The First Step Is Admitting You're Fucked
This story breaks my heart and makes me furious. "But For Today I Am A Boy" is a documentary about two "transkids," children who have identified as the other gender their entire lives, and how their respective families and therapists are dealing with them.
One family was told to deal with practical problems as they arose (bullying, etc.) and unless he was experiencing severe anxiety or other problems, then there was no real problem, just let the kid be who he is.
The other family fell into the claws of a prominent "conversion" therapist, the bastards who've been tormenting insecure gay people for years and believe gayness can be "cured." Now imagine a small child, with no say in his own treatment, being put through this bullshit.
"The ultimate goal, both by Dr. Zucker and Bradley's family, is obviously well-meaning: to help prevent the boy from becoming a societal outcast. The side effects, however, are that the individual is taught to fear his or her feelings, and that he or she must fight against what comes naturally, seemingly at the expense of that child's happiness and to the benefit of everyone else's comfort. Which then raises the question of what society finds more alarming-a kid who wishes to live quietly as the opposite gender, or 10-year-olds dishing out bloody street justice in a playground? Given the choice between the two, most parents would likely prefer their child to be the violent playground thug."
Want to hear the punch line? Dr. Zucker has been appointed to the DSM-V committee on gender identity disorders. If you don't know, the DSM is basically the defining handbook of psychological disorders and treatments as currently understood. The publication of the DSM-V will affect the definition and treatment of what is and is not a "mental illness" for years to come, medically, socially and legally. Putting this guy on the committee is like asking Pat Robertson to perform your interracial polygamous wiccan lesbian wedding.
There's a petition < a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/objection-to-dsm-v-committee-members-on-gender-identity-disorders">here. Please take a moment to sign it.
This was the note I attached to the petition:
"Reparative therapy has been rejected by nearly every reputable medical governing body as unethical and ineffective. Putting children who cannot make their own medical care decisions through reparative therapy is nothing short of torture and abuse, and serves no function other than to advance crackpot homophobic "theories" and hidden religious agendas. Reparative therapy is not science, and practitioners of reparative therapy should go back to school and catch up with the 21st century. Allowing reparative therapy advocates anywhere near the DSM is nothing short of, well, crazy"
One family was told to deal with practical problems as they arose (bullying, etc.) and unless he was experiencing severe anxiety or other problems, then there was no real problem, just let the kid be who he is.
The other family fell into the claws of a prominent "conversion" therapist, the bastards who've been tormenting insecure gay people for years and believe gayness can be "cured." Now imagine a small child, with no say in his own treatment, being put through this bullshit.
"The ultimate goal, both by Dr. Zucker and Bradley's family, is obviously well-meaning: to help prevent the boy from becoming a societal outcast. The side effects, however, are that the individual is taught to fear his or her feelings, and that he or she must fight against what comes naturally, seemingly at the expense of that child's happiness and to the benefit of everyone else's comfort. Which then raises the question of what society finds more alarming-a kid who wishes to live quietly as the opposite gender, or 10-year-olds dishing out bloody street justice in a playground? Given the choice between the two, most parents would likely prefer their child to be the violent playground thug."
Want to hear the punch line? Dr. Zucker has been appointed to the DSM-V committee on gender identity disorders. If you don't know, the DSM is basically the defining handbook of psychological disorders and treatments as currently understood. The publication of the DSM-V will affect the definition and treatment of what is and is not a "mental illness" for years to come, medically, socially and legally. Putting this guy on the committee is like asking Pat Robertson to perform your interracial polygamous wiccan lesbian wedding.
There's a petition < a href="http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/objection-to-dsm-v-committee-members-on-gender-identity-disorders">here. Please take a moment to sign it.
This was the note I attached to the petition:
"Reparative therapy has been rejected by nearly every reputable medical governing body as unethical and ineffective. Putting children who cannot make their own medical care decisions through reparative therapy is nothing short of torture and abuse, and serves no function other than to advance crackpot homophobic "theories" and hidden religious agendas. Reparative therapy is not science, and practitioners of reparative therapy should go back to school and catch up with the 21st century. Allowing reparative therapy advocates anywhere near the DSM is nothing short of, well, crazy"