From homosexuality to "autogynephilia": The American Psychiatric Association hasn't learned.

In an obituary about Charles Silverstein, Neil Genzlinger gives some interesting insight into how Silverstein helped remove homosexuality from the American psychiatric manual, the DSM,  back in 1973. 

Silverstein had pointed out how the  American Psychiatric Association had fallen into the trap of creating pseudo-scientific sounding terms for sexualities the psychiatrists did not understand. Yes, this is unfortunately relevant to the trans community community today.

I looked up the original interview from 2019. 

Silverstein was part of a delegation from the Gay Activists Alliance, and he said this about their meeting with the people behind the DSM:

Syphilophobia and other silly diagnoses

 "I wrote [my speech to the  Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychiatric Association]  the night before, after having studied diagnostic systems, other diagnostic systems. 

What I did was write a parody, a satire, of all the absurd things that the American Psychiatric Association had diagnosed, and some of them were embarrassing. There were silly things. [He mentioned illnesses like “syphilophobia” (irrational fear of syphilis).]

At the end, I said, "These are the mistakes that you made before. You're making the mistake. Now, correct it." It seemed to have impressed them, and this came back to us in a number of publications. That was in February. In December of that year, homosexuality, per se, was eliminated from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. 

[Editor's Note: On February 8, 1973, Charles Silverstein made his presentation to the Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). In December 1973, the APA decided to change the diagnosis of homosexuality in the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II). It was later in DSM-III-R in 1987 that homosexuality was completely removed as a mental disorder.]

A lot of people misunderstand what happened in '73. They think that homosexuality was removed as a diagnostic category. It wasn't. They decided there were two kinds of homosexuals, those that were ego-syntonic and those who were ego-dystonic. This is all jargon. The ego-dystonic are people who are very unhappy with their homosexuality, and if you got such a person, it was okay to treat them and try to cure them. If a person was ego-syntonic, that means that he was happy about his homosexuality, and it was not a disorder. 

What I was trying to say in that presentation that you quoted was, "This was absurd. You teach people to suffer so that the distinction between ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic is artificial." They're virtually all going to be ego-dystonic because you make people suffer. Homosexuality completely disappeared in, I think, DSM IV, I think, III or IV."

Did the  American Psychiatric Association learn from their mistakes?

No. 

From homosexuality to autogynephilia

In 2013 they decided to include the transphobic term "autogynephilia" in the "paraphilia" section of the DSM-5. The man behind this pseudo-science used the exact same trick as others had used to keep homosexuality in the DSM after 1973, arguing that there were benign and dysfunctional variants of "autogynephilia".  

To quote Silverstein:  "This was absurd. You teach people to suffer so that the distinction between ego-syntonic and ego-dystonic is artificial." 

It was the homophobia that made gay men and lesbian women suffer mentally. A trans woman who fantasizes about having sex as a woman is not a pervert. She is exploring a woman's sexuality.

By including "autogynephilia" in the chapter for sexual perversions ("paraphilias") Blanchard contributed to the continuing stigmatization of transgender women. The term is now actively used by TERFs and other transphobes in order to harass trans people.

Ironically, the DSM-5 chapter on gender dysphoria clearly stated that gender dysphoria or being trans was not a mental illness, and that also applied to transgender women who had reported instances of erotic crossdreaming og cross-gender fantasies. But that chapter was written by a different committee, one with more enlightened scientists on board.

The international health manual, the ICD, deliberately removed related terms in their eleventh edition.

So,  dear American Psychiatric Association, maybe it is time to honor Charles Silverstein by removing the remaining "autogynephilia" nonsense from your manual.

Photo: Charles Silverstein (left) and his partner William Bory in the 1970s. Rutgers Oral History Archives.

See also:

• Charles Silverstein, a psychologist who helped destigmatize homosexuality, dies at 87
• Charles Silverstein interview, audio. Outwords 2018.
• How psychiatry and psychology have been used to suppress gender variance
• Ten Reasons Why the Transvestic Disorder Diagnosis in the DSM-5 Has Got to Go
• Science and Transphobia: Ray Blanchard is Now Assisting White Supremacists. Why?
• The Autogynephilia Theory Debunked by New German Study
• Blanchard does it again: another perversion
• All you need to know about "autogynephilia"