Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is a clinical term referring to a persistent inability to accept one's own gender. Diagnostic criteria include: a persistent and strong cross-gender identification as well as a strong persistent discomfort about ones's assigned sex (gender dysphoria). While primarily diagnosed in children, cases of GID have also been identified in adolescents and adults. Intended as a diagnostic category to address problems experienced by transsexuals and transgendered patients, GID was first included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 1980.
There is an active controversy concerning use of the GID diagnosis and many activists argue for its removal from the DSM. They maintain that the existence of the diagnosis stigmatizes transgendered people (and, by association, all sexual minorities) by identifying GID as a mental illness. Other transgender activists acknowledge the value of the GID diagnosis for patients seeking sexual reassignment surgery. Treatment of GID patients has given rise to recommended standards of care although a formal consensus among health professionals has yet to be established.
As part of the ongoing process designed to release the revised version of the DSM in 2012, the American Psychiatric Association announced on May 1 that Dr. Ken Zucker of Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) would be the chair for the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders workgroup. Despite
his prominence in gender identity research, Dr. Zucker's appointment has met with opposition due to his advocacy of reparative therapy approaches for treating GID in children. Lesbian and gay activists have also voiced concern over articles that he has written which apparently link GID to homosexuality although this interpretation of his work remains controversial.
As a psychologist whose research focuses on gay male issues, I don't research gender, per se. I am familiar with the literature, however, and many of the notions that Zucker brings to the table, including the dichotomization of transsexuals into "homosexual" and "autogynophilic" types, is not without controversy. Additionally, there only small studies with numerous limitations that have lead to the conjecture that GID in children indicates the possibility of adult self-identification as gay. The controversy stems from the popular perception that Dr. Zucker views these relationships as currently established facts, or in the least the cutting edge of gender research, when they are certainly not the former and the latter is questionable. It will be interesting to see how this controversy unfolds.
Posted by: Dr. Matthew | June 06, 2008 at 06:05 PM
While it would be nice if the political dimension were removed and the scientific controversy allowed to be resolved in normal fashion, that seems unlikely. Time will tell.
Posted by: Romeo Vitelli | June 06, 2008 at 09:10 PM