Prominent Psychiatrist: Transgender is ‘Emotional Unhappiness … Purely Psychological’

Dr. Joseph Berger, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, states that from “a scientific perspective,” being “transgendered” is a psychological issue – “emotional unhappiness” – and “cosmetic surgery” is not the “proper treatment.”

Dr. Berger, who also is a past president of the Ontario District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association, presented his remarks before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights when it was considering a bill (C-279) in 2013 to “include gender identity as a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

The proposed legislation, popularly known as the “bathroom bill,” essentially would prohibit discrimination against the transgendered. In the bill, “gender identity” is defined as “the individual’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth.”

Dr. Berger told the committee, “From a scientific perspective, let me clarify what ‘transgendered’ actually means. I am speaking now about the scientific perspective – and not any political lobbying position that may be proposed by any group, medical or non-medical.”

“‘Transgendered’ are people who claim that they really are or wish to be people of the sex opposite to which they were born, or to which their chromosomal configuration attests,” he stated. “Sometimes, some of these people have claimed that they are ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ or alternatively ‘a man trapped in a woman’s body.’”

“Scientifically, there is no such thing,” he said.

“The medical treatment of delusions, psychosis or emotional happiness is not by surgery,” continued the doctor.

“On the other hand,” he said...