A CHRISTIAN VOICE FOR GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: PLEASE EMAIL AND/OR PHONE THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION

Monday, June 16, 2008

PLEASE EMAIL AND/OR PHONE THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION

UPDATE 6/16 9:10 AM: I just received materials in reference to this blog post from Dr. Jack Drescher with whose excellent reputation I am familiar, and in all fairness I want to post two excerpts from the attachments he sent me, plus a video of him (that he did not send to me) that will somewhat familiarize you with him and his views about "Reparative Therapy." I am not sufficiently familiar with Dr. Zucker's recent work or current ideology that informs that work to intelligently comment on it, so I'm going to merely present this excerpted updated information.

"The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual) in 1973, and the Association has taken strong positions at every opportunity against discrimination and stigmas related to homosexuality. There is no action within the APA to reclassify homosexuality or to change these positions."
http://archive.psych.org/edu/other_res/lib_archives/archives/199216.pdf

"The philosophy of Dr. Zucker’s team is to provide client-centered care that maximizes benefit and minimizes harm to each child or youth. The goal of treatment is a well-adjusted youth, regardless of ultimate gender identity or sexual orientation, who feels she or he has been genuinely helped by her or his healthcare providers. Dr. Zucker has offered a variety of treatment options, understanding that options may vary greatly with the age of the client. For younger clients, therapy options include helping the child to overcome discomfort with his or her body, i.e., helping clients learn to live comfortably in their natal sex. Diagnosis and treatment of other problems that may be present, such as anxiety, depression, or substance abuse are also available, as are services for family members.

"For adolescent patients (including those who first came to the clinic as young children), Dr. Zucker follows the Standards of Care Guidelines of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. The treatment options include helping patients make a satisfactory transition to the opposite sex, including the institution of hormonal treatment to facilitate transition. In some cases, treatment may include helping an interested adolescent obtain sex-reassignment surgery.

"For all patients, regardless of age, the focus of therapy is the patient’s gender identity, not the patient’s sexual orientation. Dr. Zucker’s therapeutic approach has no relationship to so-called reparative or sexual conversion therapies that attempt to change homosexual orientations to heterosexual ones. The goal of his therapy is the opposite of conversion therapy in that he considers well-adjusted transsexual, gay, lesbian or bisexual youth to be therapy successes, not failures."

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I just received the following email from ChristianGays.com and ask that you please write an email and/or phone the American Psychiatric Association to help prevent what might well be a disaster for LGBT people. ( It is unfortunate that this urgency is also not directed to the very existence of the diagnostic category of the DSM called, "Gender Identity Disorder," as I feel that being transgender is in no way a "disorder." (But that is an issue to be addressed at another time.)

A few days ago the American Psychiatric Association announced who would write the new revision of the DSM-V, the manual of mental disorders that controls the diagnosis and treatment of gender and sexual difference. The "expert" just named to chair the revisions on sexuality and gender is Kenneth Zucker. Zucker is the major remaining proponent of "reparative therapy" to "cure" kids they think are LGBT.

If the APA doesn't change the committee, the next edition of the DSMV will probably prescribe reparative therapies as recommended "treatment" for LGBT people.

Zucker's named Ray Blanchard to the work group that will rewrite Gender Identity Disorder. Blanchard is connected with ex-gay organizations; his core theory is that transpeople are "really" sex offenders or homosexuals, and homosexuals are mentally ill.

Zucker's stated purpose for reparative therapy is that, without it, gay kids will grow up into transsexuals. So any version of Gender Identity Disorder the two of them write will not only put transpeople out of medical help and into conversion therapy, but also redefine GID from an independent diagnosis to a kind of homosexuality.

In other words, their goal is to put homosexuality back in the DSMV as a mental illness. We'd be back where we were before 1973. We have to get the word out.

If the community protests loudly and fast, the APA will probably have to remove Zucker and Blanchard. Please help. Spread the word to everyone you know.

Any contacts you have with LGBT political advocacy and media organizations, please light a fire with them to pressure the APA to remove Zucker and Blanchard from the DSM-V committee. It matters for all of us.

