Manifest: International Network for Non-Trans Pathologization
The activists and groups that sign this document and belong to the International Network for Non-pathologizing Trans Identities make a public complaint once against the “psychiatricization" of our identities and the serious consequences of the gender identity disorder (GID).
We also want to make visible the violence inflicted on the intersexed people by the existing medical procedures.
With "psychiatricization" we name the practice of defining the transsexuality under the statute of mental disorder. We refer to mistaken identities and non-regulatory bodies (outside the dominant cultural order) with pathological identities and bodies. The "psychiatricization" relegates the medical-psychiatric institutions control over gender identities. The official practice of these institutions, motivated by national, religious, economic and political interests, work on the bodies of people by protecting and reproducing the pairing of man and woman as the only one way. This binomial presupposes only two bodies (male or female) and associates a specific behavior on each of them (male or female), along which has viewed heterosexuality as the only possible relationship between them traditionally. Today, we are denouncing this paradigm that has used the argument of biology and nature to justify the existing social order; we show its social effects to end its political pretensions.
The bodies anatomically unresponsive to current western medical classification are listed under the heading of intersexuality, a condition which, per se, is considered pathological. The medical classification, however, continues even today without being questioned. Transsexualism is also conceptualized as a problematic reality by itself. Gender ideology serving psychiatry, however, still remains unchallenged.
To legitimize the social norms that constrain our experiences and feelings means to make invisible and pathologic the other available options, and mark a path that questions the political dogma that bases our society: the unique and exclusive existence of only two ways of being and feeling. If to invisibilize means intervening to intersex newborns (with ambiguous genitalia) with violent standard treatments, then it is to erase the possibility of these bodies and veto the existence of differences.
The paradigm in current procedures is based about the transsexuality and intersexuality converts them into binary standardizing medical conditions. It is "Normalization" because they reduce the diversity to just two ways of living and inhabiting the world: statistical considerations and politically "normal". And with our criticism of these processes are also reluctant to have to adapt to the psychiatric definitions of man and woman to live identities, so that the value of lives is recognized without the renunciation of diversity in which we are constituted. We don’t abide any listing, or label, or definition imposed by the medical institution. We claim our right to call ourselves as we prefer.
Currently, transsexuality is considered as a "gender identity disorder, mental illness classified in the ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization) and DSM-IV-R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Diseases Mind of the American Psychiatric Association). These classifications are those that guide to psychiatrists around the world in establishing their diagnosis. They make a mistake just by chance: the confusion of the effects of transphobia with transsexualism. The Invisible social violence is exerted on those who do not conform to gender norms. Thus, actively ignoring the problem is not gender identity, but transphobia.
The revision of the DSM-IV-R is a process that began two years ago and aims to identify some changes in the list of diseases. In the recent months the names of psychiatrists who will decide the future of gender identity disorder (GID) have been made public.
Leading the group working on the GID, we find Dr. Zucker (group leader), Dr. Blanchard and Dr. Bailey, among others. These psychiatrists, known for using reparative therapy for homosexuals and transsexuals renewal, and are linked to intersex clinics, propose to withdraw not only the disorder but to expand the treatment on children to submit non-gender behavior policy and apply reparative adaptation and therapy role source. In this sense, the American Trans Movement has asked for his expulsion from the group responsible for the revision of DSM. The International Network for Non- Trans Identities pathologization joins unreservedly to that complaint.
To pathologize transsexuality as "gender identity disorder” is a serious exercise of control and standardization. The treatment of this disorder is carried out in different centers around the world. In cases such as the Spanish State, it is required to go through a psychiatric evaluation in the Units of Gender Identity; in some cases, it is associated to a weekly check of the gender identity through group therapy and family and all kinds degrading processes that violate our rights. In this case it must be stressed that any person wishing to change the name in the documentation or to modify their bodies with hormones or operations must pass a mandatory psychiatric assessment.
Finally, we directly claim to the political class. Our demand is clear:
• We demand the withdrawal of transsexuality in the manuals of mental disorders (DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10). In addition, they must stop the treatments of intersex babies.
• We demand the right to change our names and sex on official documents without having to undergo with any medical or psychological evaluation. We also think firmly, that the State should have no jurisdiction over our names, bodies and identities.
• We make our own the words of the feminist movement in the struggle for abortion rights and the right to own the body: assert our right to decide freely whether or not to modify our bodies, and to carry out our choice without bureaucratic, political or economic impediments, and to become free from any type of medical coercion. We want health systems have a position about the gender identity disorder, to recognize their transphobia holding current classification and revise their health care program to transsexuality, because they make an unnecessary psychiatric evaluation, so that the psychotherapy could be voluntary option. We also demand the cessation of operations at newly intersex babies.
• We denounce the extreme vulnerability and difficulties in accessing to the labor market of the trans collective population. They deserve a workplace and the implementation of specific policies to reverse the marginalization and discrimination. We also require health and safety conditions in the development of sex work and to stop the police siege to these people and sex trafficking.
• This vulnerability is heightened in the case of trans immigrants, who come to our country fleeing from situations of extreme violence. We demand the immediate granting of political asylum in such cases, while we claim the full equality of rights of migrants. We denounce the effects of policy on foreigners on the socially most vulnerable population.
• While we yell that we are not victims but active beings with the capacity to decide on our own identities, we also remember all assaults, murders and suicides of trans people because of transphobia. We sign the system as guilty of these violent acts. Silence is complicity.
Finally, we prove the extreme rigidity on imposing the pair man / woman as sole and exclusive option, a binomial that is built and which can be questioned. Our very existence proves the falsity of these polar opposites and points to a pluralistic and diverse reality, diversity that today we dignify.
When the medicine and the state define us as deranged people, it is clear that our identities and lives disrupt their system. Therefore we say that the disease is not in us but in the gender binary.
Announcing the International Network for Non-Trans Pathologization of identities it emerges the desire of strengthening the global coordination around a first goal: taking the transsexuality out of the DSM-TR 2012. This is a first step for diversity, a first stroke to transphobia.
To support the diversity of our bodies and our identities!
The transphobia makes us sick!
INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR NON-TRANSPATHOLOGIZATION
Go to Stop Campaign: Stop2012
