DSM-5: Gender Identity - Creating the Trans epidemic.

Transgender's march for 'rights'

Ask many of these marchers what it means to be transgender and you will be answered with definitions and descriptions culled directly from psychological gender theory.




"...psychiatrists and their allies have succeeded in persuading the scientific community, courts, media, and general public that the conditions they call mental disorders are diseases--that is, phenomena independent of human motivation or will. Because there is no empirical evidence to back this claim (indeed, there can be none), the psychiatric profession relies on supporting it with periodically revised versions of its pseudo-scientific bible, the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders." [1]
Thomas Szasz 

Gender identity was not 'discovered'.  It was manufactured!  It was invented by  psychotherapists and adopted by others as matter of convenience.  It was transmitted to patients and clients via usage in academic documents, in texts and the through verbal communication between themselves and health professionals.  Finally it was picked up by the mass media and entered popular culture. By the 1980's this completely invented, hitherto unknown and unheard of psychological phenomenom had entered the vernacular and become accepted psychological parlance.

Sex and gender: the development of masculinity and femininity, was written by medically trained psychotherapist, Robert Stoller.  It first was published in 1968 and, according to Richard Green, represents the first use of the term in psychological literature.
"Robert Stoller introduced the term‘‘gender identity.’’ It is now our vocabulary when we articulate this bedrock of personhood." [2] [3]

The online resource site 'Enotes' has it that the term was originally coined by John Money:
"The term gender identity, meaning a person's relative sense of his or her own masculine or feminine identity, was first used in 1965 by John Money. The term was introduced into the psychoanalytic literature by Robert Stoller in 1968" [4]

That same year (1968) Swedish psychiatrist, Jan Wållinder published what remains to this day, the most accurate definition of transsexualism yet written:

1. A sense of belonging to the opposite sex, of having been born into the wrong sex, of being one of nature's extant errors.
2. A sense of estrangement with ones own body; all indications of sex differentiation are considered afflictions and repugnant.
3. A strong desire to resemble physically the opposite sex via therapy including surgery.
4. A desire to be accepted by the community as belonging to the opposite sex.

For a time this definition was used by the WHO.  See: Glossary of Psychiatric Diagnosis and Guide to their classification: World Health Organization, Geneva, 1974, pp. 45-46.

An assessment of twelve applicants for sex reassignment in 1978,  conducted at the psychiatric department of the K.E.M. Hospital, Bombay,  applying Wållinder's criteria yielded information showing that ... "A diagnosis of true transsexuality could be established in 6 subjects i.e. 50% of the patients, while the alternative diagnoses were schizophrenia in 4 patients and sexual deviation in 2 patients viz., homosexuality, transvestism and exhibitionism." [5]

The current edition, the ICD 10, lists transsexualism as a gender identity issue and applies this definition

F 64.0   Transsexualism
1.    Desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by the wish to make his or her body as congruent as possible with the preferred sex through surgery and hormone treatment.
2.   Transsexual identity has been present persistently for at least 2 years.
3.   Is not a symptom of another mental disorder or a chromosomal abnormality. [6]

The influence of Stoller and Money's beliefs are illustrated by the ICD categorisation as a "gender Identity disorder" and there is clear evidence of diagnosis creep.  For example Wållinder's criteria 2 and 3 are both replaced by the much broader requirement that it need only be "... usually accompanied by a wish to make his or her body as congruent as possible with the preferred sex ..."  And transsexualism has been turned into a discreet identity in its own right, expanding on the original theory that it was specifically a misidentification with either one of two opposite sexes,  female or male .

Criteria expansion has allowed the diagnosis to be applied to individuals who wish to live permanently in the gender role of the opposite sex, without changing their morphological sex or, at most, by making only some alterations, e.g breast removal.  You can thank diagnosis creep for giving America Thomas Beatty, the world's first so-called pregnant man! [7]

Despite its several failings the ICD has retained a requirement to exclude coexisting psychological problems (known in psychiatric jargon as comorbidity) such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorders,  before a diagnosis of transsexualism is made.  It also retains a separate diagnosis for the condition and requires a minimum two year period during which it must be present.

By comparison the respective DSM editions have been positively expansive.

"Transsexuality was defined in the DSM-III as a "sense of discomfort and inappropriateness about ones anatomic sex; a wish to be rid of ones own genitals and to live as a member of the other sex;. . . continuous (not limited to periods of stress) for at least two years; . . . [an] Absence of physical or genetic abnormality, [and] Not due to another mental disorder, such as schizophrenia..." (DSM-III, APA 1980, pp. 263-264).  Lev (2004) [8]

The DSM-III (R) was published in 1987and maintained Transsexualism as a separate category within the gender identity frame-work.  Transsexualism was defined as:

A.   Persistent discomfort and sense of inappropriateness about one's assigned sex.
B.   Persistent preoccupation for at least two years with getting rid of one's primary and secondary sex characteristics and acquiring the sex characteristics of the  other  sex.
C.   The person has reached puberty.
 Specify history of sexual orientation: asexual, homosexual, heterosexual, or unspecified


Interim Report of the DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders [9]

The two year time frame was kept intact. But diagnosis creep is evident. So-called comorbidity as an exclusionary criteria was removed and has not be reintroduced in successive DSM editions.  Notably, in the DSM-III (R) psychologists reintroduced their obsession with sexual orientation.

In 1997 the American Psychiatric Association published the DSM-IV. This edition removed Transsexualism as a separate diagnosis and replaced with the over-arching concept of Gender Identity Disorder (GID), as follows:

Adolescents and adults may experience the following:

    (a) Desire to be the other sex
    (b) Frequent passing as the other sex
    (c) Desire to live or be treated as the other sex
    (d) Conviction that the person has the typical feelings and reactions of the opposite sex
    (e) Persistent discomfort with his or her sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex

Adolescents and adults may have a preoccupation with getting rid of primary and secondary sex characteristics, and they may believe that they were born as the wrong sex.

People with gender identity disorder do not have a concurrent physical intersex condition. Patients report significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

For sexually mature patients, the clinician should specify if the patient is sexually attracted to females, males, both, or neither. [10]

Transsexualism has disappeared. There is no stated minimum time frame.  Co-morbidity  is not an exclusion,  The diagnosis can be applied to permanent gender role change and to transsexualism as defined by Jan Wållinder.

Diagnosis creep is apparent in the lack of a specified time limitation, the removal of co-morbidity,  and the diagnostic refocus,  away from physical sex alteration and onto gender role performance and behaviour.

To this very moment there exists not a shred of scientific evidence that transsexualism is caused by misidentification with the other sex, or that transsexualism, as originally defined by Jan Wållinder, is  merely an extreme manifestation of a desire to change social gender roles. Furthermore there is no scientific evidence that preexisting, environmentally created subconscious identities exist, or that they can predetermine socially variant gender role behaviours.

These explanations are nothing more than the inventions of psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists. The current social epidemic of  'transpeople' is a product of these psychological beliefs.  It is entirely likely that the trans epidemic would not exist as it currently does had other mental health professionals challenged identity theory and transgenderism with the same determination they demonstrated when challenging other dubious theories, such as recovered memories and multiple personalities.