Zucker's GID therapy - DSM implications and deflections

Zucker's GID therapy - DSM implications and deflections
by Prof. M. Italiano, OII advisor on Variations of Sex Development
http://www.intersexualite.org/Zucker_GID_DSM.html

Here we find an odd article by Zucker and Spitzer. http://tinyurl.com/4ssbcl It should be noted, that the great majority of those presenting with extreme boyhood femininity in childhood do NOT grow up to be transsexual. This has been noted by Richard Green, Collette Chiland and suggested earlier by Ethel Person & Lionel Ovesey, Irving Bieber, Charles Socarides and Susan Coates. In the great majority of cases, these children when not treated, still do not become transsexual, but instead become gay. Thus, Zucker's therapy is not preventing transsexuality based upon their clinical presentation, since most of these types of boys would not develop into transsexuals, but are instead prototypical pre-homosexuals. If Zucker is not averting adult transsexualism as an outcome in the vast majority of these boys, since they are not pre-transsexual boys, but instead are pre-homosexual boys, what is Zucker's therapy doing? If these boys still become gay without therapy, can we also state that they would be gay even with Zucker's therapy? Again, what is Zucker actually achieving here, and where are the data which support his claims of the effectiveness of his therapy? If the great majority of boys who get diagnosed as having gender identity disorder of childhood and adolescence are pre-homosexual, then stating as do Zucker and Spitzer, that the clinical researchers had merit, in placing this diagnosis in the 1980 edition of the DSM (DSM III), is a "sin of omission". Why haven't subsequent "experts" included a disclaimer, in recent DSM editions, which states that this disorder is a misnomer, as gender identity is likely not what is affected?

Even though gender identity of disorder of childhood and adolescence usually does not become (with or without therapy) adult GID, is it left in there, as a mis-appropriated smokescreen, to pathologize transsexuals and transsexualism? After all, since most children diagnosed as having a GID of childhood are pre-homosexual, when they grow up to be adults, they will be "cured", since homosexuality has been long out of the DSM (since 1973). Thus, gay men who had a GID of childhood (labelling them as mentally disordered) will not have a mental disorder when they reach adulthood. But transsexuals have no such option, as they will receive a GID of adulthood diagnosis. So, the question is not so much if it is a "back door" maneuver for childhood GID to be in the DSM as a "substitute for adult homosexuality" (because when these boys grow up, they will be out of there anyways).

But, again, the question should be, is GID of childhood, which usually consists of "pre-homosexual men", actually remaining there, to misuse/diagnose gender identity (despite that some like Bailey claim not to know what it is in his "Queen"), as a smokescreen to pathologize adult transsexuals who DO fit the adult GID category and thus who DO get pathologically labelled well into adulthood? Perhaps, the pre-homosexuals making up the majority of those in the category of GID of childhood can't be claimed to have a sexual ORIENTATION disorder of childhood, since sexual orientation (homosexuality) has been taken out. But this problem, which is criticized as the "backdoor approach" to re-introducing homosexuality into the DSM as a pathology, is only secondary, to the "coincidence", that transsexuals (those whose gender identity IS affected) are the ones targeted as
pathological, and that pre-homosexuals (whose gender identity is not affected, but get a GID of childhood), set up the smokescreen as a 'deflection". If feminine pre-homosexual boys, who don't have a female gender identity, nonetheless behave in a feminine type way, why not call this gender ROLE disorder of childhood?

The literature is becoming packed with cases where gender role, but not gender identity, is supposedly affected. This is commonly applied to intersexed persons, who express dissatisfaction with their gender assignment. If it is claimed as for intersexed children with gender dysphoria who reject their assignment, they are "spared" from being diagnosed with GID of childhood/adolescence, or adult GID. They receive a diagnosis of GIDNOS-gender identity disorder not otherwise specified. But here again, they do not say these people have a gender ROLE disorder not otherwise specified, but a gender IDENTITY disorder not otherwise specified. Thus it suits these clinicians to pathologize their gender identity over and over again, by using the term gender IDENTITY instead of gender ROLE, when it suits their purpose, as persons like Zucker, try devising scales which supposedly "discriminate" gender identity for gender role. One can ask if the purpose of this, is diminish the voices of intersexed individuals and augment that of "professionals" treating them. But, still, for intersexed persons who end up being diagnosed as having GIDNOS, the problem here, is that they are in a category with those who are "preoccupied" with castration or penectomy and with those who transiently cross-dress due to stress.
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Curtis E. Hinkle
http://tinyurl.com/2kv4dw