I know this sounds totally bass-ackwards coming from my mouth, but I'm totally cool with GID being in the DSM and with people being (properly) diagnosed with it.

Before you all start yelling at me saying how being gender-different isn't a disorder, it's just the way we are, let me say... I AGREE WITH YOU. As someone who was born with girlie parts, who was assigned the gender female, but is genderfluid, I know better than most that sometimes I'm a girl, sometimes I'm a boy, and mostly I'm just me, which is more boy than girl.

Then why do I want it in the DSM? Why do I want people to be diagnosed with it?

Because lots of us need therapy dealing with our genders (NOT to change us, but to help us navigate them, and to help us navigate a society that sucks re: our genders), and plenty of people who are FtM and MtF would like to have hormones and/or surgery.

But you know what? INSURANCES WON'T COVER THESE THINGS W/O A DIAGNOSIS. No diagnosis = no diagnosis code = no appropriate treatment. No therapy. No hormones. No surgery. As someone who's gone through years of therapy, and often times have had to deal with BS diagnoses on paper just so I could get the therapy I desperately needed, I understand this more than most. (Not to mention being someone whose Mom worked as an office manager and did all the billing and insurance company work in a large psychiatric practice for many many years.)

So before trying to get rid of GID, how about changing the insurance system so that trans issues are covered? Because right now, I know lots of folks are fighting for trans stuff to be covered at all.

Or, of course, there's always the other option. The controversial one that I'm not supposed to talk about. (But I'm going to anyway, even though I'm terrified I'm going to lose some of my friends.) Which is the option that maybe it is a disorder... BUT THAT'S OK. There's this prevalent thought that if you have a disease or a disorder, that it's BAD and that it must be removed, or at least managed and the person pitied.

As a person who's had to live with a disorder all hir life, and who's been diagnosed with one since age 8, I've TOTALLY fought with the whole self-esteem + acceptance of what I have thing. I've totally gone "if what I am is ok, if there's 'nothing wrong with me', how come there's clearly something wrong with me? " Fuck, I STILL struggle with this. (Ask morningboon about the freaking out, screaming and crying.)You may say left, right and center that being ADHD is ok, or even that there's "no such thing; rather, a society that's not set up for you", but it NEVER changes the fact that I still have my symptoms, and I STILL struggle with everyday tasks. And when you're in the middle of breaking down because you can't do something stupid and simple, it's hard to remember that you are still an ok person.

I think the problem is we equate "ok person" with "normal"... STILL. Despite our acceptance of diversity, we still want to see that diversity as "normal". Which I understand. But I also realize that some things AREN'T normal, and what's fucking wrong with that? Why is it that not normal is judged as bad, and normal is judged as good? Why can't we say "I'm abnormal, and I'm good." and "I'm not normal, and I'm ok."? Normal doesn't mean good or even ok. Think of it more like "average" or "standard deviation". (Would that be sigma 0 or sigma 1? That is, what's the top of the bell curve called? I forget.)

With transgender/GID, the truth is, external gender DOESN'T match internal gender. And so some corrections need to be made. AND WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IS THE EXTERNAL GENDER, *NOT* WHAT'S INSIDE. Saying that "nothing's wrong" and "we're fully normal" is screwing ourselves over. There IS something wrong, and many transpeople know it. Their outsides don't match their insides. But that being wrong DOESN'T mean it's BAD. And it doesn't mean we need to fix the insides to match the outsides. Society has tried that, and it doesn't work. (Not to mention in our world we find it a lot more distasteful to try to change someone's personality than their bodies... or have we? [Therapy does seem to be more acceptable than body mods.]) We've found that matching the outsides to the insides works a hell of a lot better, so it's what we do. We don't do "reparative therapy", we play with hormones and clothing and surgery to correct what Nature got wrong, or however you choose to put it.

So, yeah, maybe trans IS a disorder. I mean, it's clear the outsides don't match the insides. But the disordered part is the OUTSIDE, not the inside.

