Response to Dr. Jack Drescher and the NY Times About Childhood Transition: Part 7, by Halle Sheppard

GID Reform Advocates respond to the question, “When a child identifies with the other gender, what to do?” Dr. Jack Drescher’s commentary on the Coy Mathis Civil Rights Case in Colorado appeared in the Sunday Dialogues Feature of the June 29, 2013 New York Times. Here is the discussion that the Times did not publish.

A Guest Post by
Halle Sheppard,
a Colorado Mother
Transgender Youth Education & Support
PFLAG Boulder County

A little girl!! My husband and I so wanted this girl. We had a son and all our siblings had sons, and as long as we had decided to adopt, why not have a girl?! All her aunts bought her the cutest girlie clothes, and I loved to dress her in them. But as soon as our daughter was 3 years old and could tell us what she preferred, she wore her brother’s hand me downs, definitely not dresses, and a boy’s bathing suit. Though my husband struggled with this a bit, it made little difference to me. This was a child with some pretty big attachment issues. All I wanted was a happy kid who would sleep at night.

Imagine my surprise, when during a routine follow up 15 minutes at the end of my 6 year old child’s therapy appointment (which she attended to deal with some attachment issues), the therapist mentioned that she suspected that my child was transgender. She said she had no formal training in diagnosing this but did have some experience working with another family.

What does that mean to be transgender?? As a well educated 40 something living in liberal Boulder, CO you’d think I should know. And maybe I knew a bit or heard about it, but not really. Not really what it meant to have a child who didn’t just dress and act like a boy, but who wanted to be a boy.

We did not treat our daughter any differently after the mention of this from his therapist. At first we were definitely in denial. Eventually, after suggestions from the therapist (so we could be more prepared), my husband and I bought some recommended books and started reading. It was certainly possible our “tomboy” was in fact transgender: the boy’s bathing suits and boxer shorts; the toys and play mates; the absolute distress at being told she would have to wear a dress to a friend’s wedding. The therapist was specific that our child would come to us with her feelings, so we followed that advice and did nothing and just waited.

We did not have to wait long. A few weeks after school (1st grade) was over in June, about 3 to 4 months after the first mention from the therapist, my daughter marched into the kitchen and declared “I would like to be a boy. Not just dress as one, but really be one.” (Oh, did I mention when he was almost 4, he asked me “when do I grow up to be a boy, mom?”) It was all coming together now. Because I was so prepared for this day, and my husband and I had read enough and discussed enough to understand where our kiddo was coming from, I was able to look him (from here on as I write I will use male gender pronouns) in the eye and tell him that this was fine. We could find a new name immediately and make the transition. I hugged him and held him, but as a parent what I really wanted to do was cry (which I did often privately) and tell him what a difficult life choice this would be; how I would always worry about him being socially accepted…..but of course, not something to worry your 7 year old with.

Why would a parent choose a difficult path for their child? And not just for that child but for the whole family. Difficult decisions, awkward conversations with parents on the little league field and your child’s older sibling having to face his 10 year old friends with this news. Life was pretty rough for all of us for a while. We face strife all of the time. Each time we travel and have to use our son’s legal name, which is a girls’ name, or walk into a doctor’s office and worry they will call him the wrong name. Often, friends and relatives we do not see regularly still use the old name. My husband and I have spent considerable time and energy learning about medications and hormone treatments. It stresses our marriage and our finances! We have both had to have considerable talks with our family members to help them understand. It is a huge burden and some days I want to cry and say “It isn’t fair!!! Why me?! Why do I have to deal with this?!”

But we have also learned the alternative to not letting your child transition and be who he or she wants is devastating and can be fatal. So if you love your child and want them to be happy, why wouldn’t you let them transition? That is our plan. We will help with this, support him, allow the use of blockers to prolong the time until a more permanent decision has to be made. We will share all the options with our child. When he seems unsure, we remind him that he does not need to make any decision yet and that we are ready to help him either way. And that if he chooses to be a boy we will love him the same as the girl we adopted.

He is now 9 years old and has socially transitioned to being a boy. He uses the boy’s restroom and a family changing room. His school mates and friends have been 100% accepting. We know it will get harder and more challenging when we leave our small, open elementary school, but this is his choice and we, as his parents, are here to support him.

Response to Dr. Jack Drescher and the NY Times About Childhood Transition: Part 6, by Sam Winter

GID Reform Advocates respond to the question, “When a child identifies with the other gender, what to do?” Dr. Jack Drescher’s commentary on the Coy Mathis Civil Rights Case in Colorado appeared in the Sunday Dialogues Feature of the June 29, 2013 New York Times. Here is the discussion that the Times did not publish.

A Guest Post from
Sam Winter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong

Generation G Paranoia.

Coy Mathis clearly identifies as a girl. It was a matter of continuing pain to her that she was not fully recognized and respected as one. The decision of the Colorado civil rights division that she be allowed to use the girls’ bathroom at school went a long way to providing that recognition and respect.

The child’s perspective is entirely missing in Dr. Drescher’s commentary. What, one may ask, would Coy have preferred her parents and school to do about her female identity? Would she have preferred them to allow her to express her femaleness and to be the person she so deeply felt herself to be? Or would she have preferred them to discourage, even prevent, her from expressing her femaleness and add to her pain.

