Pathological Science: Debunking Sexological and Sociological Models of Transgenderism
1 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 255-256. The HBIGDA has very recently changed its name to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (www.wpath.org). 2 Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, The HBIGDA Standards of Care, 4th ed., 1990. 3 For discussions on the efficacy of modern sex reassignment procedures, see A. Michel, M. Ansseau, J. J. Legros, W. Pitchot, and C. Mormont, “The Transsexual: What About the Future?” European Psychiatry 17 (2002), 353-362; P. T. Cohen-Kettenis and L. J. G. Gooren, “Transsexualism: A Review of Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 46, no. 4 (1999), 315-333; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 124; and Arlene Istar Lev, Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and Their Families (Binghamton: Haworth Clinical Practice Press, 2004), 41. 4 Vern L. Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, Cross Dressing: Sex and Gender (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993); Califia, Sex Changes, 120-162; Gilbert Herdt, ed., Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History (New York: Zone Books, 1994); Feinberg, Transgender Warriors; Lev, Transgender Emergence, 55-77; Nanda, Gender Diversity; Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow, 329-386. For an even more exhaustive collection of sources on this point, see note 1 (pages 185-186) in Dallas Denny, “Transgender Communities of the United States in the Late Twentieth Century,” Transgender Rights, Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang, Shannon Price Minter, eds. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 171-191. 5 Harry Benjamin, introduction to Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, Richard Green and John Money, eds. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), 1-10. 6 Ibid., 4; Harry Benjamin, The Transsexual Phenomenon (New York: Julian Press Publishers, 1966), currently accessible in electronic format at www.symposion.com/ijt/benjamin. 7 Benjamin, The Transsexual Phenomenon; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 102. 8 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 220; Richard Green, “Attitudes Toward Transsexualism and Sex-Reassignment Procedures,” in Green and Money, Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 235-242. 9 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 222-226; Green and Money, Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment. 10 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 255-256; Green, Becoming a Visible Man, 194-196. 11 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 142, 221-222. For other accounts of gender identity clinics and other gatekeepers (past and present) treating few patients and providing delayed and/or inadequate care, see Claudine Griggs, S/he: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes (Oxford: Berg, 1998), 31; Namaste, Invisible Lives, 190-234; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 156-158; Gordene Olga MacKenzie, Transgender Nation (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1994), 77; Maxine E. Petersen and Robert Dickey, “Surgical Sex Reassignment: A Comparative Survey of International Centers,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 24, no. 2 (1995), 135-156. 13 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 225; Anne Bolin, In Search of Eve: Transsexual Rites of Passage (South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Harvey, 1988), 121; Frank Lewins, Transsexualism in Society: A Sociology of Male-to-Female Transsexuals (South Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia, 1995), 103. 14 The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is published by the American Psychiatric Association and is the world’s most widely used reference for diagnosing mental illnesses. The homosexuality diagnosis was removed from the DSM in 1973, to be replaced by “ego-dystonic homosexuality” in 1980. This latter diagnosis—which only applied to those who experienced persistent distress over their own homosexuality—was removed in 1986. During the late 1980s, it was still commonplace for gatekeepers to require trans people to be heterosexual and stereotypically feminine (or masculine)—in fact, Anne Bolin, whose book In Search of Eve was published in 1988, spends a great many pages debunking earlier gatekeepers’ assumptions about transsexual orientations (see Bolin, In Search of Eve, 61-68, 106-120). 15 Jon K. Meyer and Donna J. Reter, “Sex Reassignment,” Archives of General Psychiatry 36 (1979), 1010-1015; Michael Fleming, Carol Steinman, and Gene Bocknek, “Methodological Problems in Assessing Sex-Reassignment Surgery: A Reply to Meyer and Reter,” International Journal of Transgenderism 2, no. 2 (1998), (www.symposion.com); Lev, Transgender Emergence, 42. 