True to Identities

To the Editor: Thomas N. Wise '65, M.D., recently wrote, "Transgender individuals are not bad people but often have serious conflicts and issues that are not a result of society but due to internal psychological conflicts." If we remove the word "transgender" and replace it with "homosexual," we will hear the same refrain previously used to keep homosexuality listed as a psychiatric disorder for far too many hurtful and harmful years. I have a vision of a near future where gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder is similarly abandoned as a damaging, stigmatizing psychiatric diagnosis, and people are allowed (if not encouraged) to honor their internal gender identity and not be made to force themselves into socially constructed gender boxes and roles.