The Times piece reflects an anxiety that the world is full of trans affirmative parents who, seeing the slightest sign of gender-nonconformity in their children, overzealously egg them on into a full transition. This line of reasoning promotes a fear that we may lose a whole generation of youngsters who, if only they had not been so enthusiastically pressed into transitioning, would have turned out to be happily adjusted ‘cisgender’ (that is to say, NOT transgender) gays and lesbians.

What we have here is the fear of a lost gay generation… Generation ‘G’.

When I see them on television, I wonder what will happen when the little boy who is socially transitioned with the mother’s encouragement at the age of 9 decides that he wants to be a boy after all but that he still likes other little boys.
–E mail from Senior WHO HQ Staff, 5th Jan 12013

As this quote illustrates, fear about a lost Generation ‘G’ influences international medical policymakers, who continue to argue that kids like Coy have a disorder that requires medical intervention to put a brake on “overzealous” parents and ensure that more of these kids will grow up to be cisgender gays or lesbians.

Generation ‘G’ fear has little basis in reality. It is more like a paranoia. First, one wonders where these overzealously trans affirmative parents are. Parents like Coy’s agonise long and hard over what they should do to help their transgender children. They don’t make these decisions lightly. Second, kids like Coy spend years pressing for their identities to be respected. There is no reason to think they would hesitate, if ever there was a need, to express a desire to ‘go back’ to their birth-assigned roles. To prevent Coy from  enjoying, right now, the fullest possible recognition of who she is would have been cruel, inhuman and degrading. To do so, just because of some hypothetical fear that she may later want to live as a boy and mysteriously lose her ability to tell anyone, would have been irresponsible. The Colorado civil rights division made the right decision.

Dr Sam Winter is an Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the board of directors of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the World Health Organization (WHO) Working Group on Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health. He has been working in rights and health for transgender people for more than 13 years.

Response to Dr. Jack Drescher and the NY Times About Childhood Transition: Part 5, by Mary van Balen

GID Reform Advocates respond to the question, “When a child identifies with the other gender, what to do?” Dr. Jack Drescher’s commentary on the Coy Mathis Civil Rights Case in Colorado appeared in the Sunday Dialogues Feature of the June 29, 2013 New York Times. Here is the discussion that the Times did not publish.

A Guest Post from
Mary van Balen
Mother, Author, Columnist, Speaker

The New York Times publication of Dr. Jack Drescher’s letter in its July 30 print edition under the headline: Sunday Dialogue: Our Notions of Gender, has generated much response in the paper, on websites, and on blogs, including this one. I have followed the conversation, appreciated the clinical expertise, and would like to add my perspective. I am the mother of a transsexual daughter, now an adult, who lived for twenty-five years with her “secret” telling me only when she had to choose between suicide or finally accepting herself as she was. We spent hours in the family room as she summoned the courage to speak the truth she had known for so long but had kept hidden: “I hate my body. I always have. Do you know what gender dysphoria is? Well, that’s what I have.”

The words stunned. I had imagined other possibilities, but not that. My knowledge of GID was rudimentary. Images that came to mind were of make-up slathered characters in movies or television shows, generally sleazy types. And there was a person I had seen singing in Provincetown whose male face and female attire who made me uncomfortable. “Not my quiet son, the bright physicist,” I thought. This didn’t happen to people like “us.” I had a steep learning curve ahead.

That process included long talks with my daughter, who once out to me, was willing to share stories of her growing up years. Many of them broke my heart. I thought of them as I read Dr. Drescher’s letter and the responses.

“If only I had known,” I thought when my now twenty-something daughter told me that she knew she was a girl since she was three and in first grade at a Catholic school dreamed of a “magic uniform” that would change her into one. As she talked I remembered her playing dress-up with her younger sisters and loving to clomp around the house in glittering silver high heels. I didn’t know that she had also been making up ballets wearing a pink tutu. I didn’t know she was suicidal in sixth grade.

But what if I had known? In the early 80’s what kind of advice would have been given to me? What would I have done? I like to think I would have been accepting, encouraging even. At home, we gave dolls and trucks to all the kids. We encouraged our daughters and son to explore the creek, climb the trees and experiment with chemistry sets as well as cookie recipes. But having a child tell you “he” is a girl stretches a parent well beyond those attempts at gender-neutral play. Would I have stood up against the social norms of the day?

As my daughter and I continued sharing, she lamented not having had the chance to grow up as a girl. She missed all that socializing. “It would’ve helped a lot,” she said as she struggled to move into the world of women with a history of trying to fit into the world of men.

Dr. Drescher’s statement that “Currently experts can’t tell apart kids who outgrow gender dysphoria (desisters) from those who don’t (persisters)…” seems strange to me. My transsexual daughter’s feelings and her positive sense of gender identity by the age of three, are not the same as the desires and feelings of a boy who likes to play with girls toys or dress up.

I read the story of Coy Mathis and applaud the Colorado Civil Rights Division for ruling that she be allowed to use the girl’s restroom. California’s move to allow children K-12 to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity is a step in the right direction. We should listen to the children and follow their lead. Perhaps then there will be fewer who will lament not having had the opportunity to grow up as the person they know themselves to be and fewer adult transsexuals who look at life and consider opting out of it a good choice.

