Royal College of Psychiatrists Statement

@Wheresmyfuckingcupcake of course not! But the if transgenderism is caused by, or contributed to, by brain differences present at birth, these could manifest as gender dysphoria as the child becomes conscious of gender. It's hypothetical. I wouldn't fancy writing the ethics application for that study. It would be a good one for the 100K genomes to consider though. ...

I seriously doubt a newborn baby has any consciousness of its gender!

I don't mean to offend anyone connected with either condition. I was just trying to think of another condition that can be pathologised, but where people with the condition may not consider an illness. I also don't discount the possibility that transgenderism could be a neurological condition present from birth...

I did wonder what someone with experience might think about that Wheresmy. On further thinking I imagine both those with experience of transgenderism and those (like yourself) with experience of ASD would be keen to emphasise the differences. FWIW I agree with you.

:) rat

Transgenderism is nothing akin to asd. Asd is a neuro developmental condition present from birth which manifests in early infancy. It affects all areas of an individuals functioning. As a parent of a child with asd hearing remarks like this does make me very cross.

@flowersonthepiano I read the Nature article and came to the same conclusion. Not taking the plasticity of the brain into account, it seemed to show that the brains of trans women are not the same as natal women where differences could be observed. Instead parts of their brains were differentiated from natal male brains in a way similar to that of men suffering from depression or some other disorder (which could be linked to dysphoria).

By the way, whether or not psychiatry is a science has been long debated. As already posted, it has often been in the thrall of society norms and expectations and accused of subjectivity.

thanksjanes I've just looked up philosophy of the DSM and it is WAY interesting. Thanks for the heads up!

Strongly held beliefs which lack physical evidence are quite common. As a rule, we don't take these strongly held beliefs as evidence that the object of the belief is real

We do take the reporting of states within the mind and associated behaviour as evidence of real things though, of course we do. Depression is a "real" thing - it's a thing which we're pretty sure exists, and we can evidence that by the fact that lots of people report a particular feeling in conjunction with particular behaviours; that's how we know depression is a real thing. Similarly I suppose ASD or sensory processing disorder (I don't know about these things incidentally, it's just someone else mentioned ASD).

We know such things are real not because lots of people believe in them, but because lots of people report certain feelings in conjunction with certain behaviours that lead us to conclude that they are "real" things.

Interesting theory about transgenderism being akin to ASD incidentally. I suppose I can see how you'd come to that flowers.

Beliefs are only evidence of internal mental conditions, not evidence of external physical realities.

Well that's the thing, they're not trying to evidence something external, they're saying that these people's reported feelings evidence a real internal thing - i.e. "gender".

Is a refusal to provide surgery/medication included in the definition of "conversion therapy?" I think it is.

It's amazing to see your history of science lessons come to life isn't it? all these terms we accept today in so many fields. They all started with a bunch of blokes using whatever terms would be ok with the King that day, etc, etc.

"watch and wait" paragraph seems to have been inserted as an afterthought. The paper assumes so much without question that this one paragraph is simply meaningless.

"cisgender" - that is not a thing!! The purpose of cis is so that trans people can be included in the usual definition i.e cis women and trans women. There is no such thing as a woman or man only subsets.

They recommend research into how to deal with "very young gender diverse" children. wtf does that mean!

It uses the term "conversion therapy" and then that this may be against the EqA. That is such a pejorative term which has strng connotations.

I could go on and on.

OK, I've read the report.

My first impression is that it's a thoughtful document about how best psychiatrists can support transgender people. If I were transgender, I'd probably be pleased with it.

However, it doesn't consider the effects of the changes on other groups. Particularly women/girls.

I messed up the quote. My computer has randomly switched the key for & with the key for ". Bloody hate this machine.

First sentence is from @rat

&I suppose the lizard thing is different because psychiatrists, having examined the phenomenon of "gender" in numerous patients have come to the conclusion that it isn't simply a "belief", but something rather more fundamental.&

I'm trying to parse this sentence.

Strongly held beliefs which lack physical evidence are quite common. As a rule, we don't take these strongly held beliefs as evidence that the object of the belief is real. That would be circular reasoning. Try this for size. Lots of people believe God is exists ergo God exists because lot's of people believe it. If you put these believers in the psychiatrists chair, the psychiatrist would arrive at the conclusion that many of them are absolutely 100% convinced of the existence of God and will have had quite profound spiritual experiences. Many of them will have modified their lives considerably to accommodate the existence of God. Our minds can convince us of the reality of things for which there is no physical evidence.

If psychiatrists have discovered the feminine essence, this metaphysical property that I and approximately 3.5 billion people on the planet share then I'm sure we would have heard about it. The newspapers love that sort of thing. This hasn't happened because there is no evidence. Beliefs are only evidence of internal mental conditions, not evidence of external physical realities.

