It’s Time to Decertify DSM-5 and Reinstitute DSM-4
Rarely is there a discussion under what
authority can a biological male compete with biological females. World class tennis champion Martina Navratilova says “transgender
women” are ‘cheating’
if they compete in women’s sports. What is the authority whereby a biological
male can legally use the shower or restroom facilities or dressing rooms set
aside for biological females? The
problem is that there isn’t a law or an authority but rather the absence of terms
used to describe mental disorders, specifically, sexual disorders.
For decades, Transgenderism and Gender Identity Disorder had been
classified as mental disorders by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in
their Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The
DSM evolved from systems for collecting census and psychiatric hospital statistics, and from a United
States Army manual on mental illnesses. Revisions since its first publication in 1952
have incrementally added to the total number of mental disorders, and removed those no longer considered to be mental illnesses.
In December 2012, the APA quietly announced changes to their DSM. In version 5, Transvestitism, Transgenderism,
and Gender Identity Disorders were eliminated and replaced with a new term,
“gender dysphoria.” Dysphoria is the
distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they
were assigned at birth. With a stroke of
a pen, transvestitism, transgenderism, and gender identity disorder were no longer considered to be mental disorders.
In essence, the APA announced the
behaviors previously associated with transvestitism,
transgenderism, and gender identity disorders were now considered
“normal.” Based on the DSM-5, if you are
a male and identify as a female, this is now considered “normal.” This new “normal” defies logic and common
sense and one of the many unintended consequences of the APA’s cowardly actions
is that the new DSM is used as the authority for sports competitions, something
the APA never envisioned and the DSM was never designed for.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was
supposed to offer a common language and standard criteria for the
classification of mental disorders. It
was not designed to be misused to give biological males athletic advantages
over biological females. The most
important aspect of the DSM is that it “serves as a universal authority for
psychiatric diagnoses.” There are few
parts of America or the United Nations the DSM doesn’t touch or influence. “It is used, or relied upon, by clinicians,
researchers, psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies,
pharmaceutical companies, the legal system, and policy makers.” Athletic organizations are not listed.
In previous versions of the DSM,
where the behaviors associated with transvestitism,
transgenderism, and gender identity disorders were considered a mental
disorder, health insurance companies and hospitals would not authorize sexual
reassignment surgery for a mental illness, that corrective surgery was not
warranted. Those seeking sexual
reassignment had to pay for the surgery themselves either at a private clinic
or overseas. Prior to DSM-5, the appropriate
treatment for gender identity disorders was therapy. With the new DSM-5, no longer is gender
identity disorder considered a mental disorder.
Those people with previous gender identity disorders argued that they no
longer have a mental illness but they have a medically-correctable condition, just
like surgery is needed to correct a physical birth defect such as cleft lip and
palate.
There were many members of the APA who saw that the aggressive lobbying
efforts of LGBTQ and other sexual activists would result in a substantial body
of APA member psychiatrists kowtowing to the activists’ demands. In one of the most artful displays of a
mental illness, Dr.
Dana Beyer wrote of their successful lobbying of the APA, in The End of Transgender as a Mental Illness: “Our greatest
accomplishment on the Working Group was reconceptualizing the state of ‘being
trans’ from a mental illness to a normal human variant.” What the hell is a “normal human variant?” This is chapter and verse from the movie
Gaslight. Normal human “variants” don’t
pretend to be boys and race or wrestle girls.
Variants need therapy, not lessons on how to cheat in athletics.
There was more interest in changing the DSM to correct a perceived
social injustice than understanding and treating a longstanding mental
disorder. One side caved to social
injustice and agreed to eliminate sexual identity disorders from the DSM. The other side didn’t have the votes to stop
the madness.
Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns
Hopkins Hospital reiterated that transgenderism
is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is
“biologically impossible,” and “that people who promote sexual reassignment
surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.” Dr. McHugh was one of the losing 49% of the
over 9,000-strong APA whose vote failed to retain the DSM-4 standard regarding
sexual identity disorders.
“‘Sex
change’ is biologically impossible,” said Dr. McHugh. “People
who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice
versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and
encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote
a mental disorder.” Feminized men,
whatever they have done to them surgically or medically, can dress up in sports
bras and running shoes and play make believe female athletes but they are still
males competing against females. Martina
said it: “They are cheating.”
The DSM as the U.S. universal authority for psychiatric diagnoses
has been corrupted by external pressures. “Various authorities criticized that many
DSM-5 revisions or additions lack empirical support; inter-rater reliability is
low for many disorders; several sections contain poorly written, confusing, or
contradictory information; and the psychiatric drug industry unduly influenced
the manual's content. Many of the
members of work groups for the DSM-5 had conflicting interests, including ties
to pharmaceutical companies. Various
scientists have argued that the DSM-5 forces clinicians to make distinctions
that are not supported by solid evidence, distinctions that have major
treatment implications, including drug prescriptions and the availability of
health insurance coverage. General
criticism of the DSM-5 ultimately
resulted in a petition, signed by many mental health organizations,
which called for outside review of DSM-5.”
There’s only so much accomplished APA members, like Dr. Paul R.
McHugh, can do against a social justice steamroller. The APA and their DSM have been fully
compromised and is now subject to social engineering, undue influence, and new
definitions that are not supported by the evidence.
If you thought you had problems with men in your daughter’s locker
room or men winning women’s track events, wait until the LGBTQ activists are
able to remove their next offending personality disorder, pedophilia, from the
DSM. Without their parent’s knowing, transgenders
and transvestites in drag are
reading to children across the country, in schools and
libraries. In Nicole Russel’s article, Forget Mr. Rogers: Drag Queen Reading
Hour coming to a library near you, “It’s
one thing for drag queens or transsexuals to lobby for equality via marches and
even legislation. It’s quite another to
show up at a taxpayer-funded facility and showcase a very abnormal lifestyle as
healthy, common, and educational.” Kids
coming from these events suddenly tell their folks they identify as another
sex. Where do you think they get that
from?
The Trump administration needs to take the APA to court and
decertify the compromised DSM-5 as the universal authority for psychiatric
diagnoses in the United States and reject the APA’s guidance and the DSM-5 as
the source reference for mental illnesses. Secretary of Health and Human services, Alex
Azar, should suspend the DSM-5, institute an immediate return to the DSM-4
standard, and form a working group to determine the need for a system of
cataloging and diagnosing mental disorders that are not subject to the whims of
political activists.
The federal government federalized airport security when they
learned it had been fully compromised by a hostile and aggressive force whose
sole goal was to destroy American culture.
The APA has been fully compromised by a rabid group of sexual activists
and the DSM needs to be federalized and managed as a “national standard.” A national diagnostic and statistical manual should
not be subject to social justice and party politics influence.