Mary van Balen is an author, columnist, and speaker with a B.S.S.W. and M.A. in Theology. She has worked with abused, single mothers in a family literacy program and served as a curriculum director for an afterschool program for at risk students. She speaks on issues of transsexuality from a parent’s perspective and will be presenting on issues of transgender youth at the national convention of the Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministries in New Orleans. She was a resident scholar the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical & and Cultural Research where she worked on her current writing project: “Julia All Along: A Mother’s Journey with her Transsexual Daughter.”

Response to Dr. Jack Drescher and the NY Times About Childhood Transition: Part 4, from the Child and Adolescent Gender Center Clinic

GID Reform Advocates respond to the question, “When a child identifies with the other gender, what to do?” Dr. Jack Drescher’s commentary on the Coy Mathis Civil Rights Case in Colorado appeared in the Sunday Dialogues Feature of the June 29, 2013 New York Times. Here is the discussion that the Times did not publish.

A Guest Post from the
Child and Adolescent Gender Center
San Francisco, CA

To the NYT Editors:
June 26, 2013
Dear Editors:

We celebrate the landmark decision by the Colorado Civil Rights Division which allows children to use school facilities in accordance with the gender they know themselves to be. Their decision is consistent with the goals of the affirmative model of gender health–to facilitate a child’s opportunity to live in the gender that feels most real or comfortable to that child and to express that gender with freedom from restriction, aspersion, or rejection. So many of us confuse gender identity–who we are on the spectrum of male to female or another gender entirely–with gender expressions–how we show our gender to the world. There are a small number of children, like Coy Mathis, who let us know at a very early age that they are not the sex that was assigned to them on their birth certificate; that their gender identity is different. Like Coy, these children are persistent, consistent, and insistent about who they are. They are to be distinguished from the children who accept their gender label assigned to them but don’t accept our social rules about boys and girls and how they should act, dress, and play—their gender expressions are unique. Can we tell those two groups of children apart? Not perfectly, but with pretty good accuracy if we spend the time to listen to them and translate what they are saying to us. The Colorado Civil Rights Division did just that in listening to at least one of those children, and in its ruling blazing the trail for children to live authentically in the gender they know themselves to be. When we consider the alternative, that a child sits home because school won’t let them be themselves, how could we do otherwise?

Joel Baum, M.S., Director of Education
Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., Director of Mental Health
Stephen Rosenthal, M.D., Medical Director
Ilana Sherer, M.D., Assistant Medical Director
Child and Adolescent Gender Center
San Francisco, CA

The Child and Adolescent Gender Center (CAGC), a collaboration between UCSF and community organizations, offers comprehensive medical and psychological care, as well as advocacy and legal support, to gender non-conforming/transgender youth and adolescents.

400 Parnassus Ave., Second Floor
San Francisco, CA 94143
Appointments: (415) 353-7337
Fax: (415) 476-8214 (Attention: Dr. Stephen Rosenthal)
http://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.org/clinics/child_and_adolescent_gender_center/

Response to Dr. Jack Drescher and the NY Times About Childhood Transition: Part 3, by Jenn Burleton

GID Reform Advocates respond to the question, “When a child identifies with the other gender, what to do?” Dr. Jack Drescher’s commentary on the Coy Mathis Civil Rights Case in Colorado appeared in the Sunday Dialogues Feature of the June 29, 2013 New York Times. Here is the discussion that the Times did not publish.

A Guest Post by Jenn Burleton
Founder and Executive Director of
TransActive Education & Advocacy
Portland, Oregon

To the Editor:

The letter you recently published from Dr. Jack Drescher regarding the case of the Colorado transgender child contained several misleading and outdated statements regarding the future transgender identity of the young girl in question. Most specifically, his categorical statement that “most [transgender/gender dysphoric] children grow up to be gay, not transgender.”

This statement vastly over-generalizes the complexity and diversity of gender nonconforming self-expression and identity in children and youth. As a result, Dr. Drescher helps perpetuate the harmful notion that children who are gender nonconforming or transgender are simply “going through a phase”. His comments not only lend fuel to those who practice gender-reparative therapy (proven to do great psychological harm to these children) but they encourage those who wish to deny the very existence of transgender identity.

At TransActive, we have provided clinical counseling and medical referral to more than 100 of these children and youth over the past 6 years. At present, we currently have a Portland, Oregon-area client base of approximately 150 family units and we work in various ways with many more families nationwide.

In our experience we find no evidence that those who socially transition gender early desist in their self-identity when that identity represents something other than their assigned sex at birth. Additionally,  while our experience tells us that Dr. Drescher and others are in error when they suggest that an over-generalized majority of all gender dysphoric children will grow up to be gay and not transgender, it is safe to assume that some of these kids will grow up to identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or pansexual. Their eventual sexual orientation will, however, be most likely based on their experienced gender identity and NOT on their assigned birth sex. In other words, a transgender girl attracted to males will most likely identify as heterosexual and a transgender boy attracted to males would most likely identify as gay.

At one point Dr. Drescher states that, “experts can’t tell apart kids who outgrow gender dysphoria (desisters) from those who don’t (persisters)”. This statement is, to be blunt, not at all reflective of our clinical experience here at TransActive. One can tell these kids apart, not by simply evaluating data acquired with questionable sampling protocols, but by observing the daily lived experiences of these kids and their families. It is vitally important to differentiate children who are gender nonconforming, with no interest in gender transition, from those who are what we call transitional transgender. Simply put, there is a significant difference between kids who say “I like boy/girl things” and those who say “I AM a boy” or “I AM a girl”.

