Trans- gender dysphoria- mental illness?

I just scroll by him. He has zero of value to add.

This particular nightly foray into misogyny has jumped the shark.

Imagine not understanding the basis of female people’s source of insecurity based on appearance …awkward…

For the members of the TERF Island Council, OP eluded to a situation that so many posters will refuse to admit to, is that they had a significant impact on the situation where she states, "What are we doing to our children telling them that they can choose gender as in a restaurant menu?" As noted by The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons is that when you look at the increase in plastic surgeries (not gender reassignment) in 2024, shows males accounting for 1,799 procedures in theatre, and females accounting for 27.462 procedures. Botox/filler injections (nonsurgical), males were 616 and 9,191. Again, this is only an audit from Plastic Surgeons, which do not account for physicians who also perform these procedures but DO NOT belong to this association.

So when you wan to talk about "telling them that they can choose gender as in a restaurant menu," then look at who is setting the example. Children see that females are making up 94% in theatre and also 94% in nonsurgical procedures from this 2024 audit. So when you keep using these label of "mental health" required of people who are unsure of their gender, why aren't adult females spending an estimated £3.2 billion just in 2024. So where else are children learning that they can be someone completely different in their looks, to feel better about themselves, but the family home by their mothers. Blame everyone but yourselves, since no one is willing to take accountability for being so insecure in their appearance they have to seek out surgery to feel better. Of course this will never happen, because the trolls will continue to make up every excuse to post vitriol on others instead of looking in the mirror at themselves when they're putting on a wig, makeup, shapeware - anything to hide the ugliness inside.

I think a lot of the problems for transgender people are the kind of attitudes shown on Mumsnet on a regular basis. Parents are meant to be absolutely fine and accepting if their child is gay as that's just how they are. But if a child comes out as transgender then its the result of incorrect parenting by trendy liberals who have encouraged this by their lax attitudes and all it needs is a good talking to to show the child the error of their ways. I can tell you that many parents of transgender children are not trendy liberals and are absolutely traumatised by the news that their child is transgender and have tried all the rational arguments as to the disadvantages of being transgender. Young people are not infrequently disowned by their families and end up in dreadful situations.

There is a demonising of transgender people. I know two transgender people - both are in prestigious and highly qualified professions - and their families stood by them. They are not out embarrassing people in changing rooms and, frankly, in terms of gender you wouldn't give either a second glance. They pass absolutely below the radar in terms of gender. Both transitioned quite young and have never wavered. They have good lives, good careers, partners and friends. They are not misunderstood loners with a gun obsession but are possibly one of the people stopping you bleeding out in Emergency. I agree completely that this a serious issue and not something to be lightly taken on. I don't think for a moment that somebody should, on the spur of the moment, declare that they are transgender and immediately embark on irreversible treatment and certainly very young children should not be making life-changing and irreversible decisions.

There's also documented links to autistic people being trans too. Autistic people are several times more likely to report gender variation than non autistic people.

I think you don’t understand that “affirmation” doesn’t help. It’s part of the problem.

Snochia Moseley - Baltimore, Maryland 2018

Alec (Maya) McKinney - Denver, Colorado 2019

Audrey Hale - Nashville, Tennessee 2023

Moseley killed herself, Hale was shot by police, McKinney was arrested and convicted and sentenced to life in prison

Yes and three mass shootings in the US in the last 8 years (depending how you define a mass shooting) by trans identified females.

I agree. It seems the concept of transgenderism has spread so much online that a lot of mentally unwell people have gravitated to it. I've seen this with multiple (!) teens in my social circle. They're going through teenage angst, they feel dissatisfied with themselves, with their lives. Once they hear of transgenderism, they begin to wonder if that could be the cure to their ills. They want to reinvent themselves. It's absolutely a social contagion and it's destroying lives.

The Guardian is still referring to the shooter as an "18 year old woman". Such brave and honest journalism.

There's an honest and clearly written article on The Times website. It even allows comments! (Well, at the moment...).

What has really stood out to me in this most recent case is that the media are all calling the shooter a female. Not a transwoma, or even a woman. Which just shows that there is now no longer a word to reliably describe a biologically female person. These are not our crimes!

Apologies, Audrey/ Aiden Hale, not Hall.

@Snootsnoot
Unfortunately, I can think of at least one- Audrey/ Aiden Hall. A trans identified girl, taking testosterone, who was the perpetrator in a mass shooting in a school in Tennessee in 2023.