16 Norman Knorr, Sanford Wolf, and Eugene Meyer, “Psychiatric Evaluation of Male Transsexuals for Surgery,” in Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 279; John Randell, “Preoperative and Postoperative Status of Male and Female Transsexuals,” Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 355-367; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 164. 17 Knorr et al., “Psychiatric Evaluation,” 274; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 161-162. 18 Robert Veit Sherwin, “Legal Aspects of Male Transsexualism,” in Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 417-430; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 166. 19 Ira B. Pauly, “Adult Manifestations of Male Transsexualism,” in Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 45; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 197, 225. 20 Sherwin, “Legal Aspects of Male Transsexualism,” 423. 21 Richard Green, “Psychiatric Management of Special Problems in Transsexualism,” in Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 287. 22 Pauly, “Adult Manifestations of Male Transsexualism,” 45-46. 23 Lev, Transgender Emergence, 9-11, 47; Katherine K. Wilson, “The Disparate Classification of Gender and Sexual Orientation in American Psychiatry,” 1998 Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Workshop IW57: Transgender Issues, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, June 1998 (http://gidreform.org/kwapa98.html). 24 Lev, Transgender Emergence, 38; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 9. 25 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 149; Lev, Transgender Emergence, 34, 143. 26
DSM-IV-TR, 566, 574-575; Katherine K. Wilson, “The Disparate Classification of Gender.” 29 Phyllis Burke, Gender Shock: Exploding the Myths of Male and Female (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 3-136. 30 Ibid., 32-33, 60-65. Along with Richard Green, The “Sissy Boy Syndrome” and the Development of Homosexuality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), another classic example of effemimaniacal research is Robert Stoller, Presentations of Gender (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). For other references regarding feminine boys receiving the lion’s share of psychological/psychiatric interest and attention, see MacKenzie, Transgender Nation, 22-23, 90-93; Stephen J. Ducat, The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004), 25-29; and Lev, Transgender Emergence, 176. 31 Stoller, Presentations of Gender, 28-33; Lev, Transgender Emergence, 120-124. 32 MacKenzie, Transgender Nation, 92; Benjamin, The Transsexual Phenomenon; Richard Green and E. B. Keverne, “The Disparate Maternal Aunt-Uncle Ratio in Male Transsexuals: An Explanation Invoking Genomic Imprinting,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 202 (2000), 55-63; Sven Bocklandt, Steve Horvath, Eric Vilain, and Dean H. Hamer, “Extreme Skewing of X Chromosome Inactivation in Mothers of Homosexual Men,” Human Genetics 118, no. 6 (2006), 691-694. 33 Ethel S. Person and Lionel Ovesey, “The Transsexual Syndrome in Males: Primary Transsexualism,” and “The Transsexual Syndrome in Males: Secondary Transsexualism,” in Ethel S. Person, The Sexual Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 110-145. 34 J. Michael Bailey, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2003). 36 “The Ups and Downs of J. Michael Bailey,” Transgender Tapestry, no. 104, Winter 2004, 53 (www.ifge.org). 37 Burke, Gender Shock, 53. 38 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay: The War on Effeminate Boys,” The Columbia Reader on Lesbians & Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics, Larry Gross and James D. Woods, eds. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 201-206. 39 Lev, Transgender Emergence, 142. 40 Robert J. Stoller, Sex and Gender (New York: Science House, 1968), 195-205; MacKenzie, Transgender Nation, 52-53, 87-89; Lev, Transgender Emergence, 141-143. 41 Kessler and McKenna, Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach, 118. Some have also claimed that Harry Benjamin only worked with trans women who he thought were attractive (Rudacille, The Riddle of Gender, 88). 42 Randell, “Preoperative and Postoperative Status,” 378. 43 Bailey, The Man Who Would Be Queen, 180. Other recent evidence of trans women being sexualized by male gatekeepers can be found in Namaste, Invisible Lives, 202-205. 44 Bolin, In Search of Eve, 107. 46 Namaste, Invisible Lives, 163-164. 47 John Money and Clay Primrose, “Sexual Dimorphism and Dissociation in the Psychology of Male Transsexuals,” in Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 115-131; John Money and John G. Brennan, “Sexual Dimorphism in the Psychology of Female Transsexuals,” in Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 137-152. 48 Bolin, In Search of Eve, 63, 106-120. 50 Dwight B. Billings and Thomas Urban, “The Socio-Medical Construction of Transsexualism: An Interpretation and Critique,” Social Problems 29, no. 3 (1982), 266-282. 52 Raymond, The Transsexual Empire, xvi, 2. 54 Ibid., xiii-xiv; Billings and Urban, “The Socio-Medical Construction,” 266; evidence to the contrary can be found in Currah, Juang, and Minter, Transgender Rights.
