Can we be honest about the need for affirmation?

"Gender dysphoria, the feeling that one's body is wrong and needs to be changed is a mental disorder if that person is distressed by that feeling. We are repeatedly told that sufferers are often suicidal. This is clearly a mental disorder.". The anxiety can be a mental disorder but gender dysphoria is no longer categorised as a mental disorder

MeyYael

Interesting recent Twitter thread addressing the fallacious idea that transgender identities are in any way comparable with homosexuality. Author is pro-trans (as it were) but anti-self-ID.

twitter.com/SalemSpooks/status/988037179787173889

TL;DR - homosexuality does not require medical intervention to relieve distress.

MeyYael

That's an interesting comment about what is and isn't a mental disorder, and a reminder that homosexuality was considered to be a mental disorder in the past.

Gender dysphoria, the feeling that one's body is wrong and needs to be changed is a mental disorder if that person is distressed by that feeling. We are repeatedly told that sufferers are often suicidal. This is clearly a mental disorder.

I understand that, MeyYael.
What the trans umbrella and carelessly written laws have created is a conflict between those who are mentally ill and need treatment and those who have a paraphalia. Those with a paraphalia are throwing those with a mental illness in need of treatment under the bus.
One of our many concerns is that the politicians will use the adamant insistence of transgender advocates that they are in no way ill but rather "born in the wrong body with a opposite sex soul" to deny treatment to those who need it to manage their mental illness.

Howevet nice a transwoman is, the fact remains they do have a troubling relationship with their body. They reject their male anatomy in favour of female anatomy. Even if they don't have any surgery.

The idea, concept or fantasy of female anatomy will be present, either occasionally, or permanently.

Perhaps a transwoman cannot understand what it feels like to have a smear, for a woman. It's an unusual one, because you are incredibly vulnerable, but the situation is 'formal'.

It's just about the most exposed a woman ever is.

Knowing that a transwoman HCP has ever even given female anatomy much of a thought in that way, would make the entire situation incredibly tense, if not insupportable.

Feeling as though you have to affirm them, makes it a situation that, in my opinion, should not be considered.

If the tranwoman does not have gender dysphoria, I agree that it would be a form of assault.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
just happened to mention it incidentally in passing because reasons but it is totes not a mental disorder even though it is in the manual of mental disorders.

Not sure where I stand in the trans debate. But I feel like this is a slightly awful argument...

Homosexuality used to be a disorder.

Hysteria was once considered a genuine female health issue...

Like telling an overweight woman that she is unsightly and has to use the disabled changing room so as not to offend the other women.

I fail to see the connection.

Female OBGYNs are imo much more sympathetic in regards to period cramps, fears when TTC (fingers crossed), didn't scoff when I told that it felt like I fainted when I got the coil...

Maybe because there are shared experiences in womanhood?

Whether a woman is overweight, has 10 kids or is desperately trying to have at least one?

Being born with a penis means that some people just can't have certain experiences... Especially when we're talking about female (=of the female sex) medical issues.

Just a minor thing (as it only covers a tiny bit of the discussion) but if there is one procedure you really don't want to be tense for it's a smear. I say bring in the candles and whale song! You really do need to be comfortable with your HCP and not just being polite.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
just happened to mention it incidentally in passing because reasons but it is totes not a mental disorder even though it is in the manual of mental disorders.

It is not listed as a mental disorder.

"Transgender" is a broad umbrella term, encompassing both the mental disorders "gender dysphoria" and "transvestic fetishism". Which as we have noted are both in the DSM-5.

Exactly. On the Duluth wheel - I know I keep mentioning it but FFS, this place is mobbed by embodiments of it - this is called coercion. It's abusive. And only abusers, potential abusers or abuse cheerleaders can't see that. So if you're reading and you can't see that - bugger off and have a word with yourself.

And in the case of Nat's hypothetical transwomen HCP who has no ill intentions at all and just wants to provide healthcare that scenario will either result on them being actively rejected in a way that they can't avoid being aware of, which presumably won't be fun for them, or them performing a procedure on a patient who doesn't want them doing it and will be miserable the whole time, but who didn't feel able to refuse. Again, if one's intentions are to help patients, how would that be a good outcome?

"It is a disorder to identify as transgender.
It is listed as a mental disorder."

It is not listed as a mental disorder.

