Transexuals

[rexbeccarox]

Just when I thought Drich couldn't be a worse person, he ups the ante.

Disgusting.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Transsexuals suffer from a diagnosable affliction called Gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder. So then how is this not a mental illness if the word/term mental illness literally means:

Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.
(as per the Mayo clinic)

If this is a mental disorder, then why do we allow the patients to run the asylum? Why do we have mentally compromised people trying to set a national policy that allows them to indulge their disorder?

would we allow people afflicted with Munchhausen access to their kids? Or if you want to look at other people who just hurt themselves, would we allow people who want to cut themselves places they could do so?

If someone transitions and can as a consequent function perfectly well in society. If they are accepted as such in their chosen gender and no one knows their medical history, which becomes less and less relevant to their daily lives. If they are happy and contended with their lives and able to achieve great things, then how can they be considered mentally ill?

[Esquilax]

Transsexuals suffer from a diagnosable affliction called Gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder. So then how is this not a mental illness if the word/term mental illness literally means:

Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.
(as per the Mayo clinic)

If this is a mental disorder, then why do we allow the patients to run the asylum? Why do we have mentally compromised people trying to set a national policy that allows them to indulge their disorder?

would we allow people afflicted with Munchhausen access to their kids? Or if you want to look at other people who just hurt themselves, would we allow people who want to cut themselves places they could do so?

You have a weirdly arbitrary idea of what mental illness is, that belies a rather fundamental lack of understanding of even the basic underpinnings of what you're seeking to discuss. And I don't mean transgenderism or body dysphoria, I mean psychological medicine.

See, when we treat a person for a mental condition, it is not the sole goal of the treatment that the condition vanishes completely: for a number of things that might not be possible, and for others the side effects of doing so might be prohibitively negative to the point that they outweigh the benefits. If someone had a mental illness, for example, that caused them great depression but also immense intelligence, the goal for treating that person would not be to reduce the depression and the intelligence, and devising a treatment regimen that allows him to retain that intelligence is not "allowing the patient to run the asylum," it's a simple recognition that some symptoms are neutral or positive to the overall wellbeing of the patient.

And that is the point of psychiatric medicine, Drich: management of the condition such that people can function in their lives. It never has been just complete, thoughtless eradication of every symptom, heedless of the overall health of the patient.

It's here that we get to the arbitrary nature of your argument: so, gender dysphoria is a mental illness. Fine, okay, let's take that as the premise of your argument: why are you then assuming that allowing a transgender person to transition as much as they are comfortable with doesn't count as a treatment? It alleviates the symptoms of gender dysphoria very effectively, with no cost, all things being equal (read: without bigots like you desperately trying to make life hard for others because all you have is hate and all you can do is pick and prod and reduce the happiness of everyone around you) to the health and safety of the transgender person, and in fact can enhance their overall happiness by allowing them to live as a more authentic version of themselves. It meets all the criteria of an effective treatment that requires no necessary medical intervention and allows the person to go on with their lives with a minimum of ongoing psychiatric care. There's a clear argument to be made there that it is, at the current time, the best possible treatment available, and yet you don't count it as a treatment at all... because you don't like it. As though your personal opinions are what dictate psychiatric care standards.

And if you're tempted to respond that transgender people are more likely to be mentally ill or commit suicide, that they get assaulted and killed more frequently and so on, I would point out that all those are symptoms of bigotry against the transgender community exacerbating their life issues, not necessarily something inherent to transgenderism. That is, it's a product of letting the bigots run the asylum without justification, and in contravention to basic standards of care. Your fault, not theirs.

[drfuzzy]

Just when I thought Drich couldn't be a worse person, he ups the ante.

Disgusting.

Isn't it interesting?  Here we are, a group of atheists.  Xtians think we're evil.  But it's the guy comin' round to try to preach at us whose posts exemplify ignorance, bigotry and hatred.  How interesting.

(And he'll still be looking at himself in the mirror, telling himself that he's doing gawd's good work, and keep posting about A/S/K bullshit.)

[drfuzzy]

Transsexuals suffer from a diagnosable affliction called Gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder. So then how is this not a mental illness if the word/term mental illness literally means:

Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.
(as per the Mayo clinic)

If this is a mental disorder, then why do we allow the patients to run the asylum? Why do we have mentally compromised people trying to set a national policy that allows them to indulge their disorder?

would we allow people afflicted with Munchhausen access to their kids? Or if you want to look at other people who just hurt themselves, would we allow people who want to cut themselves places they could do so?

Esquilax addressed the problems in your OP.  So, are you going to advocate for conversion therapy for trans people next, since you can't torture gays any more?  Fundamentalist churches ran the majority of the gay-conversion therapy camps.  They were worse than failures - gay teens who had been raised fundie and put through these programs killed themselves in droves.  And the leaders of these programs shrugged their shoulders, probably held a party because there were less queers in the world, claimed they were having great success and kept being murdering sons-of-bitches until all of the Psychiatric Organizations and the Government banned the practice.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Because they're fully capable of functioning within society, as long as they're allowed to modify their body/style to fit how they see themselves... and they won't have more destructive issues later. If you don't allow them to express themselves properly, it will only make things worse. Higher suicide rates, for instance. Being gay or transgender doesn't make people more suicidal. How society treats them does.

The issue seems much more complicated that what either you or Drich have said. Mental health problems are often a constellation of issues and cannot be attributed to a single specific illness or cause. The problems associated with gender-dysphoria cannot be fully attributed to social attitudes. Most often the mentally ill are better served by accepting themselves as they are. That seems to me to be a very important difference between being gay and being transgendered. Positive self-acceptance for a gay person does not require a regime of hormonal treatments and/or invasive surgical procedures. Absent a serious physical illness, trying to change your existing biology to conform to how you think it "should be" is the exact opposite of self-acceptance.

[TheRealJoeFish]

Because they're fully capable of functioning within society, as long as they're allowed to modify their body/style to fit how they see themselves... and they won't have more destructive issues later. If you don't allow them to express themselves properly, it will only make things worse. Higher suicide rates, for instance. Being gay or transgender doesn't make people more suicidal. How society treats them does.

The issue seems much more complicated that what either you or Drich have said. Mental health problems are often a constellation of issues and cannot be attributed to a single specific illness or cause. The problems associated with gender-dysphoria cannot be fully attributed to social attitudes.  Most often the mentally ill are better served by accepting themselves as they are. That seems to me to be a very important difference between being gay and being transgendered. Positive self-acceptance for a gay person does not require a regime of hormonal treatments and/or invasive surgical procedures. Absent a serious physical illness, trying to change your existing biology to conform to how you think it "should be" is the exact opposite of self-acceptance.

See, though, I think this presumes a certain idea about "self" that may or may not be valid. To clarify, why should it be better to accept whatever part of yourself is your body while denying whatever part of yourself is your mind, instead of the other? Because the first one involves less (physical) medical intervention?

Also, wouldn't your statement apply to weight-loss supplements?

I do certainly agree, though, about the complexity of the topic; it would be hard to overstate the complexity of this, I think.

[Edwardo Piet]

@ CD

That is one of the most beautiful posts I have ever read on AF in the 8 years since I joined here.

[Neo-Scholastic]

double post deleted

[Regina]

For someone with gender dysphoria, "positive self-acceptance" is naturally very difficult, perhaps impossible. Maybe hormone treatments and SRS are the best option? Not everyone can "positively accept themselves", and while it's ideal sometimes it just isn't the answer.