Today (Thursday 30 March) Niels Mulder, chairman of the Dutch Psychiatry Association (NVvP) expressed regret for the suffering people with an LGBTIQ+ identity have suffered in the past, because their orientation has long been seen as a disease requiring psychiatric treatment. According to Mulder, the psychiatrists want to make it emphatically clear with the statement ‘that different sexual and gender identities are natural variations that do not involve disease’. He said this during the spring conference of the professional association in the MECC in Maastricht.
Homosexuality was included in the DSM between 1952 and 1973, and only after its disappearance did psychiatry formally stop pathologizing same-sex orientation and sexual contact. Since 1980, being transgender has entered the DSM as transsexualism and gender identity disorder, respectively, and since 2013 as gender dysphoria. Although the American Psychiatric Association has stated since the publication of the DSM-5 that a transgender identity in itself is not a psychiatric disorder, suffering from this, i.e. ‘gender dysphoria’, is still regarded as such. The NVvP now emphasizes that being transgender is not a psychiatric disorder. In their pursuit of ‘depathologisation’, the psychiatrists therefore want to talk to stakeholders about the meaning and consequences of the DSM diagnosis ‘gender dysphoria’.
About 10 percent of the Dutch population identifies as an LGBTIQ+ person. This group suffers from bullying, traumatization, violence, stigmatization and discrimination by family, neighbours, colleagues and others in society, but also – partly caused by this – internalized homophobia and transphobia, according to the NVvP statement. This leads to an increased risk of developing psychological complaints such as anxiety, depression and suicidality.
Mulder: ‘That is why we want to focus on inclusive psychiatry and LGBTIQ+-sensitive care. We also hope to contribute to reducing stigma and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people in society.’
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