Contact the:

American Psychiatric Association
1000 Wilson Boulevard Suite 1825
Arlington, VA 22209

Contact APA Answer Center Call Toll-Free: 1-888-35-PSYCH

From outside the U.S. and Canada call: 1-703-907-7300

Email: apa@psych.org

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6 comments:

Anthony Venn-Brown said...: HI Jerry.....I wonder if you are aware of the work i'm doing 'down under' and my autobiography 'A Life of Unlearning: A Journey to Find the Truth'

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Unlearning-Journey-Find-Truth/dp/1741105463/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213669116&sr=8-1; June 16, 2008 at 7:19 PM
Jerry Maneker said...: Hi Anthony: No, I didn't hear about your book, and I'm delighted you told me and the readers about it. It got excellent reviews, and from what I read I urge people to buy it and learn about your journey toward authenticity amidst dogmatic religious forces that would break, and have broken, so many people.

I want to quote a review by R. Patrick of your book that I got from the Amazon website where your book is sold, to give the readers a sense of what your very well received book is about:

"This is an extremely moving account of an ex-minister's journey to find his total purpose in life during the midst of a high profile ministry and at the expense of losing everything he had. But arising from the ashes of despair, he awakens to a new self-discovery of who he really is and has a new sense of self worth and importance.

"Mr. Venn-Brown speaks from the heart of his painful journey of battling and coming to terms with his same-sex orientation while becoming one of Australia's leading pastor/evangelists within the Assemblies of God. His journey is identified by many who have been isolated/rejected by the conservative mainstream church because they were gay.

"Mr. Venn-Brown's story has made it to the United States and other countries. It is a must read for anyone who needs to discover and be reacquainted with who they are within themselves. I am truly blessed and honored to have read his story."

Thanks for writing me about your book, and I hope that many people buy and read it, as it shows how the power of God can deliver all of us from the clutches of dogmatic and abusive religion to living truly authentic lives for Christ, of which you are a remarkable example.

God bless you. My very best wishes, Jerry.; June 16, 2008 at 10:19 PM
Anthony Venn-Brown said...: thanks Jerry. I feel quite humbled that my story has had such a profound impact on so many people......but as so many emails from readers say....."your story is my story"

This review here might also be helpful for people considering if my autobiography will be relevant.

"In ‘A Life of Unlearning’ Anthony shares his life with us with all the colour that a story-telling evangelist can capture. The honesty of his story is compelling. Many Christians love to argue, gaining a sense of safety out of “being right”. Anthony doesn’t do that, he simply tells his story. You can’t argue with it. It is neither right nor wrong, it simply is.

You can feel the genuineness in trying to build a relationship with God and the internal tensions of sexual guilt and self-rejection. The tension between his truth and his sense of value and worth is the key battle. We see Anthony rising to success as a popular preacher only to fall with scandal when his truth comes out. His pain deepened as others got hurt, including his wife and daughters.

Even as he left the “safety” of religion and ventured into the homosexual world, he learned the spirituality of honesty and the caring of each other beyond what he had experienced in his denomination. Anthony deals with Fundamentalism by reverting to the fundamental of LOVE. His story faces the hard issues, HIV/AIDS, Suicide, Sexual Assault, Relationships, Marriage, Parenting, Domestic Violence, Loneliness, Guilt, Shame, Rejection, Love and Sex. He has nothing to hide and it is refreshing.

I recommend this book as a non-threatening way to understand and process the issues of sexuality and spirituality; however, I can’t say you may not experience discomfort as the honesty in these pages invites you to be honest in your own life. Read it if you dare."