Dr. Drescher has stated that he believes that the treatment (we prefer to approach it from an ‘affirmation’ model rather than a ‘treatment’ model) of gender dysphoric children is “controversial”, and he cites his own article “Controversies in Gender Diagnoses” in support of this opinion.

While controversy exists in some circles around transgender identity and gender nonconformity in general (unavoidable in a misogynistic and patriarchal culture), this controversy is based primarily on socio-political ideology and theology. This controversy is only exacerbated by those who wish to elevate flawed research above the lived reality of transitional children, youth and their families.

For those of us actively working with this population of kids, there is, I believe, considerable consensus as to the most effective care models. At TransActive, we follow a ‘Best Practice’ framework called RACE; Recognition, Affirmation, Congruence and Empowerment. Key aspects of this framework include:

1. Affirm the child’s gender identity/expression without pushing them in one direction or another. Encourage the family to do so as well.
2. Support and, if necessary, help facilitate social gender congruence to whatever degree the child expresses a need for.
3. Diagnose Gender Dysphoria when it exists based upon clinical guidelines and when necessary to access additional services
4. Remain open to evolving childhood gender identity and expression
5. Facilitate access to pubertal suppression treatment if desired by the adolescent
6. Facilitate access to surgical procedures (if desired) when appropriate and in consultation with therapists and medical personnel.
7. Do not attempt to use gender expression as an indicator of future sexual orientation and, in particular, do not make clinical judgments about ‘desirable’ outcomes with regard to either gender identity or sexual orientation.

“My continued concern is that, in the absence of consensus, the literature still seems to lean toward A) overgeneralizing persistance/desistance in GNC children and, B) suggesting that taking a “do nothing/wait and see” approach will, in the majority of cases, result in desistance. The reality out here, Dr. Drescher, is that far too many parents (and providers/advisors) will interpret “do nothing” as ‘reinforce gender norms’ and/or ‘ignore the repeated and desperate self-expression of the child’.

I realize that neither you, nor the American Psychiatric Association (APA) or World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) are responsible for the ways in which individuals might implement or use this information. It is, however, vitally important that you understand that the ‘data’ you endorse and promote is clearly incomplete and not sufficiently differentiated. This ‘data’ is, in many cases, contributing to negative outcomes for transitional transgender children and youth. Service providers working in clinical situations (like TransActive and others) are left to either pick up the pieces or go to enormous lengths to explain complex variations in gender expression to parents, social services agencies, etc. simply to overcome the simplified, primary take-away that, “Most gender nonconforming kids desist or turn out to be gay”

I encourage parents of transgender and gender nonconforming children and youth to not be dissuaded from seeking assistance from organizations and individuals that specialize in working with (not researching) this population of children by those who believe that any data, no matter how flawed, is superior to the real world, boots on the ground, daily interactions that care providers are having with these kids and their families.

Sincerely,
Jenn Burleton

Jenn Burleton is a leading expert in advocating for the rights and gender affirming care of transgender children and youth, is the Founder and Executive Director of TransActive Education & Advocacy and a co-founder of Trans Youth Family Allies. She has served on the Board of the Oregon Safe Schools and Communities Coalition and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Trans Youth Equality Foundation, the Multnomah County DHS LGBTQ Youth Workgroup and the Development Committee for the Oregon Health & Science University Transgender Program. She was also named to the inaugural “Trans 100” list of individuals working towards positive change for transgender people and recognized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force as one of “90 Women Leading the Way To Equality”.

Response to Dr. Jack Drescher and the NY Times About Childhood Transition: Part 2, by Arlene Istar Lev

GID Reform Advocates respond to the question, “When a child identifies with the other gender, what to do?” Dr. Jack Drescher’s commentary on the Coy Mathis Civil Rights Case in Colorado appeared in the Sunday Dialogues Feature of the June 29, 2013 New York Times. Here is the discussion that the Times did not publish.

A Guest Post by Arlene Istar Lev LCSW-R, CASAC
Albany New York
Social Worker, Family Therapist, Gender Specialist, Activist
Choices Counseling and Consulting

To the Editor:

Thank you for opening this dialogue and recognizing the importance of public discourse on the issue of transgender children and their civil rights.

My colleague, Dr. Drescher, is correct that “no one knows” whether Coy will identify as a girl or boy when she matures; however, the same can be said for Coy’s classmates. He is also correct that theories abound in this newly emerging field and that experts are engaged in heated discussions about how to best support gender dysphoric children and their families. The concept of children transitioning gender in elementary is clearly a recent, and controversial, phenomenon, one which is increasingly being supported by mental health specialists, school policies, and legal decisions.

Dr. Drescher states that most “children like [Coy] grow up to be gay, not transgender.” This is a misleading statement for a number of reasons. First of all, the research he is referring to is a few decades old; gender atypical children who are now gay adults matured into their identities before transgender expression was a viable social option (especially for children!), and in the early days of the gay liberation movement. More options exist in the modern world for exploration of gender identity and expression, as well as the freedom to live an out gay life. This research also examined gender non-conforming children, not necessarily those who were gender dysphoric, a distinction that may appear academic, but is crucial to understanding the experiences and potential trajectories of children’s emerging gender identities.