RCP

Hmmm...
I have a doctorate in genetics and worked as an academic medical genetics researcher for over a decade. So, I think I can claim to know a bit about biology, although sex/gender wasn't my field.

I 'peak-transed' a couple of days ago thanks to you guys alerting me to the fact that the meaning of the word 'woman' is being usurped, and the potential unintended/intended consequences of that.

Sex is (mostly, barring the occasional rare genetic anomaly) straightforward in humans i.e. XX = female, XY = male

Gender is less so. Like many of you, I feel that gender can be a social construct which is frequently detrimental to women, kicked against being a girl as a child and have no strong sense of my own gender now. But someone posted a link to an article in Nature on that thread in AIBU about the Daily Mail article yesterday, which does provide some evidence of a physiological basis for transgenderism nature.

Importantly though, while there were brain differnces between men, transgender women (born men), and women. The brains of transgender women were very similar to those of men, which were clearly distinguishable from those of women.

So, based on that, I am coming to the idea that transgender people are a comparable to those with high functioning autism in some ways - i.e. clealy different to those without the condition, but not necessarily in a pathological way.

It also reinforced the idea that transwomen =/= women.

I haven't read the report from the BCP yet.

Interestingly, my friend is one of the world's leading experts on the philosophy of the DSM.

She goes to conferences where she has her own papers explained to her all the time.....

Interesting the difference in how quickly they've bought into this and validated it, and comparing how people with ME/chronic fatigue have been treated by this group over the years - that's easily thousands of people in every country each year. What is biological reality for them hasn't been nearly so swiftly or easily or uncritically accepted and sensitively handled.

Thank you, yes, this!! Psychiatry is an art more than it is a science. I have no doubt some individual psychiatrists do a lot of good but as a type of medicine it's surprisingly flimsy. As this document shows!

The idea that sex is assigned at birth is ridiculous and they're embarrassing themselves giving credence to it as a theory.

Rosenburg thank you for that, I have read similar about psychiatry before but didn't really know enough about it to be able to comment.

Worth remembering that psychiatry hasn't historically been that friendly to women. Hysteria, lobotomy, institutionalisation, for 'bad' behaviour that basically amounted to not fulfilling gender stereotypes (e.g. not being submissive, being lesbians..). Even now there's the issue of over diagnosing of women with ptsd or autism as having personality disorders because of sex role stereotyping. I have had to deal with multiple NHS psychiatrists in the past fifteen years who have refused to allow me to be assessed for adhd, forcing me to fight for that, because I'm an adult who wasnt diagnosed as a child - although this was rarely assessed for when I was a kid and adhd in girls was definitely not understood and was even denied, as was aspergers, both were thought to be specific to boys. I have had male NHS psychiatrists in the past three years who have said awful things to me, many related specifically to being female - like suggesting that my toddler had something wrong 'up there' (tapping his head!) because I was breastfeeding past 12 months. Part of this issue is that these guys have often been from different cultures and have pretty conservative ideas about women, to say the least, which is very evident when you're a woman in front of them and relying on their support - which raises more issues for female patients as tbh raising an issue about cultural prejudices in psychiatrists raised and trained elsewhere than the UK feels pretty much impossible for fear of being accused of prejudice myself. But the reality remains that there are many many psychiatrists who do not have even a basic understanding of feminism and the specific issues women may have in a patriarchal society, and that unthinkingly judge women according to their compliance or not with 'appropriate' sex roles. It doesn't surprise me at all that this would affect their approach to transgender, or that they would be accepting to 'self identification' as the opposite sex when they absolutely do not accept self diagnosis of other types of mental health issues.

Inside = imagine

I imagine they've thought of that.

They could be evidence of a mental illness around gender wrong/rightness.

Well yes, they could. But I inside they've thought of that.

They could be evidence of an individual's reactions to a heavily gendered society. It hasn't been sufficiently explored. But in this document it is taken as being a truth.

Again yes, they could, but we don't know what exploration of this they have in fact done. I assume quite a lot as it is rather their jobs. I can only assume too that they present it as fact because at this time it is what they reasonably believe to be fact.

Sort of like the Big Bang, evolution and string theory.

They may later be disproved, but I guess right now they think there's enough evidence for them and they make enough sense to be considered fact.

I might buy them a dictionary and post it to them.

Yes, I just looked again.

they define sex by reference to wikipedia.

Just imagine if someone was to go and edit the wikipedia articles.....

Rat you're right, feelings are a mainstay of psychiatry. But feelings of gender 'wrongness' aren't necessarily evidence of an innate gender. They could be evidence of a mental illness around gender wrong/rightness. They could be evidence of an individual's reactions to a heavily gendered society. It hasn't been sufficiently explored. But in this document it is taken as being a truth.