Transitioning or therapy as the treatment for gender dysphoria

I also think gender identity is just a way of legitimising it all, it can't be tested for, but convince enough people it's real and there you go, and it's worked.
The problem is of course that the, gender abd sex are different, just doesn't work when it comes to anything for the opposite sex, so now we're supposed to believe that sex can change with cross sex hormones.
Total madness, just medicated and mutilated people playing pretend, and no closer to the opposite sex, it's such a massive, scandalous, unethical failure, for everyone.

Gender dysphoria is not a condition its a symptom of a number of wider mental health issues.
Therapy therefore is the ONLY way to get to the bottom of what is really wrong.
This is the reason that in the majority of cases transitioning doesn't make the patient feel better. Because it doesn't address the underlying problem. Many feel worse immediately. Instant regret when they realise what they have done.

(Obviously I'm talking about surgery here)
It is not and never was the answer to surgically alter and physically medicate a mental health condition.

But now we are told that trying to help a person understand WHY they feel like this is "Conversion Therapy" and a terrible thing to do. So much so they are trying to make it illegal.

Illegal to counsel a distressed person who wants to disrupt their bodily functions and/or undergo brutal and unnecessary surgery.
I despair!

Concepts of 'gender dysphoria' are a relatively recently invented framework with which to view and then label an individual's feelings of distress and discomfort about themselves and their place in the world.

or they’ve been spending way too much time on SM and think it’s a way of getting attention

I think StylesSluttyShorts makes a very good point
No one actually transitions to anything they do they?

At the centre of anything trans is the idea that human beings can change sex - I know there's a version which says 'we don't claim to have changed sex, we just present in a different gender' but I'm discounting that, because at least half of the posters on here are probably 'presenting in a different gender' right now - jeans and men's t-shirts, anyone?😄

Given that human beings can't change sex, because whichever sex you were born into remains with you for the rest of your life, as it is encoded in every cell in your body, concepts like 'transitioning' 'TWAW' TWAM' ring hollow - there's a factual void at the middle of it.

Research suggests that a child who has difficulty accepting the reality of their biological sex will probably reconcile to that fact with the passage of time, and they need nothing more than love, support and the truth.

A child who is experiencing an unusual level of distress about it needs more love and more support, but they do NOT need less truth - given that human's can't change their sex, suggesting that they could 'transition' to the opposite sex is not just unhelpful, it's dishonest.

So either love, support, time and the truth, or love, support, time, therapy and the truth are the only real options, because
No one actually transitions to anything they do they?

Therapy, just like for all other kinds of delusion and dysphoria. Sex is a physical reality, you can’t be a woman in a man’s body, or vice versa, no matter how loud you say you have the feelz or stamp your feet and cry ‘abuse’ when no one believes you.

Dysphoria is absolutely real, and no one denies it exists, (so, no one denies ‘trans’ identified people exist) but as @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn says, surgical and hormonal treatment don’t actually alleviate the distress or get rid of the dysphoria.

No one actually transitions to anything they do they?
They're literally just pretending to be the opposite sex, maybe the relief at first comes from friends and family playing along, but it can't last as not everyone will, and of course they should never be included in anything for the opposite sex.
All that can really happen is that they're less healthy, and still the same sex.

Concepts of 'gender dysphoria' are a relatively recently invented framework with which to view and then label an individual's feelings of distress and discomfort about themselves and their place in the world.

This is reflected in the disproportionately high percentage of people with ASD who identify as transgender.

Concepts of 'gender dysphoria' are a relatively recently invented framework with which to view and then label an individual's feelings of distress and discomfort about themselves and their place in the world. 'Transitioning' is also part of this ideological construction and is presented as the solution to 'gender dysphoria'.

Concepts of 'Gender' - as distinct to 'Sex' - are social/cultural in origin and many people would suggest that 'gender' is just a synonym for personality or character ( regardless of whether an individual is broadly gender conforming or non conforming).

Gender ideology posits that if one does not conform to the gender roles or characteristics of one's sex then it is posssible that one has a neurological mis-match between mind and body - resulting in 'gender dysphoria' , and that one's inner soul could somehow be more typical of the opposite sex, and that transitioning to that sex ( not possible), or to that set of stereotypes/presentations could be a solution to one's dysphoric feelings.

This is all predicated on nothing but thin air and post modernistic ideas about the self that have arisen out of 'Queer Theory'. If one wants to present in ways considered typical of the opposite sex then go ahead ( adhering to the the same sorts of social limits that we must all adhere to around occasion and appropriateness) if that makes you feel better and more comfortable in yourself, but it is a naive and false expectation that the world must validate your feelings and change its normal sets of rules and boundaries to accommodate them. The world does not revolve around an individual's feelings.

transitions which society should accept (but not be forced to do so).

What does this mean? In practice, how do you see it working?

It depends on whether the cause is neurological and unchangeable (a sort of brain-body mismatch) or social and able to be treated with therapy

You seem to be saying.some people have one cause and some the other. If so, how do you tell them appart to apply the correct treatment to the correct person?

Studies show dysphoria is not resolved by transition. Mental health worsens. Suicide rates go up. Medical and surgical treatments have horrific long-term health consequences. Whether the cause is changeable or not these treatments do harm.

Other body dysmorphias are treated with therapy, not affirmation. What makes gender different from anorexia or the belief you have the wrong number of limbs?

Where do people like Eddie Izzard fit in then? Or those people that claim they have no sex at all and everyone must pretend they can't tell by looking if they are male or female? I'm not even convinced it's a medical condition or a mental health condition for those people. It's just a lifestyle choice isn't it?

What I do honestly believe is that some young women are so badly treated because of the affects of porn that they want to hide their sex and avoid exposure to harm and some older men have a fetish where they are turned on by dressing up as women. Where do those people fit in?

gender dysphoria is a real condition

a mental health condition only

Like any mental condition the first treatment should be talking therapy and giving it time to work.

I only know a few trans people well, transitioning doesn't seem to alieviate distress because they don't change sex and never pass so actually seem to be more distressed that the promised sex change hasn't materialised.

My own ds said he wanted to be a girl from 7 and maintained that to various extents until 13. Fortunately the Tavistock wait list was long and there was less activism in school back then so we mainly ignored it and he's a gay boy who likes long hair and colourful clothes. Imagine if they'd transitioned him!