Gender non-conforming behavior can exist in a wide-range of children, and can cause distress since our culture can (still!) be extremely rigid about gender roles and rules, especially for boys. One can imagine a gender atypical boy, particularly one who might be aware of attractions to other boys, might be struggling psychologically. Gender dysphoria is, however, markedly different from the social and identity challenges of a gender non-conforming child who will grow up to be gay. Transgender children are suffering in an intensely personal way, with a body and a social world that is at odds with their deepest sense of self.

I am not saying it is always easy to determine what is happening within a young child’s psyche, not as a therapist, and not as a parent. I agree with Dr. Drescher that parents must educate themselves on all the treatment approaches, and recognize the current limitations of science. I also believe that parents can see the difference between a profoundly suffering little boy and a happy contented little girl. A child who is not transgender would simply not adjust to a gender transition with a lessening of mental health symptoms, and an increasing satisfying social life. A boy, no matter how atypical his gender might be, has no interest in using the girls’ bathroom. For a child who is a girl, it is an essential part of her identity.

Thank you Colorado for recognizing this obvious truth. Thank you to Dr. Drescher for initiating respectful public and professional dialogue on this controversial subject. Thank you to Coy and her parents, for allowing their personal family struggles to be a guiding light to others.

Sincerely,
Arlene Istar Lev

Arlene Istar Lev, LCSW, CASAC
info@choicesconsulting.com
http://www.choicesconsulting.com

Arlene Lev is a social worker, family therapist, educator, and writer whose work addresses the unique therapeutic needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. She is the Founder and Clinical Director of Choices Counseling and Consulting in Albany, New York, providing family therapy for LGBTQ people and is on a Lecturer at the University at Albany, School of Social Welfare, and an adjunct at Empire College. She is also the Founder and Clinical Director of TIGRIS, The Institute for Gender, Relationships, Identity, and Sexuality, a post-graduate training program serving people seeking greater relational and sexual intimacy, people who identify as sexual minorities, and those interested in exploring sexuality, gender, and identity issues. Arlene is the author of The Complete Lesbian and Gay Parenting Guide andTransgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and their Families, winner of the American Psychological Association Distinguished Book Award, 2006. She serves on the editorial Boards of theJournal of GLBT Family Studies, The Journal of Lesbian Studies, and the Journal of Transgenderism. Arlene is the organizer of Professionals Concerned with Gender Diagnoses in the DSM.

Response to Dr. Jack Drescher and the NY Times About Childhood Transition: Part 1, by Kelley Winters

GID Reform Advocates respond to the question, “When a child identifies with the other gender, what to do?” Dr. Jack Drescher’s commentary on the Coy Mathis Civil Rights Case in Colorado appeared in the Sunday Dialogues Feature of the June 29, 2013 New York Times. Here is the discussion that the Times did not publish.

Kelley Winters, Ph.D.
GID Reform Advocates

The Sunday Dialogue feature of the June 30 edition of the New York Times responded to the recent Colorado Human Rights Division ruling in favor of Coy Mathis, a six year old transgender girl who sought the same equal treatment and facilities access as other girls at her public school. The Times editors turned to Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York psychiatrist who served on the Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders for the DSM-5, the diagnostic manual of mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Drescher  could have taken this opportunity to acknowledge young Ms. Mathis’ remarkable courage and tenacity. He could have taken this teachable moment to note the barriers of intolerance and injustice that transgender people face as children, both in and out of the closet. But, instead, Dr. Drescher said this:

Actually, no one knows whether Coy will continue to feel that she is a girl when her body develops further, since most children like her grow up to be gay, not transgender.

Although Coy has identified as a girl, lived happily as a girl and attended school as a girl since kindergarten, Drescher’s statement impugns her legitimacy as a girl and suggests that her strong sense of gender identity is a likely just a passing phase. The statement not so subtly passes judgement on the Mathis family for allowing Coy to be herself as she sees herself. Although the “passing phase” mantra is heard frequently among psychiatric policy makers and institutional researchers in recent years, serious questions remain. Is this prediction based on scientific evidence? And, what exactly is meant by, “children like her”?

Conflating Gender Expression with Gender Identity

Young children, like Coy, who strongly, consistently and persistently identify as other than their birth-assigned sex, and who have fully lived in their affirmed gender roles, have been criticized while left unstudied by researcher/policymakers who publish literature on gender variant youth. Since the early 90s, most study populations have instead been selected by much broader diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder in Children (GIDC) from the DSM-IV and IV-TR, published in 1994 and 2000. Under these controversial criteria, children could be diagnosed with GIDC strictly on the basis of gender nonconforming behavior, with no evidence that they identified as other than their birth-assigned gender. Therefore, children who were intensely distressed by their birth-sex or assigned gender roles (gender dysphoria) were not distinguished from larger numbers of effeminate male-identified boys or masculine female-identified girls. Under these criteria, gender expression that differed from birth-assigned roles was deemed psychopathological, no matter how happy, functional and well adjusted the child. Moreover, children who conformed to birth-assigned stereotypes were exempt from GIDC diagnosis, no matter how gravely distressed with those roles and even if conformity was compelled under duress or physical punishment.

In 2000, Bartlett, et al., noted shortcomings in the GIDC criteria:

…it appears that a minority of children diagnosed with GID have a sense of discomfort with their biological sex.

