I read that article not expecting to learn anything new. But I was not previously aware about what it says about GIDS founder, Domenico Di Ceglie.
Hitherto, gender dysphoria had been understood in terms of paraphilia, as an abnormal sexual desire. But at a 1996 conference (quickly turned into a collection of essays entitled A Stranger In My Own Body, (1996)), Di Ceglie proposed a different framework for understanding young people’s gender issues. Coining the phrase ‘atypical gender-identity organisation’, Di Ceglie argued that, while in some cases gender trouble in children can manifest itself as a disorder, it can also be ‘a process analogous to the development of a vocation, such as an early calling to the priesthood or an enduring and compulsive ambition to pursue particular professional roles’. In other words, the desire to change gender was no longer necessarily a psychological problem, let alone a product of abnormal sexual desire; it was a legitimate individual aspiration. Indeed, it was a journey, a process of development, to be facilitated, rather than a condition to be treated.
And John Money wrote the foreword to Di Ceglie's book.
I am starting to see why we are where we are.