Dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, & legal protection of individuals in the process of correcting the misalignment of their anatomical sex, & supporting their transition into society.
A Short Primer. Conception occurs at the moment sperm fuses with ova. The resulting zygote, not yet an embryo, has no sexual differentiation.
This is how all of us begin, even those of us born in test tubes.
The default condition of a human is female. At the moment of conception we have female configured brains and, without an influx of male hormone, we will be born with a female brain and female sexual anatomy. We call this the standard development pattern.
Sometimes, however, the genetic plan for the developing embryo misfires. The brain’s neurobiology configures first, the body’s later. For a boy to be born, the male hormone testosterone must wash over the undifferentiated fetus at two distinct points in the development.
• The first is when the human brain locks into gender identity. If the male hormone is not present at this time, the neurobiology of the brain will remain configured in the female state.
• The second crucial point is when the human body develops sexual organs, internal and eternal. If the male hormone is present, for whatever reason, the sexual organs will be male; if the male hormone is not present, the organs will default to female.
So, where do HBS people come from?
• In an HBS man (female to male), testosterone washed over the brain, changing the neurobiology to male, but not over the body so that the person was born with male neurobiology within a female anatomy.
• In an HBS woman (male to female), testosterone washed over the body, but not the brain so that the person was born with female neurobiology in a body with male anatomy.
Springfield, VA, USA. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has named the Work Groups and membership for its coming fifth revision to the Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders (DSM-V).
The DSM is a guide to what the APA terms mental disorders. It is the handbook desktop reference used most often for diagnostics in the United States and internationally.
The manual contains a listing of psychiatric disorders, diagnostic codes, information on the prevalence of each disorder, and diagnostic criteria. The APA advertises the DSM as a non-theoretical guide that does not offer information on causes or treatments.
APA Names DSM-V Work Group Members: Experts to Revise Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders. News Release No. 08-27. American Psychiatric Association (APA). May 1, 2008. [ Download PDF ] The APA release has the names and personnel rosters for all of the working groups named so far (eff. 1 May 2008).
The DSM is a publication known as the bible of psychiatry. It is consulted on a regular basis by insurance companies, courts, prisons and schools, as well as by physicians and mental health workers.
Mental health professionals use the DSM for a variety of purposes, such as clinical practice, research, and educational purposes. Clinicians also use the DMS-IV to classify patients for billing purposes. The government and many insurance carriers require a specific diagnosis in order to approve payment for treatment.
The DSM has gone though five major revisions since first publication, with the most recent major update published in 1994.
The current version is a minor variant published in July 2000 that adds clarifying text (DSM-IV, Text Revision). The primary goal was to maintain the currency of the DSM-IV text with the empirical literature up to 1992.
The DSM has its share of critics. According to Christopher Lane, a scholar at Northwestern University, the DSM has a history of medicalizing what for many people, appear to be common behavioral attributes. Lane chronicled what he calls the "highly unscientific and often arbitrary way" in which widespread revisions were made to the DSM in his book, Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.
Lane notes that by 1987 the DSM removed the key phrase "a compelling desire to avoid," requiring instead only "marked distress". Lane argues that could include concern about saying the wrong thing. "Impairment became something largely in the eye of the beholder, and anticipated embarrassment was enough to meet the diagnostic threshold."
Since the last major edition (DSM-IV), most of the changes have been in the descriptive text, with some error correction and changed diagnostic codes to reflect updates to the ICD-9-CM coding system adopted by the U.S. Government. It is available from the the DSM-IV-TR web site.
Completion of the DSM-V revisions is planned for 2011/12.
The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) is a semi-structured interview for making the major DSM-IV Axis I diagnoses. The SCID-II is a semi-structured interview for making DSM-IV Axis II: Personality Disorder diagnoses. The official SCID site maintains a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
Related APA / DSM Articles
TS-Si.org has published a variety of articles on the APA, DSM, and upcoming handbook revisions that will result in the DSM Fifth Edition (DSM-V). Supplementing the scientific/medical reports and other materials available in the TS-Si Article Archive, this annotated list includes announcements, general news articles, analyses, and opinion pieces. We will continuously update this list upon publication of relevant articles.
News
APA Working Groups Named For Upcoming DSM-V Edition. TS-Si News Service. The APA named the Work Groups and membership for its coming fifth revision to the Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders (DSM-V).
Research Reports
Is The DSM-IV (SCID) Misapplied? What About Bipolar Disorder? TS-Si News Service. Researchers have identified problems with applying the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). "… fewer than half the patients previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder received a diagnosis based on a comprehensive, psychiatric diagnostic interview.
The DSM: How And Why Did It Categorize Human Traits As Sickness? TS-Si News Service. Regarding social anxiety: By 1987 … "Impairment became something largely in the eye of the beholder, and anticipated embarrassment was enough to meet the diagnostic threshold."
Analysis
The Human Genome And HBS: An Opportunity For Further Study. Lisa Thompson & Sharon Gaughan. … study of the HBS population can illuminate the origin of HBS and its treatment, while offering a useful baseline when assessing other medical variations potentially detectable via genomic studies.
What Does The DSM Really Say? Lisa Thompson & Sharon Gaughan. There is an inordinate amount of confusion, some of it undoubtedly self-serving, over distinctions made in the [DSM] …
Opinion
Grey Lady Down: The Wreck Of The DSM. Sharon Gaughan. … the same people who got us into trouble were now entrusted with getting us out of trouble. Oh, DSM, it is time to let you slip beneath the waves and sleep in peace. The rest of us can return to our drawing boards and try to get it right next time.
Jumping The Shark With the American Psychiatric Association. Lisa Jain Thompson. … they project their male needs and anxieties, deciding without evidence or valid scientific research that HBS women must be crazy, needing a careful male lead in therapy that returns the penis to its true place as lord and master of the world.
The Know-it-all Men Of The APA: Ray Blanchard. Lisa Jain Thompson. … no scientifically rigorous outcome studies that support Blanchard’s theory of autogynephilia, only soft science exploitations using purposefully culled samples chosen specifically to further a repressive sociosexual agenda.
The Know-it-all Men Of The APA: Kenneth Zucker. Lisa Jain Thompson. … no scientifically rigorous outcome studies to determine either the actual effectiveness of “reparative” treatments or the harm to the patient that may come from them. The emperor has no clothes.
Questions Without Answers, Theories Without Clothes. Lisa Jain Thompson. … question with boldness even our gods, even our most revered theories and deeply personal self-rationalizations: gender theory, transgender, crossdressing, fetish transvestism, gender identity disorder, Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS), and neurobiological research.
Soft Science and the APA: The Legacy of Freud. Lisa Jain Thompson. … psychology has grown into a soft science … the [APA] relies almost exclusively on isolated case studies, personal observations, and conjectures rather than undertaking the hard scientific research required to determine the underlying physical causes for behavior within the human brain itself.
The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The sources can include the cited individuals and organizations, as well as TS-Si.org staff contributions. Articles and news reports do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates.
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Robot Violinist. A robot plays Pomp and Circumstance on the violin. The robot used its mechanical fingers to push the strings and bowed with its other arm.
The 152 cm (five foot) performer can perform a variety of tasks with its hands and arms, each of which has 17 joints.
Using precise control and coordination to achieve human-like agility, the robot could also be used to assist with domestic duties or nursing and medical care.
The DSM has gone though five major revisions since first publication, with the most recent major update published in 1994. 
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