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SOUTHERN VOICE • AUGUST 3/1995
Patient’s
Pharmacy
We deal directly with your
insurance company.
Prompt, accurate, caring, confidential pharmacy service
at little or NO out of pocket expense to you.
We bill insurance.
We accept assignment
Free delivery.
All prescription bills
submitted FREE.
Rental of
Wheelchairs
Hospital Beds
Other Home
Health Equipment
SEVEN
LOCATIONS
Intown (at I-S5)
2441 Cheshire Bridge Rd.
Suite 200
(Federal Express Plaza)
Atlanta *329-0011
603 Church St
(Across from Decatur Hosp.)
Decatur • 377-6868
3903 S. Cobb Dr.
(Next to Smyrna Hosp.)
Smyrna *436-0811
2040 Beaver Ruin Rd., Ste 7
(At Indian Trail)
Norcross* 662-0111
575 W. Pike St
(Across from
Gwinnett Medical)
Lawrenceville • 338-9191
17 Dunwoody Park, Ste 121 863 Flat Shoals Rd.
(Across from Dunwoody Hosp.) (Next to Provino’s)
Dunwoody *551-9311 Conyers ■ 860-0666
m
(800) 282-8222
418 Armour Drive
Atlanta, GA 30324
Atlanta-Central
(404) 873-4661
▼ Courtyard Pool
Your Neighborhood Hotel
▼ Restraunt/Lounge
Proudly Serving All Your
▼ Easy Access I-85/I-75
Hotel, Meeting
▼ Midtown Convenience
And Banquet Needs.
▼ Free Parking
▼ Workout Facility
Conveniently Located Just Off Monroe Drive At 1-85
Aversion therapy for transsexuals
5*- Continued from Page 1
call from Southern Voice to discuss his
treatment of "sexual dysfunction," but a
pamphlet written by Abel and others de
tails treatment of such patients, including
transsexuals and transvestites, with various
therapies, including aversion therapies de
signed to attack "deviant sexual urges" by
pairing them with unpleasantries such as
aversive odors and even electrical shock.
A copy of that pamphlet was provided
by Sven Stjamlof, who called Abel's office
to inquire about a fictitious 14-year-old son
who "liked to wear women's clothes."
"They told me how they can cure him,"
Stjamlof said. "They saidifldon'tseek treat
ment now for him, that these 'sexual devi-
andes' usually develop into five or six oth
ers by adulthood."
Another former patient of Abel's, who
asked to remain anonymous, told Southern
Voice that he "tried to treat me with aver
sion therapy" in the late 1980s.
"I was being bothered by ideas of cross
dressing and gender identity for quite a few
years," she said. "He gave me ammonia cap
sules—I believe that's what they were—and
every time I thought about cross-dressing
or got exdted by it, I was to pop one of
these."
But the former patient—and marriage
and family therapist Dr. Erin Swenson—
said they know of other transsexuals and
transvestites who have had positive expe
riences with Dr. Abel. Swenson, who sees
transgendered people in her practice and is
a male-to-female transsexual, said treatment
practices such as those described by former
patients of Abel's were common 20 or more
years ago.
"Twenty years ago, it was considered a
gender identity disorder, an illness," she
said. "At this time, we consider gender iden
tity a disorder only to the extent that it has
become problematic to daily living. Then it
becomes something we want to look at clini
cally."
Even then, Swenson said, the idea
would not be to change the gender identity.
"We've found that to be fairly futile," she
said, saying the goal was to "help an indi
vidual function better with the knowledge
of their identity problem."
Methods of doing so can range from
individual therapy to support groups to
gender transition surgery—and no step is
taken without plenty of time for the pa
tient to "sort through" the implications of
that step.
"It's a very lengthy and a very difficult
process," Swenson said. "But it is not the
therapists role to determine whether a
person's gender identity is right or wrong."
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