by Diane Roberts
The American Psychiatric Association, APA, is usually considered the most relevant source for psychiatric disorders. What the APA determines about psychology and mental disorders, Universities and practicing psychologists and pschyatrists follow. The APA’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”, or DSM, is the Bible for mental health.
However, given the history of the APA, one should not consider the APA a source for truth, particularly concerning sexual disorders.
First, the APA bases much of their research and knowledge of human sexuality on the work of Alfred Kinsey. Alfred Kinsey is the founder of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. Kinsey may be considered the father of the scientific field of human sexuality, but he was much more than that. Kinsey was a pedophile that hid behind science to sexually molest children in mass numbers. He classified the orgasms of children under age 5 as “screaming” “crying”, “convulsions” and “passing out”. As the table below proves, Kinsey would molest children for 24 hours straight. The infamous “Table 34” is a documentation of his research published in his book, Sexual Behavior of the Human Male, 1948.
Instead of renouncing Kinsey for the sexual predator he was, the APA has continued to use him as a source of their “scientific knowledge”.
Next the APA makes changes in their DSM according to what is politically correct. In 2012, after LGBT advocates had lobbied the APA to change or remove categories labeling transgender people in the DSM, arguing that terms like “Gender Identity Disorder” characterize all trans people as mentally ill, the APA did as asked and changed the category. Now transgender is not found under the category of mental disorders in the DSM. It has now been recategorized as “Gender Dysphoria” for displaying “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.”
Finally, in 2013, the APA attempted to recategorize pedophilia in the same way it did in 2012 for transgender. According to an article in the Huffington Post, Ray Blanchard, who co-wrote the chapter on sexual disorders in the new DSM said, “The difference is, you’re not automatically saying that as soon as someone has a marked, unusual erotic interest that they have a mental disorder.” However, after public outcry, the APA changed it back.
The public ought to conclude that the APA is not above sexual criminal activity as a source for “scientific research” and that as an institution that is supposed to be the most relevant source for human mental health, it’s certainly allows too much influence from political groups and lobbyists. Thus the APA should not be a trusted source of scientific truth.