The Psychiatric Connection
My third book, Within the Box, is about a gender-variant person in a rehab facility. And rehabilitation is approached as a type of psychiatric practice, with the facility being run by psychiatrically trained personnel. So the book is also about the clash between a gender-variant person who doesn't think they have something wrong with them, and an impersonal psychiatric practice that considers all of its clients to be pathologically impaired.
A lot of LGBTQIA+ people get seen by psychiatric services. If you don't already have a politically critical perspective on the profession, it is time for you to develop one. Even if you have found some good in their services.
To start with, the psychiatric establishment is fundamentally conservative: that which is typical and normative is defined as that which is healthy. Different is intrinsically regarded as pathological. Clinical names are affixed to each of the ways in which people seem to follow a different pattern than the mainstream pattern.
This works against you on two different levels, simultaneously: first of all, every one of your decisions, preferences, tastes, priorities, and so forth are subject to being evaluated for being different from those of your peers, and considered to be possible symptoms of some unfortunate condition that they watch people for.
Then, on a broader level, they often regard a specific difference, such as what they call "gender identity dysphoria", as a pathology. Until 1973, "homosexuality" was tagged as a mental disorder. It is true that they removed it from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and thus no longer define it as a psychiatric ailment, but many individual psychiatrists continued to believe it to be so (since that was how they were trained). With gender, being trans used to be conceptualized officially as a disorder; then they shifted to only defining it as a pathology if it was making you miserable. But again, attitudes often linger behind official definitions.
People in the LGBTQIA+ community often turn to psychiatrists because they are seeking help with coping with the friction between themselves and an unaccepting society. This is sometimes very specific and official help, such as the requirement that in order to obtain medical transition, a person needs to be assessed and under the ongoing care of a psychiatrist.
Their role as gatekeepers and enforcers of the most stereotypical gender norms for people desiring to transition has been commmented on often. But the psychiatric profession serves a larger and sneakier role as excuse-maker for patterns of life that don't need any excuse because there's nothing wrong with the person in question.
If you aren't particularly happy and satisfied with your lot in society, that does not mean something is wrong with you.
If you are different from the normative, that does not mean there has to be some underlying brain difference or chromosomal variation that made that happen, which "makes it okay" since it isn't your fault. Because if there's nothing wrong with it, it doesn't require an excuse.
What do you have on your desk that you can safely toss without doing any damage? Maybe a box of paper clips, or that handful of dice you use for that game? Select a spot on your floor, and then toss your items at that spot as a target. You see how they spray all around and some of the individual items are pretty far from the target? But you didn't throw them differently than the others. Their different landing position doesn't have a "cause" or a "reason" different from what happened to the other items. When our differences are tagged for investigation into "what caused it?", the implication is that our difference is a wrongness in need of explanation that the normative ones don't need.
Think about it.
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My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My third book is deep in second draft, and I'm seeking more beta readers for feedback. It is provisionally titled Within the Box and is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
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This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
A lot of LGBTQIA+ people get seen by psychiatric services. If you don't already have a politically critical perspective on the profession, it is time for you to develop one. Even if you have found some good in their services.
To start with, the psychiatric establishment is fundamentally conservative: that which is typical and normative is defined as that which is healthy. Different is intrinsically regarded as pathological. Clinical names are affixed to each of the ways in which people seem to follow a different pattern than the mainstream pattern.
This works against you on two different levels, simultaneously: first of all, every one of your decisions, preferences, tastes, priorities, and so forth are subject to being evaluated for being different from those of your peers, and considered to be possible symptoms of some unfortunate condition that they watch people for.
Then, on a broader level, they often regard a specific difference, such as what they call "gender identity dysphoria", as a pathology. Until 1973, "homosexuality" was tagged as a mental disorder. It is true that they removed it from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) and thus no longer define it as a psychiatric ailment, but many individual psychiatrists continued to believe it to be so (since that was how they were trained). With gender, being trans used to be conceptualized officially as a disorder; then they shifted to only defining it as a pathology if it was making you miserable. But again, attitudes often linger behind official definitions.
People in the LGBTQIA+ community often turn to psychiatrists because they are seeking help with coping with the friction between themselves and an unaccepting society. This is sometimes very specific and official help, such as the requirement that in order to obtain medical transition, a person needs to be assessed and under the ongoing care of a psychiatrist.
Their role as gatekeepers and enforcers of the most stereotypical gender norms for people desiring to transition has been commmented on often. But the psychiatric profession serves a larger and sneakier role as excuse-maker for patterns of life that don't need any excuse because there's nothing wrong with the person in question.
If you aren't particularly happy and satisfied with your lot in society, that does not mean something is wrong with you.
If you are different from the normative, that does not mean there has to be some underlying brain difference or chromosomal variation that made that happen, which "makes it okay" since it isn't your fault. Because if there's nothing wrong with it, it doesn't require an excuse.
What do you have on your desk that you can safely toss without doing any damage? Maybe a box of paper clips, or that handful of dice you use for that game? Select a spot on your floor, and then toss your items at that spot as a target. You see how they spray all around and some of the individual items are pretty far from the target? But you didn't throw them differently than the others. Their different landing position doesn't have a "cause" or a "reason" different from what happened to the other items. When our differences are tagged for investigation into "what caused it?", the implication is that our difference is a wrongness in need of explanation that the normative ones don't need.
Think about it.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My third book is deep in second draft, and I'm seeking more beta readers for feedback. It is provisionally titled Within the Box and is set in a psychiatric/rehab facility and is focused on self-determination and identity. Chronologically, it fits between the events in GenderQueer and those described in Guy in Women's Studies; unlike the other two, it is narrowly focused on events in a one-month timeframe and is more of a suspense thriller, although like the other two is also a nonfiction memoir. Contact me if you're interested.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both published books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts