Gender Confusion and the Complicity of Public Schools

Last week, the national press reported on a 56-year-old high school biology teacher in California who plans to undergo a sex-change operation (i.e. cosmetic surgery) and to return to the classroom appearing as a woman. “To have a teacher be authentic ultimately is good for students and for the community,” said Jennifer Levi of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or GLAAD, an advocacy group in Boston.

Sadly, the situation is far more complicated and confusing than advocates of gender confusion or their allies in the media will admit.

Although the American Psychiatric Association dropped the diagnosis of gender identity disorder in 2012, the APA merely renamed the condition gender dysphoria in its manual of mental disorders (the DSM-5). What was the reason for the change? To reduce stigma while maintaining access to medical care.

Understandably, most people suffering from a serious mental illness would like the stigma of their medical conditions to magically disappear. But simply renaming “bipolar disorder” as “intensely sporadic mood swings” does not remedy a patient’s condition any more than rechristening “gender identity disorder” as “gender dysphoria.”  (more...)

Gender Confusion and the Complicity of Public Schools