In Maxim's Evidence journal, it has stopped attacking lesbians and gay men. Now, it's after our transgender sisters and brothers instead. Paul McHugh is the Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University. In November 2004, he published an article in First Things, a US conservative Catholic journal, entitled "Surgical Sex." Due to irregularities in governance of the reassignment surgery programme at John Hopkins University, it was closed down. McHugh used that isolated case of bad governance to attack the viability of reassignment surgery in general. Sorry, but he won't get away with using a status cloak, nor will the Maxim Institute. McHugh may indeed have formidable professional qualifications, but he published this article in a conservative Catholic journal. The Vatican believes that reassignment surgery is a violation of 'natural law,' which depends overly much on surface appearances and was established in the twelfth century, long before the emergence of modern scientific method and use of microscopic analysis of genes, chromosomes, endocrine glands and matters microbiological. According to twelfth-century 'natural law' founder Thomas Aquinas, "natural kinds" have "essential" qualities that stop them from becoming something (or someone) else. Conservative Catholics and fundamentalist Protestant allies use it to attack lesbians and gay men on the dubious basis that gay desire is somehow accquired, rather than having a genetic or hardwired early infantile developmental cue, or both. Now, they're arguing that "biological sex" is similarly monolithic. Not for transsexuals. They have a psychological, chromosomal, genetic and endocrinal condition known as 'gender dysphoria.' According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, 'gender identity disorder' can be grounds for remedial surgical intervention and psychotherapy. I submit that the APA's views on this issue are resultant from professional consensus, unlike McHugh's conservative Catholic religious views about the biomedical status of reassignment surgery. McHugh did not publish his work in a peer-reviewed medical publication, but in a pressure group's magazine. Furthermore, given the existence of the DSM classifications and guidelines above, he is rather isolated outside his particular religious community. When I googled McHugh's article, I noticed that the notorious Californian fundamentalist antigay "Traditional Values Coalition" had adopted it, as had a website entitled "Catholic Culture." Apart from a rabidly transphobic Canadian 'rape relief' "feminist" website, there were no citations outside the US and New Zealand Christian Right. (As for the anomalous 'feminist' website, this particular organisation owes its stance against transgender rights to Janice Raymond, a 'radical feminist' transphobe and ex-Catholics, who imported her 'natural law' dogma about essential female anatomy and the 'antifeminist' nature of reassignment surgery into 'radical' feminism without bothering to check it at the door. As with radical 'feminist' stances against pornography, sex work and reproductive technology, this unexplored flaw leads its practitioners into convergent rhetoric and coalitions with the Christian Right). As well as the Maxim Institute, Family Life International has publicised McHugh's work- and the latter is a New Zealand conservative Catholic pressure group opposed to reproductive choice, euthanasia and lesbian/gay rights. Now, McHugh certainly has the right to object to transsexuality and refuse to sanction reassignment surgery on the grounds of professional conscientious objection. However, under New Zealand's Code of Health and Disability Consumers Rights and Health and Disability Commission Act 1994, he would be obliged to explain why he is opposed to reassignment surgery, and refer any intending patient with GID onto mainstream psychologists. As well as the above, McHugh's work is at odds with Australian criminal law and New Zealand family law. In both areas, the biomedical status of reassignment surgery and causes of gender dysphoria are accepted, which has led to further initiatives in terms of antidiscrimination laws in Australia and the United States. As Australia's WomanNet tells us, Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and the Northern Territory all have trans-inclusive antidiscrimination laws. During the heyday of New Zealand's abortion rights movement, it was not uncommon for its feminist supporters to cry that antiabortionists should keep their religious beliefs and misogynist laws away from women's bodies. I'm inclined to believe that today's LGBT movement should amend the refrain to keep the Christian Right's transphobic ideology away from transpeople's altered bodies. Recommended Reading: 1. Transphobic Propaganda: Paul McHugh: "Surgical Sex:" First Things 147 (November 2004): 34-38. Reprinted in Evidence 12 (Autumn 2005). See also the Maxim Institute website: http://www.maxim.org.nz Janice Raymond: The Transsexual Empire: Making of the She-Male: London: Women's Press: 1978. [A 'classic' of radical 'feminist' transphobic vitriol]. Lackeys: Family Life International (NZ): http://www.fli.org.nz Traditional Values Coalition (California, US): http://www.traditionalvalues.org 2. Essential Transgender Rights Reading: Loren Cameron: Body Alchemy: Transsexual Self-Portraits: Cleis Press: 1997. Patrick Califia: Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism: Cleis Press: 1998. [Superb rebuttal of Raymond's diatribe in one chapter.] Leslie Feinberg: Transgender Warriors: Boston: Beacon Press: 1996. Roberta Perkins: Transgender Lifestyles and HIV/AIDS Risk: Sydney: Macquarie University/ Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations: 1994. Rikki Ann Wilchins: Read My Lips: Feminism and the Subversion of Gender: Ithaca: Firebrand Books: 1999. 3. Key Transgender Rights Websites: WomanNet (Australia): http://www.w-o-m-a-n.net Transgender Law and Policy Institute (US): http://www.tlpi.com Press for Change (UK): http://www.pfc.org.uk Craig Young - 1st April 2005