Concerns about broad false-positive diagnosis of children who were never actually transgender and potential therapeutic abuse of youth suspected of being “pre-gay” led to revision of the Gender Dysphoria in Children category in the DSM-5 in 2013. Its criteria were tightened to resemble the prior DSM-III and DSM-III-R GIDC categories, requiring evidence of desire or insistence of other than the birth-assigned gender. In other words, the childhood diagnosis was restricted in the DSM-5 to gender dysphoric children in conflict with their birth-sex or assigned role, not merely gender nonconforming. However, sample bias resulting from old diagnostic flaws in the DSM-IV and IV-TR was not subsequently acknowledged by researchers who based their studies on GIDC diagnosis. Dr. Drescher’s remark about Coy Mathis was informed by dated research and old attitudes that conflated gender nonconformity with gender dysphoria, not controlled studies of children who actually resembled Coy.

The Doctrine of Desistence

Medical and public policy have long been influenced by research, suggesting that gender variance from birth-assigned roles in young children will most likely “desist” by adolescence and adulthood, when they will identify with their birth-assigned sex. Dr. Kenneth Zucker, of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and chairman of the DSM-5 Work Group on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, is the most prolific proponent of the 80%-desistence assumption. In 2006, he remarked to the New York Times:

80 percent [of preadolescent gender variant children] grow out of the behavior, but 15 percent to 20 percent continue to be distressed about their gender and may ultimately change their sex.

This “it’s just a phase” stereotype, has been repeated for many years and has underpinned policies that keep gender dysphoric children in the closets of their birth-assigned gender.  It is based primarily on studies at Dr. Zucker’s own practice at CAMH and at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam. Since 1994, sample selection for these studies has relied on diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder in Children (GIDC) in the DSM-IV and IV-TR. In fact, Zucker and his colleagues at CAMH were instrumental in defining these criteria. As discussed earlier, these criteria required only gender nonconforming behavior for diagnosis, and not necessarily evidence of gender dysphoria  (persistent distress or incongruence with birth-sex or birth-assigned gender role). Gender dysphoric subjects in the resulting study samples were diluted by gender nonconforming children who were not gender dysphoric.

Therefore, much of this research actually suggests that the majority of children who are merely gender nonconforming, and meet the overinclusive GIDC criteria in the DSM-IV and IV-TR, will not be gender dysphoric later in life and will identify with their birth-assigned gender. However, some researcher/policymakers have inexplicably interpolated the 80%-desistance assumption to a smaller subset of children who are gender dysphoric. They have arbitrarily substituted “gender dysphoria” for “gender identity disorder” or “gender variance” in their literature, even though these terms have widely disparate definitions. As a consequence, there are concerns that these studies have scooped up large proportions of gender nonconconforming kids who were never actually gender dysphoric, found them still not gender dysphoric at puberty, and then declared them “desistent” in the literature.

In his NY Times commentary, Dr. Drescher went further still, applying the desistence doctrine to an even smaller subset of extremely gender dysphoric children like Coy Mathis, who have surmounted formidable barriers to live a real life experience in their affirmed gender roles at school. However, the Toronto and Amsterdam studies  discouraged  real life experience social transition before puberty and therefore lacked validity for “children like her.”

While mental health researchers and policymakers may not know Coy’s inner gender identity, there is a real chance that she does. Unlike those of past generations, Coy has been given a chance at a childhood, a life, without closets, without shame and without punishment for behaviors and expression that would be ordinary or even exemplary for other children. The real questions are, whether this chance should be taken away from her, and on what scientific basis?

In his response comment in the Times, Dr. Drescher called for “less polemics and fewer opinions presented as hard facts.” We might start with closer scrutiny of the 80%-desistence doctrine. In the meantime, Coy Mathis is busy defying false stereotypes, political attacks and media sensationalism by being herself in her Colorado first grade classroom. American psychiatry could learn a lot from this brave little girl.

© 2013 Kelley Winters, GID Reform Advocates

GID Reform in the DSM-5 and ICD-11: a Status Update

I prepared this presentation for the 2013 Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference but did not have the opportunity to attend. It is a summary of recent changes to gender related diagnostic categories in the DSM-5, published last month by the American Psychiatric Association, and proposed changes for the ICD-11, scheduled for publication in 2015 by the World Health Organization.  It is based on proposed revisions to the ICD-11 presented by Drs. Geoffrey Reed, Peggy Cohen-Kettenis and Richard Krueger at the National Transgender Health Summit in Oakland last month and on discussions at the Global Action for Trans* Equality (GATE) Civil Society Expert Working Group in Buenos Aires last April.

In my view, there are two primary issues in medical diagnostic policy for trans people. The first is harmful stigma and false stereotyping of mental defectiveness and sexual deviance, that was perpetuated by the former categories of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and Transvestic Fetishism (TF) in the DSM-IV-TR. The second is access to medically necessary hormonal and/or surgical transition care, for those trans and transsexual people who need them. The latter requires some kind of diagnostic coding, but coding that is congruent with medical transition care, not contradictory to it. I have long felt that these two issues must be addressed together –not one at the expense of the other, or to benefit part of the trans community at the expense of harming another.

