Ostensibly for this reason, Blanchard took a nuanced, scientific approach. “The sex of a postoperative transsexual should be analogous to a legal fiction. His legal fiction would apply to some things (e.g., sex designation on a driver’s license) but not to others (entering a sports competition as one’s adopted sex).”
(Tyler O’Neil – PJ Media) See the update at the end of the article – In the early hours of Sunday morning, an expert Ph.D. psychologist who helped write the official psychological position on transgender identity was blocked on Twitter for expressing his opinion informed by clinical experience. His well-reasoned position was flagged for “hateful conduct.”
On Saturday, Ray Blanchard — the Ph.D. psychologist and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto who served on the working group for gender dysphoria (the persistent condition of identifying with the gender opposite your biological sex) for the DSM V, the gold standard of definitions helping psychologists diagnose disorders for patients — tweeted out his clinically-informed opinion on transgender identity.
He still affirmed the controversial idea that sex-change surgery is the “best treatment” for “carefully screened, adult patients, whose gender dysphoria has proven resistant to other forms of treatment,” but he opposed “treating” children who may change their minds. (Even this position is debatable, as people who have undergone sex-change surgery after persistent gender dysphoria have later rejected their transgender identity and lamented the mutilation of their bodies.)
Research