Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The goal of SAAM is to raise public awareness about sexual violence and to educate communities and individuals on how to prevent sexual violence.
National Sexual Violence Resource Center serves as the comprehensive resource center on sexual violence and its prevention, and sponsors SAAM each April.
TS-Si supports open and immediate access to publicly funded research.
Petition: remove women of transsexual / intersex history from the GLAAD Media Reference Guide. [ sign ]
Read: Andrea Rosenfield's call for reform.
Opening Doors to Transsexual Medical Research
The Maetreum of Cybele needs your help in their fight for religious freedom.
is dedicated to the acceptance, medical
treatment, and legal
protection of individuals correcting the misalignment
of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition
into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
| What Shrinks Don’t Know About Biology Can Kill You |
 |
 |
| Opinion - Global Warning | |||
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |||
| Sunday, 16 August 2009 21:00 | |||
|
Fairfax, VA, USA. Some of my best friends are therapists — psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and priests or ministers. I respect their ability to help a disturbed mind work its way through a problem. Fairly often they are capable judges of when hour sessions are no useful and when medication should be the weapon of choice. But I wouldn’t go to a therapist if I had an issue with my gallbladder. When the pain from my gallbladder became more than I could stand, I went to a competent surgeon who removed the damn thing. If instead of a surgeon, I had placed my trust in the expertise of a therapist, I could have talked for hours at the end of which I would be dead. Why then should anyone expect a therapist to be a competent authority to address a neurobiological intersex condition? The problem is not in the minds of men and women born transsexual, the problem is in the genitals and physical layout of the body. A man or woman born transsexual needs a board certified reconstructive plastic surgeon, an endocrinologist, and, if she is female, a good gynecologist — not weekly sessions with a therapist.
Washington, DC, USA. Science observes the universe, records what has occurred, and then develops a testable  theory that can explain those observations and make predictions on future ones.
Albert Einstein was very good at thi...No one would dare. I do not intend to get in the middle of the ongoing discussion between the old guard soft science psychiatrists and the emerging hard science neuroscientists. At their core, the men of the APA are uncomfortable thinking about the possibility of losing a penis. All men are. They’re male. But the one thing that Women Born Transsexual are not is male. Facts are stubborn things. [N3] A psychosexually undifferentiated individual at birth does not exist. By the time an infant fights its way out of the womb, the sexual structure of the Early in fetal development, even before a glimmer of genitalia, the central Brain and body development processes are not conditional, but proceed in parallel using shared resources. The configuration of a brain does not trigger matching genitalia. The physical configuration of a penis or a vagina does not result in a matching brain. Both development cycles are triggered much earlier, following conception and before the appearance of a neural crest. For any infant, any human, the neural crest is a unique configuration that contains all of our potentials and the control plan for our development. The cells of the neural crest migrate throughout the body to form diverse structures within the central nervous system. And yet, the men of the APA would have us believe that transsexuality is a mental disorder — the only mental disorder whose only known efficacious treatment is to physically change the external sexual characteristics and the hormonal balance of the body. I would suggest that what a man or woman born transsexual needs is a good surgeon, not a psychiatric association that sees them only as a funding stream and a ready source of study material for their journal submissions.
The good doctors of the APA should take their own advice and follow their own guidelines. Based on the best hard science evidence and research available, transsexuality is physical variation within the human species, not a mental disorder. [N6] Transsexuality should never have been included in the DSM and should be dropped from the upcoming fifth edition, much in the same manner the APA removed homosexuality as a disorder once it became apparent that sexual preference is physically set in the womb. I do not intend to get in the middle of the ongoing discussion between the old guard soft science psychiatrists and the emerging hard science neuroscientists. I am only saying that the APA should heed their own guidelines and follow the science, even if it means admitting they were wrong.
Notes[N1] It is interesting how infrequently, if at all, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) talks about Men born transsexual. Judged by their writings and their case studies, It would seem that the APA has a fetish disorder for transvestites and crossdressers.
[N2] It may be unfair to note this, but if Women Born Transsexual were found to be NOT DISORDERED, how could the men of APA make money from charging transsexuals hundreds of dollars for the weekly sessions demanded by APA practitioners. [N3] “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams, Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials (December 1770). The French, bless 'em, relyng on tortuous and out-of-context translations, have variously attributed the Adams quote to unrelated work by Alain-René Lesage (1668-1747) and Denis Diderot (1713–1784). The best rejoinder to this claim came from a great American writer and wit: "Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable." Mark Twain (1835-1910). [N4] The Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders (DSM) is currently in its fourth edition, with additional text revisions (DSM-IV-TR). The fifth edition is scheduled for completion in 2012 (DSM-V). [N5] David J. Kupler, M. D., Chair, DSM-V Task Force, American Psychiatric Association, Pittsburgh, Letter published in USA Today (Friday, August 14, 2009). [N6] Most probably a specific variant of intersex.
 Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is a Co-Founder & Principal of TS-Si. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. She maintains another site, StarPoet.com, for her poetry and literary works.Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. Use the form below or email via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
 The TS-Si News Service is a collaborative effort by TS-Si.org editors, contributors, and corresponding institutions. 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. We welcome your comments. Use the form below to leave a public comment or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.TS-Si is dedicated to the acceptance, medical treatment, and legal protection of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.
Email this
Comments (8)
 Write comment
|
|||
| Last Updated on Sunday, 16 August 2009 15:03 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
Show/hide comment form
The TS-Si News Service
and the TS-Si Research Service are collaborations of TS-Si officials, staff, contributors, and corresponding institutions. The contents do not necessarily convey official positions of TS-Si or its owners, participants, partners, or affiliates.