Caught me! The current euphemism is gender dysphoria but it is right there in the mental disorders book
www.researchgate.net/publication/296700032_The_DSM-5_Diagnostic_Criteria_for_Gender_Dysphoria

I've had gynae exams and treatment from male HCPs and female HCPs. Nowadays I will only accept treatment from female HCPs except in a genuine, immediate emergency.

The first time that I exercised my right to choose a female doctor, I got my hospital letter through and rang up to confirm that Dr Smith (my assigned consultant) was female. Yes, I was told, Dr Smith is female. Sigh of relief - that was easy.

But when I got to the appointment, Dr Smith was indeed female but she had with her Dr Jones, who was a junior doctor and was hoping to practice on me "if that was OK". I said it wasn't, and the lovely Dr Jones simply said, "that's fine", stood up and left the room. (Dr Smith was a bit of a grumpy cow bag and went on about doctors needing to practice their skills under supervision, but I still preferred grumpy Dr Smith poking around my cervix than lovely Dr Jones, because, y'know, female.)

I'm struggling slightly with the TW HCP to be honest

Either they were an HCP before transitioning, in which case they would have been used to patients opting to see their colleagues for a smear test rather than them. Or they became an HCP who performs intimate procedures after transitioning, in which case one might well ponder their motivation for doing so, given the great array of roles available even within the medical profession that would be less likely to bring these issues into play

It is not listed as a mental disorder.

That's only because the lunatics have taken over the asylum and are telling practitoners to uphold that they are sane and the world is is crazy - or else.

It is completely wrong in the head to think your body is the wrong sex.

If a situation is created where the women the procedure is being done on has to actively reject a trans HCP then how is that a good situation for anyone involved?

Exactly. On the Duluth wheel - I know I keep mentioning it but FFS, this place is mobbed by embodiments of it - this is called coercion. It's abusive. And only abusers, potential abusers or abuse cheerleaders can't see that. So if you're reading and you can't see that - bugger off and have a word with yourself.

"It is a disorder to identify as transgender.
It is listed as a mental disorder."

It is not listed as a mental disorder.

Again, the default should be a female HCP being offered. If a situation is created where the women the procedure is being done on has to actively reject a trans HCP then how is that a good situation for anyone involved?

"A trans woman working as a nurse is not coercive or sinister or creepy or anything else of that nature that has been said over the pages of this thread. They are simply pursuing a career in something thar they are passionate about - helping people."

Well, if helping people is what they want to do they could start by listening to the people they claim to be so interested in helping.

Numerous women are saying they don't want to be 'helped' when it comes to matters gynaecological by transwomen.

End of. No-one else's feelings or views matter. Not the postman's, not the man who works at the corner shop and not the transwoman's either.

Don't know about theoretical stuff, but if any man or man-who-thinks-he-is-a-woman appeared and introduced themselves to me as the nurse to perform my smear, I would run screaming out of the room.

I would feel extremely scared and wonder wtf they thought they were doing.

That is women at their most vulnerable - how insensitive or deliberately rapey would a man or man-who-thinks-he-is-a-woman have to be to think that this was a good scenario for him to try out pretending to be a woman?

Can we please stop insinuating that all trans people have a ‘disturbed’ relationship with what other people’s bodies?!

I don't give a flying fuck what relationship they have with other people's bodies. I do give a flying fuck that any male person, trans or otherwise, would even think there was any issue with the default setting for intimate procedures - beauty salons and the like as well as healthcare - being same sex for women. Any person involved in such employment that situates their identity over the needs of their service users is entirely unsuitable for the position. It shouldn't even occur to a male-born trans person to want this type of employment. If it does - that's a big, huge, massive problem with that trans person.

The absolute narcissism of thinking another person's boundaries are worth less than your inner identity is a massive red flag straight from every single MVAWG and domestic abuse checklist ever written.

I don't want anyone male nosing around in my bits unless we have a sexual relationship, is what it comes down to for me. Don't care how the male in question sees himself, whether or not he's sexually interested in women, how he dresses, what his star sign is...it's my genitalia and I should have the absolute right to determine who does and does not get to touch it.

It's like that wise man said "Trans women are women. Except for relationship purposes"

A TIM can be or do anything they like, but if a relationship is proposed, could be sexual, or medical in this case, the patient has to have the right to say no. And there don't have to have an approved reason, they shouldn't have to state a reason at all.

This is one of the situations where the 'except relationship' clause kicks in.

I agree, Permission.