an improvement on the existing model, rather than a scrapping or savaging of it.
Lynn Conway reports that on May 1st, 2008, the American Psychiatric Association named its work group members appointed to revise the Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders in preparation for the DSM-V. Such a revision would include the entry for GID.
On the Task Force, named as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair, we find Dr. Kenneth Zucker, from Toronto’s infamous Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Clarke Institute). Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative (i.e. “ex-gayâ€) therapy to “cure†gender-variant children. Named to his work group, we find Zucker’s mentor, Dr. Ray Blanchard, Head of Clinical Sexology Services at CAMH and creator of the theory of autogynephilia, categorized as a paraphilia and defined as “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.â€
Julia Serano is a Bay Area slam-winning poet, author, performer, activist, & biologist. She organized the GenderEnders event from 2003 until last year; plays guitar, sings & writes lyrics for her band Bitesize, and oh – has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. We got to meet her when she was in town promoting her book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
(1) I loved Whipping Girl, for starters. I think it’s a pivotal work for trans communities, especially in building trans pride. But you know I kept waiting for you to actually define “feminine” – maybe if not for all time, but in some way that I could understand what you meant by it specifically. Your “barrette Manifesto” came close, except that I see barrettes as childish, not feminine per se. So can you help the genderblind like myself? What is femininity? Can you be feminine without being girly?
In the next to last chapter of the book, “Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism,†I talk about that a bit, but I’ll try to define it here a little more clearly. I would say that femininity is a heterogeneous set of traits (some of which are cultural in origin, some biological, some psychological, and many are a combination thereof). The only thing that all feminine traits have in common is that they are typically associated with women in our culture. But they certainly aren’t exclusive to women, as many men and MTF spectrum transgender folks also express feminine traits (similarly, many women express masculine rather than feminine traits). I think most of us tend to express some combination of both feminine and masculine traits.
SOUTHERN COMFORT CONFERENCE 2007
KEYNOTE ADDRESS – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15TH, 2007
One Community, One Family
by Jenn Burleton, TransActive Education & Advocacy, Portland, OR
Thank you to the organizers of this amazing conference and in particular, Cat Turner, Lola Fleck and Elaine Martin. And I must thank my longtime friend, Mariette Pathy Allen. My life has been truly blessed as a result of knowing her and sharing many adventures with her…some of which are suitable for sharing with the whole family.
When Cat Turner called back in January and invited me to come to Atlanta I was of course, very honored. I was also surprised. After all, we’d never met. I’d never attended a previous Southern Comfort Conference and I am not, in my opinion anyway, one of the gender community heavy hitters.
Continue reading “SoCo Keynote: Jenn Burleton”
Julia Serano, about Bailey, on Feministing today:
The fact is that when a self-appointed “expert†like Bailey claims that transsexual women transition for purely sexual reasons, and that they are lying if they state otherwise, people will believe him because of his academic/scientist status. The NY Times may try to frame the controversy surrounding Bailey’s book as an example of political correctness run amok, but the truth of the matter is that Bailey himself did exponentially more damage to the field of academic research when he misrepresented anecdotes and innuendos as though they were science.
* quote by Mara Keisling, when providing an alternative description of what Bailey’s book could be described as instead of as “science.”
This NPR show out of the Bay Area about the whole Bailey controversy is good listening. Joan Roughgarden (author of Evolution’s Rainbow), Mara Keisling (executive director of NCTE), Alice Dreger (author of Hermaphrodites & The Medical Invention of Sex) & Bailey himself.
& A challenging phone call from Ben Barres, who I love & who does not let Bailey not answer a direct question (with textual backup from Roughgarden), specifically, whether or not Bailey feels trans people are suited to prostitution.
The only thing that no-one said that someone should have said is that Bailey now has a history & a record of turning (at best) weak science into “controversy,” such as with the bisexuality studies that came out a couple of years ago.
I’m upset by the idea of how or if Dreger’s status as a woman – not just as an academic or intersex educator – is coming into play here. That is, is a man not sexist because a woman says he isn’t? (I don’t think so, but I think that’s coloring her defense of Bailey.)
& Now The NY Times has published an article about the whole Dreger/Bailey fiasco. It’s reasonably objective, even if the title of the article is ridiculously overblown.
Moreover, based on her own reading of federal regulations, Dr. Dreger. . . argued that the book did not qualify as scientific research. The federal definition describes “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation.â€
Dr. Bailey used the people in his book as anecdotes, not as the subjects of a systematic investigation, she reported.
Which makes it not scientific at all. Either that or someone owes me a Ph.D. for My Husband Betty.
So it seems that numbnut J. Michael Bailey has gotten more press, this time in a New York magazine article published in June that’s just now been picked up by feministing.com. Apparently Bailey, this time around, can tell whether someone’s gay by measuring their ring and index finger.
Next up: J. Michael Bailey gets taken seriously for telling people that they have the sissy gene by asking people whether they look at their nails by holding their hands palms down or if they bend the tops of their fingers over with their hands palms-up.