GID Treatment

This from a amicus (Friend of the Court) brief filed by the ACLU. It is a very accurate description of the necessity of treatment which follows the recognized Standards of Care.



GID: A Medical Diagnosis Requiring Effective & Ethical Treatment[*]



1) Gender Identity Disorder (“GID”) is a recognized medical condition identified in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. DSM-IV 532 (4th ed. 1994).

2) GID, sometimes known as gender dysphoria or transsexualism, is a serious health condition that involves a strong and consistent cross-gender identification and a persistent discomfort with one’s anatomical sex.

3) For people with gender dysphoria, the conflict between their gender identity and their anatomy causes extreme psychological distress. Contemporary medical knowledge indicates that gender identity cannot be changed, and that attempts to change a person’s gender identity are futile and unethical.

4) Mounting medical research indicates that gender dysphoria is caused by biological or physiological factors that are not yet fully understood. For example, an article entitled “A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and Its Relations to Transsexualism,” authored by J.-N. Zhou, M.A. Hofman, L.J. Gooren, D.F. Swaab and published at International Journal of Transgenderism 1 (1997), reports that an area of the brain involved in human sexual or reproductive functions was female-sized in male-to-female transsexuals.

5) The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (“HBIGDA”) is the leading professional association for surgeons, doctors, medical researchers and others who specialize in the medical treatment of people with gender dysphoria. Based on decades of clinical experience, HBIGDA has promulgated medical standards of care for treating patients with gender dysphoria.

6) The HBIGDA Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders (“SOC”) recognize that treatment is medically necessary for people with gender dysphoria. The SOC further indicate that the therapeutic approach often includes three components (hormone therapy, living as a member of the gender corresponding with one’s identity, and sex reassignment surgery), and that the appropriate course of treatment should be determined based upon individualized medical evaluation.
[*] Excerpted - with emphases added - from a legal brief jointly submitted by the ACLU and Lambda Legal on 1/24/06 in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Wisconsin. These statements were presented as facts relevant to a case involving a person that has the same medical diagnosis as I do.