Comments on: APA issues statement regarding GID and the DSM-V

By: amanda hunter

amanda hunter — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 22:08:42 +0000

zucker is a fraud i was treated when i was 14. I had no one to talk to for years i felt alone i felt i could not trust my parents because they sent me to him. I don’t blame them they were miss lead. force him to do boy things nothing that girls do he will be fine. I was afraid if i said anything i would be sent back to this fraud. he has no idea how we think or feel i was alone for years with no one i could talk too. i have in the last few months made friends with other transsexuals i am going out i figured out who i am and zucker is all wrong he has no clue who we are. i have been chating with a younger transgirl (i wont give her age she is seeing zucker, i and others have warned her about him. he keeps asking who she wants to have sex with not her gender identity. i told her any time she wants to talk i’m here to listen. i don’t want that so called Dr. to do to her what he did to me. it feels good to help her and great to stop him from hurting her.

By: Sophia

Sophia — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:34:27 +0000

Hello Warren
It just seems to be going round and round in circles. My view is that Bailey has based his ideas on those of Ray Blanchard, fair enough, there are competing theories each of which stand or fall on their merits. I do not have a problem with that, but I do find it a little odd that Bailey talks about defamation when he seems to have invested a lot of time and effort provoking people. Even when many of his collegues said “Tone it down just deal with the sceince” he went right on ahaead and published his works, from his “parental choice” paper that proposed screeneing out “potentially homsexual fetuses” through “The man who would be Queen” Where he later said in public he said “I said they [transsexual folks] are especially suited for protsitution not best suited for prostitution”. Then its “Gay Straight or Lying”. Any criticism of this is met with “Oh it is political correctness”. Yes but he does not exactly avoid silencing his critics. Talk of double standards.
As for the appointment of Zucker and Blachard there are, what 3500 signatures objecting to that at the last count? Seems to me people do not agree with what is being imposed on them by some in the medical profession. And when the CAMH and Northwestern academics stir the hornets nest they then do this. carefully controlled damage limitation. It is becoming a bit of a regular spectacle.
I just wish they would all speak face to face and settle these disputes.

By: Warren

Warren — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:33:26 +0000

@Sophia:
Assuming you are correct, why do you suppose that might be?

By: Sophia

Sophia — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:28:18 +0000

Hmm
Predictable, Another blog, probably another “Defender of Bailey” according to some critics, and then after about 20 posts we will read the defenders of Bailey (The HSTS hit squad) complaining about the usual list of critics appearing to refute Bailey, and quite frankly it is getting a bit repetitive.
Let me see, Huffington Post, Scientific Blogging, then that Northwestern news blog, now here.
Perhaps it needs to be said again. because Professor Bailey does this every time he goes public. “Professor Bailey with all due respect there are people do not agree with you why is that so hard to accept?”.

By: Curtis E. Hinkle

Curtis E. Hinkle — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:53:03 +0000

Bailey wrote:
“This is an utterly false characterization of Zucker’s position. He has no desire, stated or otherwise, to prevent homosexuality. Experience and logic suggest that when people have reasonable and sound positions, they do not need to mischaracterize the positions of others they disagree with.”
*************************
I don’t really think that the issue is explained by Zucker as a means to prevent homosexuality but to prevent transsexuality but there is no proof that feminine boys will be transsexuals at any significant rate, so it would appear that what is being treated in fact is pre-homosexuality in childhood and to no effect because most still grow up to be homosexual men. There is no proof that transsexuality was prevented by the treatment because there are no studies which prove that feminines boys grow up to be transsexuals at any rate that is statistically significant. There are also many masculine boys that grow up to be transsexuals.
So technically, Zucker can state that it is not homosexuality per se that is being “treated” but since most of these boys grow up to be homosexual men, all they have proved is that they have done nothing except try to enforce gender conformity which has no statistical link to transsexuality that is significantly higher than homosexuality (actually there is a much higher link with homosexuality). So why
call it gender identity disorder in childhood?
Some quotes from the Bailey’s “Queen” book:
“I do not ask Edwin about his childhood because I do not need to. I already know that Edwin played with dolls and loathed football, that his best friends were girls. I know that he was often teased by other boys, who called him “sissy””. (Page x in book) (See also page xi, where Bailey describes whom he knows Edwin would like to have sex with, being the feminine adult man, with which Bailey describes Edwin as being.)
“Zucker thinks that an important goal of treatment is to help the children accept their birth sex and to avoid becoming transsexual. His experience has convinced him that if a boy with GID becomes an adolescent with GID, the chances that he will become an adult with GID and seek a sex change are much higher. And he thinks the kind of therapy he practices helps reduce this risk” (Page 30 in book)
“….Zucker believes that most boys who play with girls’ things often enough to earn a diagnosis of GID would become girls if they could. Failure to intervene increases the chances of transsexualism in adulthood, which Zucker considers a bad outcome.” (Page 31 in book)
“Still most boys who want to be girls become men who don’t want to be women.” (Page 32 in book)
“…Zucker’s therapy seems kinder and more consistent, and thus more likely to be effective. Zucker believes that it is, although he is the first to ackowledge that no scientific studies currently support the effectiveness of what he does.” (Page 34 in book).