Regardless of what Karr may or may not have had done or may or may not have sought, Karr's connection with transsexuality has already been established in the public mind by the mainstream media. Here in the media capital of the world, we are graced with those paragons of responsible journalism, the New York Daily News and the New York Post, which seemed in competition to see which could make the Karr/transsexual connection more lurid and sensational. The August 21 Daily News headline on the
story screamed, "Karr visited gender bender center: New twist in bizarre tale — creep treated at transsexual clinic." Beneath the headline, the News story's breathless lead:

The creep who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey had another bizarre secret up his sleeve in the months before his arrest - he was visiting a surgical center that specializes in sex-change operations.

Note the characterization of Karr as a 'creep' and the disclosure of the SRS consultation as a 'bizarre secret.' The Daily News report then quotes from Karr's correspondence with a University of Colorado journalism professor:

Colorado authorities tracked him down after reading four years' worth of twisted e-mails between Karr and Michael Tracey, 58, a University of Colorado journalism professor who has produced documentaries about JonBenet's murder - and who tried to draw out more details about Karr through their hundreds of messages. "You told me once that your mother tended to raise you as a girl," Tracey wrote in one exchange obtained by the Rocky Mountain News. "This must have had a powerful effect on your developing sexuality - confusion maybe?"

Psychoanalysis from a University of Colorado professor: what more could you want? But wait a minute, what is Tracey a professor of? Journalism. While Tracey has a Ph.D., it does not appear to be in psychology (political science, perhaps? the website profile page doesn't say); nor is there any indication on his profile page on the University of Colorado website of Tracey having done clinical work in psychology or psychiatry. So the implicit suggestion in the Daily News story of an 'expert opinion' on Karr's alleged confusion over sexuality is in fact no such thing.


But if the Daily News tried to pass off an e-mail message from a journalism professor as an expert evaluation of Karr's gender confusion, the New York Post went even further in its attempt to link transsexuality to pedophilia and even child murder. Under the sensationalizing headline, "Perv's Sex-Op Motive to Lure Kids: Doc," the Post's Andy Geller wrote,

John Mark Karr may have been seeking gender-bender surgery in Bangkok because he thought it would make him a more effective pedophile, a shrink said yesterday. "It would allow him to operate more effectively," said Robert Butterworth, a Los Angeles clinical psychologist. "He wants to be around little girls. Who would attract less suspicion in a playground, a man or a woman?" By changing his gender, Butterworth said, the man who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey "would be better at what he does and would arouse less suspicion in others." The psychologist also said Karr, who says he had intercourse with the 6-year-old beauty queen, might want to have his sex organs removed to atone for his action.

The August 21 Post story takes doorstep psychoanalysis to a new low, outrageously and irresponsibly linking SRS to pedophilia and even to murder. The simple fact is that most convicted pedophiles are conventionally gendered heterosexual men, and such men did not seem to feel the need for SRS or any kind of gender identity-related medical intervention to carry out their predations. Butterworth's 'analysis' — if one could call such an unbsubstantiated transgenderphobic exclamation 'analysis' — doesn't even make sense: SRS would certainly eliminate the possibility of penile sexual assault, if that was Karr's aim. And I have never heard of a single case of SRS pursued for 'atonement' for a sexual crime; nor would a legitimate psychiatrist would ever recommend a patient/client for SRS on that basis.

But the Post's doorstep psychoanalysis doesn't end with Butterworth's ridiculous transgenderphobic rant. Andy Geller — whose name could just as easily be 'Uri Geller' for his clear intention to bend the truth about transgender — takes this tack one step further by quoting the famous Joyce Brothers:

Noted psychologist Joyce Brothers said Karr might have wanted the operation to make him feel young. One thing that stands out about pedophiles, she said, is that "they haven't grown up. They play as little children do." Karr might have wanted the sex-change surgery because he felt "he is past the age where he can feel like a child," she said. "If he is another sex, he may not feel as grown up." Karr reportedly also called plastic surgeons about having facial surgery and Brothers said that based on photos of him, she is certain he has had plastic surgery. "He wants to stay as young as possible," said Brothers, who added she thinks he may have been an accomplice in JonBenet's slaying, but doubts he did the actual killing.

Of course, Karr's guilt in the Ramsey murder case has not even been established, and so at least Brothers acknowledges doubt about Karr's involvement in Jon Benet's murder, doubt shared by many experts, would-be experts and non-experts quoted in the media since Karr's arrest. But what is striking here is Brothers' willingness to diagnose Karr sight unseen. I'm reminded of Bill Frist (the right-wing U.S. Senate majority leader) diagnosing Terri Schiavo from the floor of the Senate based on a short videotape. There is no indication that Brothers has even met Karr, let alone interacted as professional care-giver. Nor does Brothers have any recognized expertise in gender identity issues, and her assertion that SRS could make Karr feel more like a child is wildly speculative — there is no evidence for such a claim as far as I'm aware. All I can say is, oh brother, Joyce! But such is the tabloid press, where talking heads without any recognized expertise in transgender issues become instant experts who provide the tabloids with pseudo-expertise to legitimize their sensationalized transgenderphobic coverage.

Sex change! Pedophilia! Murder! Clearly, tabloid heaven. It doesn't get better than this for papers like the Post. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that gender identity disorder (GID) is still listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) published at regular intervals by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), pathologizing not only transsexuals but all transgendered and gender-variant people by implication. Until the APA removes GID from the DSM, tabloids like the Daily News and the Post and their ilk in the mainstream media can still portray transsexual and transgendered people as mentally ill simply by virtue of their gender variance.

As Kelley Winters, Ph.D., would put it, "Difference is not disease; nonconformity is not pathology; uniqueness is not illness." Winters is leading an effort to remove the GID diagnosis from the DSM, as described on the website, GID Reform: http://www.gidreform.org.

The importance of this effort can be seen in instances such as this, where the gender identity issues of a suspect in a murder case are used to suggest a link between his gender identity and his alleged pedophilia and even his alleged murder of a young child.

John Mark Karr is clearly a troubled person and his obsession with Jon Benet Ramsey is disturbing, to say the least; but it may well be — as has already been suggested by many commentators in the media — that his confession is false and that he is simply seeking his fifteen minutes of fame by confessing to a crime he did not commit. If there is a victim here in the breathless pseudo-reportage in the tabloids and the rest of the mainstream media, it is the transgender community, whose members once again are being slandered with the suggestion that they are all as sickos, child molesters, and even murderers.

It is time for the psychiatric profession to remove the pathologizing stigma of GID from the DSM and it is high time for the mainstream media to stop sensationalizing coverage of transsexual and transgendered people.