Really, it is not just a bunch of trans people whining. Because if psychologists can get away with labeling some behaviors that they don’t like as being the result of “mental disorders”, what’s to stop them doing the same to other people. Over at Feministing, Julia Serano explains:
Blanchard and other like-minded sex researchers have coined words like Gynandromorphophilia (attraction to trans women), Andromimetophilia (attraction to trans men), Abasiophilia (attraction to people who are physically disabled), Acrotomophilia (attraction to amputees), Gerontophilia (attraction to elderly people), Fat Fetishism (attraction to fat people), etc., and have forwarded them in the medical literature to denote the presumed “paraphilic” nature of such attractions. This tendency reinforces the cultural belief that young, thin, able-bodied cisgender women and men are the only legitimate objects of sexual desire, and that you must be mentally disordered in some way if you are attracted to someone who falls outside of this ideal.
All I can say is… didn’t DSM learn its lesson in DSM III? (Or was it II that still listed homosexuality as a disorder?)
*sigh*
Arachne Jericho:
That’s much of the problem. Because they were forced to remove homosexuality from their list of “disorders” they’ve been busily looking for ways to bring it back in through a back door. Much of the impetus behind the focus in trans kids is nothing to do with gender identity, but rather a sop to parents who don’t want their kids to “grow up gay”.
LOL. So liking fat people is a fetish, while the rest are mere philias? HAHAHAHAHA.
cisgen-anorexiphilia is “normal”, huh? It ain’t even AVERAGE!!!
Cheryl,
I thought the “old guard” were dead or retired by now. Apparently not.
I have heard that gerontophilia hits surprisingly many people while they get older so it must be age transmitted. And I hope if I lose some of my limbs my partner is hit with a sudden acrotomophilia.
WTF?