And for those who feel that they don't want it to be called a disorder because of the shame associated with disorders... what about me and my ADHD? And my depression? And my Seasonal Affective Disorder? If I have to live with at least 2 mental disorders and learn to be ok with myself despite that horrible word, perhaps you can learn to be ok with yourself despite that diagnosis. How is it fair to me? By you saying that you need to get rid of the word "disorder" in the term, you're saying that there's something wrong with having a disorder. Which implies that there's something wrong with me having ADHD, SAD, and whatever other Ds, which brings us back around to "if there's nothing wrong with me, why is there something wrong with me?". Nowhere in the word "disorder" is there a word that means "bad". There are parts that mean "lack of order". (And, once again, we assign the value judgement "good" to "order", and let me tell you... as a naturally disordered ADHD person [I can't keep anything tidy, chaos feels better to me than too much order], I get real fucking sick of that value judgement.)

And for those whom the diagnosis doesn't actually help, who are just gender-variant but don't require any kind of physical correction, because they're ok with their bodies, because they're just tomboys or femmeguys, I'm sorry you got misdiagnosed.

And for those who are genderqueer or genderfluid or simply no-ho, no-op, but still feel like the body is wrong, then good on you for choosing (or having to live with) the body you have.

And for those who are genderqueer or genderfluid or no-ho, no-op but are ok with the bodies they have, then good on you for being ok with your body.

I guess in the end I'm saying that if we're going to keep GID as a diagnosis, then the problem isn't having GID as a diagnosis, but the problem is the way it was treated in the past. Remember, diagnoses don't necessarily have to be thrown out... you can just change the treatment.

EDIT: The more I'm learning about the specifics of GID, the more I'm learning how it can be used to screw gender-variant kids over. I think the diagnosis as it lays would be more helpful to be used for adults only. And the whole part of (paraphrased) "causes distress in the home or workplace", whereas that's standard criteria for other disorders, and works well for them (which is why I do actually support paraphilias being in the DSM... but that's another post I'm going to post momentarily), can't really be an accurate assessor when you're talking about a behavior that's considered (wrongly) socially unacceptable. It's society that's fucked up here, not the person.

Questions? Comments (hopefully not too hateful)? Lemme at them!

No, really, I haven't gone right wing on you all here. I swear. Let me explain.

So, as I know it, the DSM only considers paraphilias (kinks & fetishes) to be harmful under the context of causes distress in everyday life [and that needs to be distress from actual interference, not just a society that doesn't get it] or involves non-consenting parties (pedophilia, frotteurism, etc.). Some people have paraphilias that really are mental disorders for them... it really DOES screw with their lives. (And, of course, having therapy to get rid of these paraphilias doesn't work, just like trying to do reparative therapy to remove YOUR perfectly ok fetish won't work. The best you can do is keep the harmful fetishes under control.) But most people have fetishes and kinks that don't apply under that criteria, and therefore are perfectly ok. And that's the reason I won't sign the NCSF's petition on removing paraphilias from the DSM. (BTW, to those not in the know, the NCSF is the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. The best way I can describe them to my hacker friends is that they're the sex/kink/poly equivalent of the EFF. [And to my sex friends, the EFF, or the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is the NCSF of online and digital rights & freedoms.]) The NCSF's heart is totally in the right place, don't get me wrong here, but they don't realize the specifics of it, and how it would cause harm. People with paraphilias that have actually taken over their lives need help getting their lives back. To not be able to do that anymore would cause more harm than good. (See: my previous post and "no diagnosis = no diagnosis code = no insurance coverage") (Also, removing paraphilias from the DSM would mean that predatory paraphilias would end up being removed as well, and I know that's not what the NCSF had in mind. Granted, I don't know all the details of their petition, but I hope it at least includes a part that would keep things like pedophilia in there.)

However... if I have my knowledge of what's in the DSM wrong and it really does consider them ALL to be mental illness or harmful, then the definition needs to be updated or changed, but NOT removed.

I encourage others to do research themselves and to decide for themselves. And if they decide as I have, I encourage them to contact the NCSF and let them know why they're against it. And if it turns out that the DSM needs to be changed, I encourage people to contact the NCSF and ask them to change the main focus of their cause drive to CHANGING the DSM diagnosis instead of removing it completely.