The DSM-5 Falls Short, Despite Some Significant Improvements

The new revisions for the Gender Dysphoria diagnosis in the DSM-5 are mostly positive. However they do not go nearly far enough. The change in title from Gender Identity Disorder (intended by its authors to mean “disordered” gender identity) to Gender Dysphoria (from a Greek root for distress) is a significant step forward. It represents a historic shift from  gender identities that differ from birth assignment to distress with gender assignment and associated sex characteristics as the focus of the problem to be treated. This message is reinforced by the August 2012 Public Policy Statement from the American Psychiatric Association, affirming the medical necessity of hormonal and/or surgical transition care. In another positive change, the Gender Dysphoria category has been moved from the Sexual Disorders chapter of the DSM to a new chapter of its own. Non-binary queer-spectrum identities and expression are now acknowledged in the diagnostic criteria, and the APA Working Group has rejected pressure to add an “autogynephilia” specifier to falsely stereotype and sexualize trans women. Children can no longer be falsely diagnosed with this mental disorder label, strictly on the basis of nonconformity to birth assignment.

However, the fundamental problem remains that the need for medical transition treatment is still classed as a mental disorder. In the diagnostic criteria, desire for transition care is itself cast as symptomatic of mental illness, unfortunately reinforcing gender-reparative psychotherapies which suppress expression of this “desire” into the closet. The diagnostic criteria still contradict transition and still describe transition itself as symptomatic of mental illness. The criteria for children retain much of the archaic sexist language of the DSM-IV-TR that psychopathologizes gender nonconformity. Moreover, children who have happily socially transitioned are maligned by misgendering language in the new diagnosis.

More troubling is false-positive diagnosis for those who have happily completed transition. Thus, the GD diagnosis, and its controversial post-transition specifier, continue to contradict the proven efficacy of medical transition treatments.  This contradiction may be used to support gender conversion/reparative psychotherapies– practices described as no longer ethical in the current WPATH Standards of Care.

Finally, the Transvestic Disorder category in the DSM-5 is even more harmful than its predecessor, Transvestic Fetishism. Punitive and scientifically capricious, it only serves to punish nonconformity to assigned birth roles and has no relevance to established definition of mental disorder. The Transvestic Disorder category has been expanded in the DSM-5 to implicate trans men as well as trans women, with a new specifier of “autoandrophilia,” apparently pulled from thin air without supporting research or clinical evidence.

The ICD-11, a Historic New Approach

The 11th Revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11) is scheduled for publication in 2015 by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is a global diagnostic manual that contains chapters for both physical medical conditions and mental conditions. In contrast to the DSM-5, the ICD-11 holds promise for unprecedented forward progress on both issues of social stigma and barriers to medical transition care.  At the National Transgender Health Summit in Oakland last month, members of the ICD-11 Working Group for Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health confirmed proposals for  substantive changes in gender and transition related codings.

The Working Group has proposed a historic shift of transition related categories, now labeled “Gender Incongruence,”  out of the Mental and Behavioural Disorders chapter (called F-Codes) entirely. It is to be placed in a new, non-psychiatric chapter, called “Certain conditions related to sexual health.” The Incongruence title is distinct from DSM-5 dysphoria title, to clarify that this is no longer a mental disorder coding.  They have also proposed to eliminate victimless sexual paraphilia categories from the manual, including: F65.1: Transvestic fetishism. A similar category describing dual gender individuals, F64.1: Dual-role Transvestism, would be deleted as well. These changes have the potential for enormous progress in reducing both stigma and barriers to medical transition care, for those who need it. When implemented, they would effectively obsolete the new psychopathology categories of Gender Dysphoria and Transvestic Disorder in the DSM-5.

There are also questions and shortcomings in the current  ICD-11 proposals.  While the proposed children’s coding of  Gender Incongruence of Childhood is no longer a mental disorder label,  any pathologizing coding of happy gender nonconforming or socially transitioned children, who are too young to need any medical transition or puberty-blocking treatment, is highly controversial among clinicians, families and community members.  The diagnostic criteria for children, like those in the DSM-5, still emphasize nonconformity to anachronistic gender stereotypes as symptomatic of sickness. The adult and adolescent criteria have copied ambiguous language from the DSM-5 that cast desire for transition, in itself, as pathological. Worse yet, false-positive diagnosis of happy post-transition subjects inadvertently contradicts rather than supports medical transition care.

The ICD-11 Working Group for Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health should be commended for advancing these historic reforms. However, it is important that Group members listen to the remaining concerns of community members and supportive care providers.  Adults and adolescents needing access to medical transition care, or pubescent youth needing puberty blocking medications, require a clearer description of the problem to be treated. Young children, who may only need information, monitoring and support, have very different diagnostic needs and diagnostic risks than adults and adolescents.

Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis to be Moved Out of Sexual Disorders Chapter of DSM-5

Protest at 2009 APA Annual Meeting (photo Kelley Winters)

Dr. Jack Drescher,  a member of the subworkgroup on Gender Identity Disorders of the DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, confirmed yesterday that the Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis will be removed from the sexual disorders chapter and placed in a separate category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:

 GD is supposed to be placed in a chapter of its own, no longer linked with sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias (which will also have chapters of their own)

This reclassification, along with the change in title from Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria, is a significant improvement in the diagnostic coding used for access to medical transition care, for trans and transsexual people who need it. Preceding diagnoses of Transsexualism/Gender Identity Disorders were grouped with “psychosexual” disorders in the DSM-III. They were briefly moved to the class of Disorders Usually First Evident in Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence in the DSM-III-R in 1987 but were returned to the sexual disorders chapter in the  DSM-IV, and DSM-IV-TR. Community advocates and supportive medical providers have long raised concern that this placement was clinically misleading and reinforced false stereotypes about gender diversity. Gender identity  is not specifically related to sexuality, sexual orientation or sexual dysfunction. Political and religious extremists have  exploited the sexual disorder grouping in the DSM to sexualize gender diversity and defame trans people as deviant. Trans and transsexual individuals have consequently lost their jobs, homes, families, children, and civil justice.

