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Mark Yarhouse's
name may sound familiar to some veteran lesbian and gay activists. According to
his bio on his webpage, Yarhouse teaches psychology at Regents University, a
fundamentalist institution founded by US Christian Right televangelist Pat
Robertson from the proceeds of his programme. Yarhouse has been a fundamentalist
all his life, undertaking qualifications in psychology from Calvin College and
Wheaton College before he was hired to teach at Regents. He has been associated
with two suspect projects before this book, Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of
Religiously Moderated Change in Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality and the Christian:
A Guide for Parents, Pastors and Friends.
Given the ongoing
anti-transgender campaign against trans-inclusive educational access policies in
the United States, Yarhouse has now decided to cash in by contributing his own
perspective as a fundamentalist psychologist and subcultural luminary within the
US Christian Right. So, what does he have to say for himself? At the core of
this book, Understanding
Gender Dysphoria (2015) is a simple core proposition. There are three
predominant approaches to transgender rights. One of them is "diversity" and it
is the mainstream approach undertaken by organisations such as the American
Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological
Association, World Professional Association for Transgender Health, American
College of Obsteitricians and Gynecologists and the American Public Health
Association, as well as most LGBT organisations. It argues that gender dysphoria
is a bona fide diagnostic category, as found in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of the American Psychiatric Association and therefore may require
amenable psychotherapy and counselling, hormone treatment and eventual
reassignment surgery, although the latter is carried out when the person is a
legal adult. This requires inclusive professional practice, inclusive and safe
social environments and legislative reform, such as trans-inclusive
antidiscrimination laws, official document recertification and subsidised
reassignment surgery. Once the latter objective is achieved, the transperson is
happier in their new body, but must also confront discriminatory social
institutions and public policies. If Yarhouse's book were only about that, it
would be a useful contribution to the transgender rights debate.
Unfortunately, it
isn't. Diversity may be the mainstream desirable policy setting for transgender
needs and rights, but there are two others, and they dominate the Christian
Right's perspective on transgender identity and their own anti-transgender
politics. "Integrity" is based on the quaint notion of gender complementarity
and hierarchy in which women and men "must" perform rigidly differentiated
roles. Women are "supposed" to engage in domestic labour and fulltime childcare,
while men are the wage earners. This disqualifies most mainstream working class
families like my own family of origin, where both parents worked to insure my
sister and I had the best chance for upward mobility. In New Zealand, we've had
two consecutive female Prime Ministers and this class-bound concept of
"integrity" is inoperative, having been overtaken by social change. We do not
believe in rigid gender differentiation, which may explain the eclipse of the
New Zealand antifeminist group Women for Life/the Family Education Network in
the nineties, having campaigned against feminist child sexual abuse
intervention, the conclusions of the Cartwright Inquiry at National Women's
Hospital, the UN Convention on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,
homosexual law reform and women's reproductive rights. "Integrity" also has
other implications- it means that if male and female are pink and blue
"complimentary" pairs, then same-sex relationships are "dysfunctional" and
"immoral" because "sexual difference" is an "essential" human attribute. For
the same reason, gender is "immutable", gender dysphoria is an "erroneous"
diagnosis, and inclusive counselling and psychotherapy, institutional and
legislative reform "must" be resisted because they "transgress" the "original"
"divinely ordained" bodies in which we were born into.
The third and final
model for conservative Christian public policies has been "disability." I have
two primary objections to this. I believe in a social constructionist view of
disability discrimination, which means that there is nothing whatsoever that is
"essentially" "inferior" or "wrong" about disabled bodies, which can be seen as
neutral variations. In a sense, discriminatory social constructions render
disability as "inferior" or "impaired", just as "disabled" frameworks perceive
transgender people. Tied in with the "integrity" bias and cissexist assumptions
related to it, it means that conservative Christians are encouraged to see
transpeople as weak, troubled figures who await "redemption" and conversion to
the cis and narrow. And unfortunately, it is the "integrity" and "disability"
frameworks that dominate this book. The "integrity" perspective is responsible
for maintaining discriminatory perspectives toward transpeople, as the
anti-transgender legislative tactics of the US Christian Right demand. The
disability framework offers a kinder, gentler transphobia, but acts as the "soft
cop" in this duet of anti-transgender tactics. But it's not working in the
United States and should not be allowed to take root here.
I suspect that
Yarhouse is the source of Girl Boy
Other author Glenn Stanton's information and literature review. When I
encountered Stanton's own curriculum vitae and employment history on his blog. I
noticed several things. Stanton does have postgraduate qualifications, namely an
MA in Humanities from the University of West Florida, but they consist of a
heavy focus on philosophy and religion, and nothing specialist. Over the last
two decades, he has served in various capacities within the predatory US
Christian Right multinational Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, as well
as its subsidiaries, the Palmetto Family Council (South Carolina) and the
Institute for the Marriage and Family Canada, which crusaded against marriage
equality in Canada until the passage of civil marriage legislation there in
2005. His current capacity is listed as Director of "Family Formation Studies"
and "Strategic Development" at Focus on the Family. As for his publication
record, much of his work consists of publication at USconservative Christian
imprints such as Tyndale, Moody, InterVarsity Press, Focus on the Family and
Baker. They also reflect his activist work. One of his most notorious titles is
Marriage on Trial: The Case Against
Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting (IVP, 2004), which I reviewed about ten
years ago in the pages of Gaynz.Com. His other work also includes repeated
opposition to marriage equality, listed below. His latest book is entitled Loving My (LGBT) Neighbour: Being Friends in
Grace and Truth (2014). When it comes to statements about the "unchristian"
and "anti-family nature of the transgender movement, they are quite new and
rather basic, referring to preconcieved biases about the rigidity of gender
roles and hierarchy, compared to the more elaborated version that one finds in
Yarhouse's book.
When it comes to
anti-transgender politics, as with anti-marriage politics, their origins and
motivations are most transparent.
Not
Recommended:
Mark Yarhouse: Understanding Gender
Dysphoria: Wheaton Grove: InterVarsity Press Academic: 2015
Limning the Psyche:
The Website of Mark Yarhouse: http:// psychologyandchristianity.wordpress.
com
Glenn Stanton:
http:// glenntstanton.com/bio
Glenn Stanton:
Transgender Issues: http:// glenntstanton.com/?s=transgender.
Glenn Stanton and Bill
Maier: Marriage on Trial: The Case
Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting: Wheaton Grove: Intervarsity Press:
2004.
Glenn Stanton: "Gay
Men and Lesbians should not be allowed to adopt children" in Christina Fisinick
(ed) Current Controversies: Issues in
Adoption: Gale Learning: 2009.
Glenn Stanton: "The
Human Case Against Same-Sex Marriage" in Bill Boucher (ed) Represented American Speeches:
2007-2008: Reference Shelf, Volume 80.
Glenn Stanton:
"Should same-sex marriage be legalised? No" in Howard Karger (ed)
Controversial issues in Social Policy: London: Pearson Education:
2007.
