In 2010, gender medicine supporters wanted to delist "gender identity disorder" from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Doing so would "destigmatize" discomfort with one's gender.
This was fine, except that not having a diagnostic code for an actual "disease" would lead to loss of insurance coverage. Thus was "gender dysphoria" born.
"Because people who wished to undergo medical transition had no physical pathology, it was not possible to adopt a physiological diagnosis," writes Leor Sapir in City Journal.
In the world of transgender make-believe, there's always a solution.
Pioneering gender medicine physician Heino Meyer-Bahlburg made that perfectly clear. “The decision on the categorization of GIV [gender identity variants] cannot be achieved on a purely scientific basis," the doctor explained. So I guess "following the science" is out?
Meyer-Bahlburg called for “a pragmatic compromise.” The American Psychiatric Association, the medical group in charge of compiling the DSM, found it by fudging the truth. They replaced "gender identity disorder" with “gender dysphoria” in the DSM-5.
Sapir writes, "The concept of gender dysphoria was not thought to imply that the mismatch between a person’s sex and self-conception of being a man or woman was itself a disorder." Bingo! Jackpot! No more mental illness for being trans!
Even though the new DSM-5 diagnoses had little to do with the actual psychological condition of "gender confusion," it served the purpose of forcing insurance companies to reimburse people for hormones, surgeries, and puberty blockers.
Those reimbursements will come in handy after the explosion of transgender diagnoses in the last decade among children.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, in its latest “Standards of Care,” recommends the use of “gender incongruence,” a new diagnosis included in the ICD-11 in the category of “Conditions Related to Sexual Health,” as an alternative to the gender identity disorder (F64) codes. The World Health Organization, which publishes the ICD, explained that its inclusion of “gender incongruence” in ICD-11 was intended to “help increase access” to gender transition interventions and “destigmatize the condition.”
Setting aside these criticisms, I will assume for the sake of argument that there is a non-fraudulent diagnostic code for transgender medical procedures (“gender identity disorders,” F64). The problem: plenty of evidence suggests that providers are not using it. Thus, a plausible case can be made that systematic insurance fraud exists.
It’s worth stating up front that transgender identity is not an endocrine disorder, and sex-trait modification (“gender-affirming care”) is not intended to treat any physical pathology.
However, transgender-identified people may develop endocrine disorders as a result of the hormonal or surgical interventions. Consider three examples.
Yes, it's a racket.
Endocrine disorders are a direct result of children being put on puberty blockers. A 12-year-old "will be in a state of iatrogenic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism—an endocrine disorder," after being given the powerful drugs.
Sapir claims, "Several studies have reported deficiencies of bone mineralization as an expected outcome, increasing in turn the risk for debilitating fractures of the spine and hip."
Would parents be so all-fired eager to put their child on puberty blockers if they knew that doing so would potentially cripple them?
“Gender-affirming care,” in other words, may also be called iatrogenic endocrine disorders, or doctor-induced disorders of sex development (when minors are concerned). If a patient with a normal endocrine system receives “gender-affirming care” and then seeks treatment for the side effects of that “care,” any responsible doctor should treat the patient for that endocrine condition, and billing treatment for an “endocrine disorder” need not constitute fraud, provided the specific, appropriate code is used (see below). A gender clinician who uses the “unspecific” endocrine disorder code, in contrast, raises legitimate suspicion of doing so for a patient who does not currently have an endocrine disorder.
The psychological condition of feeling as if you're a different sex from the one you were when you were born is real. Tens of thousands of people suffer from it. It's a gruesome disorder.
In extreme cases, it can, indeed, lead to suicide, as the pain of feeling as if you don't belong in your own body becomes unbearable. The social contagion that has led to hundreds of thousands of boys and girls to adopt transgenderism masks other severe psychological conditions such as depression and anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Eating disorders, and substance abuse. Giving puberty blockers to a young woman or man in this condition is likely to only make their condition worse.
The quacks who are opening these "gender transition" clinics at a record pace are not only harming kids. As Sapir points out, by fudging the DSM-5 definitions of "gender dysphoria," there is insurance fraud on a massive scale.
Perhaps insurance commissioners in the states would want to look into the situation.