55 Knorr et al., “Psychiatric Evaluation,” 273-274, 279; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 131-132, 164. 56 Reviewed in Bullough and Bullough, Crossdressing; Califia, Sex Changes, 120-162; Herdt, Third Sex, Third Gender; Feinberg, Transgender Warriors; Lev, Transgender Emergence, 55-77; Nanda, Gender Diversity; and Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow, 329-386. For more sources on this point, see note 1 (pages 185-186) in Denny, “Transgender Communities of the United States,” Transgender Rights.
57 Harry Benjamin, introduction to Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment, 1-2; Rudacille, The Riddle of Gender, 74-78; Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967), 285-288. For other examples of transsexuality, sex reassignment, and trans people petitioning doctors to help them change their sex prior to the widespread public awareness of sex reassignment (i.e., pre-Jorgensen), see F. Abraham, “Genital Reassignment on Two Male Transvestites,” International Journal of Transgenderism 2, no. 1 (1998) (www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0302.htm); Benjamin, The Transsexual Phenomenon; Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, 14-50. Joanne Meyerowitz, “Sex Research at the Borders of Gender: Transvestites, Transsexuals, and Alfred C. Kinsey,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75, no. 1 (2001), 72-90; Vern L. Bullough, “Transsexualism in History,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 4, no. 5 (1975), 561-571; Jay Prosser, Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 135-169; and Rudacille, The Riddle of Gender, 44-48, 52-56. 58 Bernice L. Hausman, Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 2-3, 195. 61 Nanda, Gender Diversity, 96. 65 Will Roscoe, Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 129. 67 Will Roscoe, “How to Become a Berdache: Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender Diversity,” in Herdt, Third Sex, Third Gender, 360-362. 69 For examples, see Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow, 343-346; and Califia, Sex Changes, 147-149. 70 Lewins, Transsexualism in Society, 144. 71 David E. Grimm, “Toward a Theory of Gender: Transsexualism, Gender, Sexuality, and Relationships,” American Behavioral Scientist 31, no. 1 (1987), 70. 72 Eichler, The Double Standard, 75. 73 Greer, The Whole Woman, 71. 74 Judith Shapiro, “Transsexualism: Reflections on the Persistence of Gender and the Mutability of Sex,” in Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub, eds. (New York: Routledge, 1991), 253. 75 Thomas Kando, “Males, Females, and Transsexuals: A Comparative Study of Sexual Conservatism,” Journal of Homosexuality 1, no. 1 (1974), 63-44. 76 Bolin, In Search of Eve, 107; Namaste, Invisible Lives, 191-234. 77 Bolin, In Search of Eve, 41. 79 For a general review of how transsexuals are rarely accepted socially and legally in the United States, see Currah, Juang, and Minter, Transgender Rights—this book also contains Kylar W. Broadus’s account of how much worse he was treated by coworkers as a trans man than when he was perceived as a butch dyke (page 94). 80 Mildred L. Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley, True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism—For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996), 105-107. 82 Lev, Transgender Emergence. 83 Ibid., 180-181; Rudacille, The Riddle of Gender, 18.