Controlling the definitions. Controlling the right to be.
by Curtis E. Hinkle
17 May 2008
Summary: Zucker, Blanchard and Cohen-Kettenis, influential members of this committee, will control the definitions, i.e. diagnoses. GID could be redefined as a SEX disorder which could make it problematic for therpaists to recommend any reassignment treatments for individuals under their care.
The DSM controls the definitions not the treatments
The DSM is concerned with diagnoses, not treatments per se. However, that is why people that are ideologically motivated with very little, if any, empirical data to support their theories should not be placed in charge of the definitions or diagnoses. Here is the problem. Drucker will have input into the DIAGNOSES, not the treatments (and I am convinced that these people have more in common with his thinking than people are aware of. I know that Dr. Peggy T. Cohen- Kettenis has changed drastically in the last few years after becoming influenced with Zucker's ideology). But the treatments are not the issue for Zucker and many of these people that have been influenced by him. In my opinion, they want NO TREATMENTS. I am convinced that the motivation is to tie the hands of those who would desire to provide treatments and they might be able to do that by controlling the definitions, i.e. the diagnoses. In other words, if the members of this committee, some of which I know have been influenced by the views of Zucker which are that gender identity, as opposed to gender role, is extremely malleable, even more malleable than sexual orientation (and I don't accept this because I have read studies which would indicate just the opposite which appear to have more empirical data to support them), then reassignment may eventually become almost impossible, if not outright impossible in the years to come.
The theory that Blanchard et al. are expounding has two key elements which will have enormous impact on redefining transsexuality in such a way that
1) it is NOT really a GENDER identity disorder at all and
2) with ONLY TWO categories possible for all people with "gender confusion" which appears to be the word that is becoming more and more common with intersex people (the term used by Dr. Peggy T. Cohen-Kettenis in writing about intersex people with different intersex variations) and I feel it will become more common when speaking of persons that previously were "gender dysphoric" or with a "GID"
Conflating “gender confusion” in people with intersex variations with trans issues
Using intersex to reinforce the idea of “gender confusion” is invalid in my opinion. It can be confusing to be intersex in a world that is structured in such a way that we don't fit in and if we learn to express ourselves in languages which by their structure makes it almost impossible to have a "hermaphroditic" essence narrative. Blanchard has taken the term that Dreger used "feminine essence narrative" (which she triviliazes by citing Bailey who asks – what the hell a gender identity is) and prefers "feminine essence theory". He does not accept such a theory. Here is the problem that neither Dreger nor Blanchard deal with: an essence narrative is based on how a child uses language to relate their own sense of self – how they use the verb "to be" to identify themselves and describe themselves.
Rejecting the right of the person to affirm their own essence narrative
There is no other way to describe an "essence" objectively than to analyze the way the child is constructing sentences with the verb "to be". What I find disturbing is that these "experts" including Dr. Cohen-Kettenis are not dealing with the possibility that many people with intersex variations develop what Stoller wrote about many years ago – a 'hermaproditic identity". Instead of considering that possibility, what one reads about is "gender confusion". What is confusing is that an intersex child has no possibility in any European language to conceptualize any identity other than male or female and the society in which the child lives reflects this same structure – it is bigendered: men and women. This is confusing to many intersex children. However, drawing conclusions about gender identity from intersex children is very confusing itself because I have learned from listening to people who transition who had no known intersex variation that they were usually very clear about their sex, something which is not typical of many intersex children depending on the intersex variation. Another element of confusion is caused because these "experts" overlook that the reason that intersex children often don’t reject their assigned sex is that the "gender identity" is in fact more flexible because many of us do have what is an undefined gender identity (something which is very different from transsexualism) so we can often live as either sex and the reasons for an intersex person rejecting an assignment can have NOTHING to do with gender identity at all. The reason can simply be the body has developed in another direction inconsistent with the original assignment.
I know from reading Blanchard, Zucker and Dr. Peggy T. Cohen- Kettenis that they all have similar ideas now and their ideas are problematic for people who are assigned one sex which is incompatible with their well-being and wish to reject that sex assignment.
Redefining intersex as a mental sex disorder
Berenbaum collaborated with Bailey in what was billed as the "Tomboy Project" which studied CAH-girls. I am convinced that in the future we will have a category called "autoandrophilia" and this is where I have a real ax to grind with people who have no empirical data to support such theories but who are given this power to DEFINE what "gender identity" is because they don't believe in "essence narratives". If you don't believe in essence narratives, then as a linguist I would conclude that you do not believe what anyone says about themselves unless it meets your expectations of what they SHOULD say about themselves. This is dangerous and it puts patients in a catch-22. Only the expert knows what you are – you don't. Since I am not exclusively androdphilic or gynephilic, I could be redefined as an "autoandrophile." I am convinced that people with 5-alpha reductase will be among the first "rejectors' of male assignments (and that is the assignment for 5-alpha reductase in early infancy according the DSD consensus) to be defined as autogynephiles. These "experts" are conflating sex variations with mental disorders with no understanding of the experience of the intersex people's own "essence" because they have not been listening. They have been shouting over any objections that MANY of us have been trying to say.
Homosexuality would have to be repathologized if Zucker and Blanchard et al. redefine transsexuality
Now, if GID is not about gender but SEX, and there are only two diagnoses, one of which is based on HOMOSEXUALITY, what treatments can be ethically justified by therapists if homosexuality is NOT also reintroduced as a TREATABLE disorder? If you include autogynephilia, then you have to include homosexuality because the theory that Blanchard and others are propagating posits that there must also be "trans" people motivated by homosexual orientation (and ONLY those two categories). This erases intersex and trans experience and the essential definitions that we often use to give meaning to our own sense of being – our own definitions of ourselves and if we are not allowed to define ourselves within the system to the best of our ability, then I don't see anyway to improve our well-being within that system – only further marginalization and stigma.
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