Dr Wendell Rosevear - Psychologist O.A.M., M.B.,B.S., Dip. RACOG., FRACGP.,
1998 Order of Australia Medal
1996 Brisbane Citizen of the Year
1996 A.M.A. National Award for "Best Individual Contribution to Health Care in Australia"; June 16, 2008 at 11:06 PM
Jerry Maneker said...: Thank you so much Anthony. From what I've read in the reviews of your book, your story will impact and empower many people, and be of great therapeutic value to those who are struggling in the way you experienced, and they can and will learn many valuable lessons as they navigate their way through their struggles in reconciling their Christianity with their sexuality. I like what Rev. Troy Perry once said: "Jesus came to take away our sins, not our sexuality!" Amen! My very best wishes, Jerry.; June 16, 2008 at 11:29 PM
Anthony Venn-Brown said...: I like that quote of Troys.

Here is one I'm well known for.

"My morality is a choice. My sexual orientation however isn't."

thanks for your help in getting the word out there.; June 17, 2008 at 12:05 AM
Jerry Maneker said...: It's my pleasure!; June 17, 2008 at 8:01 AM

FROM "THE CHRISTIAN LEFT"

"It’s easy to see the sinfulness and corruption of “the world” for what they are when you spend enough time reading what Jesus said. It has nothing to do with abortion and gay marriage. It has everything to do with the lust for money, power and control. Starving the poor and depriving the sick of health care, not caring for the least of these among us, is what angers God the most. It’s easy to see why the road is narrow. The world is very efficient at convincing even Christians that its agenda is good. When people try to carry out God’s agenda they’re labeled “Socialists” and demonized."

MUST-READING FOR THOSE INVOLVED IN THE LGBT CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE

In most Native American history, Gay, Lesbian, and/or Transgendered individuals were considered holy and treated with the highest respect. They were the historians, the healers, and the people of empowerment. They possessed the delicate balance of male and female, and were often honored for being unique and having a different spiritual calling. For their tribes, they were the mediators between the spirit world and the natural world. They were known in their separate languages as “naadle” (nad le) They who love their own kind, translation from the Navajo language; “winkte” (wink-day) would be woman, translation from the Lakota Sioux language; and “bade” (bah-day) male/female person, translation from the Hidatsa language. (By the staff of the Two-Spirit Society of Denver.)

CIVIL RIGHTS ARE NOT TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ELECTORATE!

We can't spend our time and tremendous amounts of monies trying to get the majority of the electorate to vote for equal rights. If integration of African Americans was put on the ballot in each state during the civil rights era, we would still have segregation and Jim Crow laws! There must be meaningful, coordinated, and aggressive grassroots, street, and organizational activism, coupled with the filing of civil suits at the federal level, to achieve equal rights. "Separate is not equal," and that fact must be, and undoubtedly will be, affirmed by the Judiciary in regard to Gay people, as it was for African Americans, and not left to the will and whim of the majority of the electorate, for to do so demeans Gay people, and puts each and every minority group's rights up for grabs. We would never think of putting one or more civil rights of Jews, of African Americans, of Asians, etc. on the ballot to be voted upon, and Gay people's civil rights must not be treated any differently.

Christianity Is A Lifestyle

Christianity is a lifestyle -- a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into a clever "religion," in order to avoid the lifestyle itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain, and still believe that Jesus is their "personal Lord and Savior." The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great. - Richard Rohr

THE BIBLE IS NOT GOD

The Bible is NOT God! To elevate the Bible to the status of God, not only is an injustice to scholarship and logic, but is a direct offense against God Himself. We are to have no idols other than God, and biblical literalists and many of those who seek to counter them, both use the Bible as an idol, elevating it to the point where they explicitly or implicitly believe that it contains all of God's Word to us. Jesus is God's Word, and Jesus makes very clear what God expects of His followers: to trust God over and above seen circumstances, and to love other people! That's what puts the lie to homophobic professing Christians' selective use of certain biblical passages to "justify" and impose their hateful prejudices on others; their re-defining Christianity, and God Himself, in their own image, thereby using not only the Bible, but themselves, as their idols; ignoring Jesus' words, work, ministry, and life! The Bible is best viewed as a "finger" that points us to a couple of the many dimensions of God. What the biblical literalists do is equivalent to the following: If I ask you where you live and you point in a given direction and I just keep staring at your finger, I'll soon come to know everything about your finger, its size, shape, fingerprint, and every single detail about your finger, but I won't come any closer to knowing where you live. I have to look to the place where your finger is pointing in order to know where you live. The same holds true for those who elevate the Bible as being the "inerrant word of God." No! Only God is the Inerrant Word!

