Top secret military intelligence briefings prepared by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and often hand-delivered to George W. Bush featured Crusades-like Bible quotes above triumphant photos of the U.S. military effort in Iraq.Less than one month after U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, a "Worldwide Intelligence Update" reached then-President Bush with the following quote on the cover of the briefing, above photos of jubilant Iraqi crowds in newly liberated Baghdad: "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him...To deliver their soul from death."
One week earlier, on April 3, 2003, another of these reports reached Bush, and its cover contained a passage from the book of Proverbs: "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."
This coming Monday, GID Reform Now is protesting at the American Psychiatric Association 2009 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California.
This fight over GID is much like the lesbian, gay, and bisexual fight over the DSM-I and DSM-II inclusion of Homosexuality. When one's sexuality was listed as a mental health disorder, then there is stigma attached -- Homosexuality > was not included in DSM-III and beyond.
But, GID may be included in DSM-V. Many trans activists believe this is wrong.
This is what GIDReformNOW, a group of GID Reform Activists, want:
We call for:1. A more representative Work Group
The APA Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders is currently compromised by some members who have clear conflicts of interest in retaining and expanding specific diagnoses they have been involved in creating or promoting.
We urge the APA to expand the Work Group to represent more diverse views from behavioral science, bioethics, and philosophy of science.
2. A published position statement from APA
APA has often shifted public policy and perception through the publication of approved position statements. We urge the APA to state that diagnosing normal variants of human gender identity and expression as psychiatric disorders encourages an adversarial relationship between psychiatry and sex and gender minorities. We also urge the APA to state that these diagnoses are misused by some people outside of psychiatry who wish to deny civil rights to trans and gender-variant people.
What we advocate
Transgender health services should be viewed as a medical necessity. Published outcomes from the past 50 years show that access to trans health services and harm reduction initiatives improve trans people's lives and mental health.
Trans health services can be provided without diagnosing gender identity and expression as disordered. We believe any clinical distress may arise from attempts to suppress, shame, or "cure" social or somatic gender expression.
Evidence-based medicine and long-term outcome data related to sexual and gender minorities should be the focus of any diagnostic revisions. Discussions should include published work in related fields, including behavioral science, bioethics, and philosophy of science.
To learn more about these important issues, please visit GIDreformNOW.com.
The American Psychiatric Association can view sexual and gender minorities as having psychosexual pathology (i.e. Erotomania, Paraphilia, Fetishism, etc.), psychopathology (i.e. Gender Identity Disorder, etc.), pathology (i.e. birth defect, etc.), or natural human diversity (gender variance, neurological variance, etc.).
Personally, I believe in embracing the concept that sexual and gender minorities are part of natural human diversity, and the treatment model should look similar to what Kell Kelley Winters has proposed on gidreform.org.
I'll be posting a diary or two related to the protest event over the next few days.
Remember just a few days ago when Pam reported the arrest of Alan Keyes for protesting Obama's future commencement speech at Notre Dame?
Well, sure enough and rather predictably, Alan decided today to see if he could get a "two-fer". Maybe he likes the food in South Bend's lockup:
Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes was among scores arrested as anti-abortion activists continued daily marches on to the University of Notre Dame campus to protest President Obama's commencement speech Sunday.
More details here:
Former Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes and 21 other protesters were arrested this morning when they refused to leave the Notre Dame campus during a protest of President Obama's upcoming commencement address there, authorities said.Keyes and the others were arrested on trespassing charges when they refused to leave campus, a university spokesman said. All 22 were being held in the St. Joseph County Jail on misdemeanor criminal trespass charges, in lieu of $250 bond each, said St. Joseph County Sheriff's Sgt. Bill Redman.
Keyes was among a group of 26 protesters, some of them pushing baby carriages with dolls covered in fake blood, who entered the campus and were greeted by Notre Dame police, said university spokesman Dennis Brown.
The protesters had "publicized their intentions in advance," and were handed notices advising them that university policy bans protests unless they are organized by student groups and approved in advance, Brown said.
University policy is to arrest anyone who refuses to leave campus after being notified of the policy, and Keyes and other protesters who stayed were arrested about 12:15 p.m. Eastern Time, he said.
The first protester was booked on a trespassing charge at the St. Joseph County Jail at 1:14 p.m., Redman said. The protesters were a mix of local residents and others from out of state, he said.
Activists including Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion rights group Operation Rescue, who was arrested at the campus last Friday, have begun targeting the school for protests in recent weeks.
Apparently one arrest this week was enough for Terry...
Subscribe to Reader feed
Subscribe to daily Email
No comments:
Post a Comment