The DSM-5 working group responsible for sexual and gender diagnoses hinted at a possible change in diagnostic placement in February, 2010, stating

The subworkgroup questions the rationale for the current DSM-IV chapter Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, which contains three major classes of diagnoses: sexual dysfunctions, paraphilias, and gender identity disorders… Various alternative options to the current placement are under consideration.

The decision to separate the revised Gender Dysphoria category from sexual disorders is consistent with a previous determination by the working group to remove sexual orientation specifiers from the diagnostic criteria. While many shortcomings remain in the proposed Gender Dysphoria diagnosis, this change in placement in the DSM represents forward progress for trans and especially transsexual individuals.

Unfortunately, the DSM-5 Task Force and APA Board of Trustees retained the Transvestic Disorder category in the sexual disorders chapter. Previous known as Transvestic Fetishism, it is grouped with paraphilic diagnoses such as pedophilia and exhibitionism and authored by Dr. Raymond Blanchard of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly called the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry). This punitive and scientifically capricious category maligns many gender variant people, including transsexual women and men, as mentally ill and sexually deviant, purely on the basis of nonconforming gender expression. It is written to promote Blanchard’s unfounded theories of “autogynephilia” and “autoandrophilia” that conflate social and medical gender transition with fetishism. More than 7000 people have signed an online petition, sponsored by the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), calling for the removal of this harmful diagnosis from the DSM.

Copyright © 2012 Kelley Winters, Ph.D., GID Reform Advocates

An Update on Gender Diagnoses, as the DSM-5 Goes to Press.

On December 1, the Board of Trustees for the American Psychiatric Association approved the final draft of the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The most controversial DSM revision in more than three decades, the DSM-5 has drawn strong concerns, ranging from overdiagnosis and overmedication of ordinary everyday behaviors to poor diagnostic reliability in field trials. The transgender-specific categories of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and Transvestic Fetishism (TF) have been especially contentious, beginning with the 2008 appointment of Drs. Kenneth Zucker and Raymond Blanchard of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Illness (CAMH) to lead the workgroup for sexual and gender identity disorders. They were key authors of the prior DSM-IV gender diagnoses and leading proponents of punitive gender conversion/reparative psychotherapies (no longer considered ethical practice in the current WPATH Standards of Care).

There are two major issues in transgender diagnostic policy. The first is a false stereotype that stigmatizes gender identities or expressions that differ from birth sex assignment with mental disease and sexual deviance. The second is access to medically necessary hormonal and/or surgical transition care, for those trans and transsexual people who need them. This access requires some kind of diagnostic coding, but not the current “disordered gender identity” label, which actually contradicts rather than supports medical transition care. It is necessary to address both issues together, to avoid harming one part of the trans community to benefit another.

Some of the proposed gender-related revisions in the DSM-5 are positive, however they do not go nearly far enough. The Gender Identity Disorder category (intended by its authors to mean “disordered” gender identity) is renamed to Gender Dysphoria (from a Greek root for distress) Though widely misreported today as “removal” of GID from the classification of disorders, this name change is in itself a significant step forward. It represents a historic shift from gender identities that differ from birth assignment to distress with current sex characteristics or assigned gender role as the focus of the problem to be treated. This message is reinforced by the August 2012 Public Policy Statement from the American Psychiatric Association affirming the medical necessity of hormonal and/or surgical transition care. Moreover, the sexual/gender disorders workgroup has stated a desire to move gender diagnoses away from the sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias group. (At this time of writing, it is not yet clear where they will be classified in the DSM-5.)

On the negative side, the proposed diagnostic criteria for Gender Dysphoria still contradict social and medical transition and describe transition itself as symptomatic of mental illness. The criteria for children are particularly troubling, retaining much of the archaic sexist language of the DSM-IV that pathologizes gender nonconformity rather than distress of gender dsyphoria. Moreover, children who have socially transitioned continue to be disrespected by misgendering language in the diagnostic criteria and dimensional assessment questions. There is very plainly no exit from the diagnosis for those who have completed transition and are happy with their bodies and lives. In other words, the only way to exit the GD label, once diagnosed, is to follow the course of gender conversion/reparative therapies, designed to shame trans people into the closets of assigned birth roles. While supportive care providers will continue to make the diagnosis work for their clients, intolerant clinicians will exploit contradictory language in the diagnostic criteria to deny transition care access and promote unethical gender conversion treatments.

A worse problem in the DSM-5 is the Transvestic Disorder (formerly Transvestic Fetishism) category. It is punitive and scientifically capricious— designed to punish nonconformity to assigned birth roles. It has been expanded to stigmatize even more gender-diverse people and should be removed entirely from the DSM.

Despite retention of the unconscionable Transvestic Disorder category, I believe that the Gender Dysphoria category revisions in the DSM-5 will bring some long-awaited forward progress to trans and transsexual people facing barriers to social and medical transition. I hope that much more progress will follow. In the longer term, I would like to see a non-psychiatric classification in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD, published by the World Health Association) for access to medical transition treatments for those who need them.

Copyright © 2012 Kelley Winters, Ph.D., GID Reform Advocates