LGBT PEOPLE AS "EUNUCHS SO BORN FROM THEIR MOTHER'S WOMB."

For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb.... (Matthew 19:12)

I don't think any scholar who is truly spiritually sensitive can not see that "eunuchs so born from their mother's womb" refers to Gay and Transgender people who, on this earth, most closely reflect God Who is Spirit and Who transcends gender. LGBT people are God's gift to this world, and to His Church. Too many of the former largely reject that gift; Christ's Church, unfortunately, seems to comprise very few within the institutional Church.

THE CONFUSION OF "HEDONISM" WITH "GAY."

In my opinion, a distinction has to be made between "hedonism" and "Gay," and much public persona of Gay people, and the commentators on all too many LGBT-oriented sites, seem to be more hedonistic than Gay. Frivolity, indecency, and use of hateful epithets as self-identifiers tell us far more about them than it does about Gay people. They use "queer" because they feel "queer," and don't see being Gay in any other terms than being "indecent" and "abnormal." And many of them pride themselves on being outsiders! This reflects their psyches, and they are too dense to accept that fact, let alone change their rhetoric and self-perceptions. They resent anyone who tells them that they are not "mistakes," and that dignity is essential in living one's life, and they undoubtedly thrive on lack of such dignity. I learned a lot from a transgender woman, for example, when she resented the fact that I said that she wasn't a mistake! She tenaciously hung on to the fact that she is a mistake and resented any other possibility. The same is true for most Gay people who comment on assorted Gay-oriented sites. Blindly accepting the oppressor's rhetoric and actions has done inordinate harm to many LGBT people, and that's a great deal of what we must fight against.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AUGUST 4, 1857

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

A NOTE ON THE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE USE OF PEJORATIVE SELF-IDENTIFIERS

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISM, BY DON CHARLES

1. Thou shalt not address thyself or thy kind with inaccurate, disrespectful or dehumanizing labels, nor shalt thou do or say anything to marginalize thyself or enable thy own oppression.

2. Thou shalt not treat thy moral crusade like a political campaign. Thou shalt not value the welfare of political parties over the welfare of LGBT folk, nor shalt thou bind the equality movement to any political party.

3. Thou shalt not disrespect transgender identity or transgender bodies, and thou shalt not kick thy transsexual brethren to the curb for political advantage. Thou shalt endeavor to rid thy movement of transphobia as well as biphobia, sexism, heterosexism, racism, sexual racism, ageism and class bias.

4. Thou shalt not defend, attend or fund any religious institution which preaches genocide against LGBT folk, and thou shalt pursue separation of church and state with all thy mind, heart and soul. Thou shalt directly confront religious institutions that preach LGBT genocide, and thou shalt use authentic, inclusive theology as a weapon against hateful doctrine.

5. Thou shalt not use the equality movement as thy vehicle for exhibitionism, hedonism, political ambition or self-promotion.

6. Thou shalt not excuse any form of inequality (such as exclusion from marriage or military service) on ideological grounds, and thou shalt not give LGBT equality less importance than other social issues.

7. Thou shalt vigilantly police media representations of LGBT folk for demeaning, ridiculous and vilifying portrayals, and thou shalt not fail to include Gay media in thy policings.

8. Thou shalt preach the gospel of comprehensive sex education. Thou shalt promote intelligent conversation about human sexuality, express thy own sexuality without shame, be considerate of thy sexual partners, and shun sex practices that are unhealthy, irresponsible or illegal.

9. Thou shalt access public and private education systems and use those systems to diminish fear and ignorance about LGBT people. Thou shalt not be turned aside from this goal by scurrilous accusations of "recruitment".

10. Thou shalt protect, nurture and serve as role models for LGBT youth, and thou shalt protect, honor and provide for LGBT elders.

Monday, June 16, 2008

PLEASE EMAIL AND/OR PHONE THE AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION

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