So how many trans people are there who are 100% mentally well and have no other mental health issues at all? and being trans is a total free choice?

and how many trans people dont want to be a cliched modern verision of what they think women (or men) are?

Out of interest, how many “trans” people do you know?

I dislike that it pairs teen girls caught up in a fad with old male fetishists. I dislike the sexist stereotypes. You cannot change sex.

It’s actually scary the world we live in. You can’t change sex it’s impossible. Those that say they are trans are not they are simply the gender they are and dressing as the opposite sex. Is it a fetish is it a cult I have no idea but it’s disturbing. These people are seriously ill and need counselling and therapy to overcome whatever issues they have. To think people think that by dressing as whoever and taking hormones it changes them is laughable. You can’t change and never will.

I don’t think being trans is a mental illness. I think it’s more nuanced and complex. Obviously the cause is psychological, however to call it a mental illness is likening it to someone with perhaps diminished capacity, which doesn’t apply to trans people.

This may have changed now, but I was taught in university (psychology - about 8 years ago) that there is a typical female/male brain structure. Trans people’s brains align with their biological sex UNTIL they receive hormones and then they begin to change neurologically to match closer (not completely) to their gender identity (this is mapped through MRI scans). So I don’t really believe in the whole “female structured brain born in the wrong body” trope either. I do think there must be a psychological underpinning obviously, but to call it a mental illness would be to assume they are ‘abnormal’ mentally (to use psychological terms), however with treatment and transition, trans people can go on to live as anyone else, so I can’t see it as a mental illness as such because, for example, there’s nothing actually wrong with a male bodied person wearing feminine clothing which is determined by social construction, etc.. I think it starts to become irrational when you have male bodied individuals insisting that they are experiencing a menstrual cycle as a natal female would - that is where the line starts to get blurred in my opinion, when an individual starts to confuse identity and reality.

I support trans individuals, but despise the politics and groups associated. Just in case anyone is wondering what side of the fence I am on.

There have been almost no mass shootings by women. According to that article, there have been only 4 mass shootings by women in the US since 1982. So that's 4 in 44 years. But there were 5,748 mass shootings in the US in just the past 12 years.
Look at that frankly astonishingly low number of mass shootings by women. And that's in a very large country that is full of and obsessed with guns.

But in 2025 a teenage schoolgirl in Scotland was sentenced to 6 years in prison for planning a school massacre. She was obsessed with the Columbine Massacre. The judge considered that she was very close to committing a massacre at her private school in Edinburgh. This girl was transgender (a transboy).
I remember another very serious criminal case involving a transman that happened over the last couple of years, but can't dredge it up now. Maybe one of you can remember it. I remember there being some discussion on Mumsnet at the time around women being adversely affected by taking testosterone, which increases aggression.
Teenager jailed for plotting mass shooting at Edinburgh school - BBC News

I know of a child in the 70s who did the same, they were a young teen as well. After they'd been chased and physically attacked by a gang of adults for being a [homophobic slur]
Trans people have always existed. It isn't new.

Ok I did the research and have looked at the data from the Gun Violence Project. There have been 45 mass shootings at a school (4+ people shot rather than 4+ people killed) since 2019 and, of those, 3 were committed by people who have confirmed they were trans. This means trans people were over-represented in relation to the trans population in school mass shooting. However, the FBI state that it's not the demographic characteristics they look at as warning signs, but crisis flash points. One flash point for school shootings is feeling suicidal. If we wanted to take a preventative approach, we would reduce the factors that make a child feel suicidal. Would you be willing to embrace an affirmative approach to trans children if it reduced suicidality?

I agree - it feels like gender stereotypes are far worse these days not better.

Children should be encouraged to embrace whatever interests, clothes, toys etc they enjoy. Not led to believe that if they like the 'wrong' things they need to reconsider their gender.

That wasn't really the case with my friend though. In our big friendship group none of us were hung up on stereotypes and nor were their family

I too hate the easy lazy "stereotype" transition but I do believe for some it is far deeper than this

What I really loathe though is the way a group of dangerous sex pests have realised that all the unquestioningly "pro trans" culture allows them to call themselves Sarah and pop on a bit of lippy and gain access to spaces where women are at their most vulnerable

I believe a girl identifying as a boy was involved in a serious school incident in Edinburgh a while back