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 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...
Let me be the first to say... Holy Smoke!
CAMBRIDGE -- A fire broke out this morning during a meeting at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints outside Harvard Square in Cambridge, sending members spilling out onto the street.The blaze, which hit three alarms, began at 10:37 a.m. in the church at at 4 Longfellow Park, off Brattle Street, according to Cambridge Fire Department Supervisor Kirk Warner. No injuries have been reported.
According to Cambridge Fire Chief Gerald Reardon, the fire, which was fought with 22 engines, seven ladder companies, and about 80 firefighters, was brought under control sometime after noon. Reardon said the fire started in the attic, but he did not know the cause.
An extra-large crowd of about 300 were in attendence at the time. No one was hurt in the blazeblaze.
More below the fold.
More photos of the blaze and crowds here. Pretty darned white crowd here, folks.
Bishop Paul Dredge, said by phone from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Belmont, that the loss of the church would be hard for the members."This is very sad for people who have a history with this building," he said.
The meeting this morning was an unusual event, said Dredge, who is leader of the Arlington-based Ward (the Mormon term for congregation) in Belmont. The members were attending a conference during which leadership from Salt Lake City was broadcasting to churches all over the country. The meeting started a half-hour before the fire broke out.
Rebecca Sansom, 29, of Cambridge, is director of the Family History Center at the church, which she said is a geneological research center not just for the church but for the general public. It is a satellite to the main research center in Salt Lake City, which keeps backups for the information, she said.
"It's terrible, sad, horrible to watch it burn down like this," said Sansom. "This has been a centerpiece of LDS in New England for a very long time. It's been a center of activity for years and years.
The building was dedicated in the early 1950s, according to Dredge, and it currently houses three wards. The first ward consists of single undergraduates from area colleges, and the other two wards are made up of young adult singles, ages 25 to 30.
"We are anxious for young people in our church to find each other, and make marriages," said Dredge.
All the quicker to make new little members, I bet.
But wasn't it just yesterday we learned from the ever-wise and all-knowing sage RNC Chair MC Steele that marriage hurts small business?
Steele might want to talk to the Mormons about his theory and the LDS Church's, um, "anxiousness"...
The resolution condemns a recent hate crime in Seaside (note: article includes images that may be distressing). Two young men, visiting the Oregon coast on vacation from Washington state, were assaulted simply because of their sexual orientation. Thanks to the leadership of Seaside police, the case was immediately classified as a hate crime.
Although Oregon law prohibits hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, it is imperative to stand together as a community and denounce hate crimes whenever and wherever they occur.
It also calls upon Congress and the President to pass the Matthew Shepard Act, which would ban anti-LGBT hate crimes nationwide. Although Oregon is fortunate to have a strong hate crimes law, many states aren't so lucky. The Matthew Shepard Act would make it clear that hate crimes against anyone, anywhere, at any time, are always unacceptable in the United States.
HJM 22 now heads to the House floor for a full vote by all 60 representatives. It will need lots of grassroots support to pass. Help us condemn hate crimes and pass the Matthew Shepard Act. Write your Representative TODAY!
Want more information? Read the full text of HJM 22 here.
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