If someone identifies as an amputee they are given psychological help

[gardenbird48]

and steered away from modifying their body. They are not immediately affirmed, applauded by their friends and sent for surgery. BDD is the same.
I am really struggling with the difference between this and gender dysphoria, can anyone, esp with a psychiatry background explain please?

NotBadConsidering I suspect you're the one being disingenuous as I'm sure you are aware of the many studies that have been done on this subject which have concluded that transgender people tend to be happier and more contented post surgery.

But I'm happy to humour you and if you didn't like the first one I posted here's another couple:

uroweb.org/wp-content/uploads/first-accurate-data-showing-that-male-to-female-transgender-surgery-can-lead-to-a-better-life.pdf

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6974860/

Conclusion:
Transsexual individuals after surgery experienced more happiness and mental health than those before surgery.

Bah copy and paste fail!

Issues with gender identity or amputee identity can seem deep seated, but don't appear to be innate like sexual orientation.

A big clue in the difference in LGB vs T is when people get dementia.
I have never heard of someone 'forgetting' their sexual orientation. It seems impossible. They might forget they have 'come out' or imagine they are still living in an era where homosexuality is criminalised. But you cannot forget your sexual orientation.

On the other hand, trans people with dementia are at risk of forgetting they are trans, and that they have transitioned. They can get distressed with their bodies as it's not how they remember them, or they can be confused as to why they have to take their lifelong hormones or wear certain clothing. The fact that people can forget they are trans indicates to me that whatever it is that causes transgenderism is not innate.

Now I know you’re being disingenuous Sapphos (not that we haven’t all seen it before)

Your first link is to exactly the same study as your first post, a questionnaire study with a huge drop out rate.

Your second link is to a study of just 42 patients in IRAN, one of the most homophobic countries in the world, in the Iranian Journal of Public Health. What possible reason could Iran have for making a convincing argument that gay people are happier after surgery I wonder?

Honestly Sapphos 👀

Something is really reminding me of being a confused 16 year old in church and being told by the Christians I would live a happier life if I was celibate than if I had a lesbian relationship.

NotBadConsidering unless you're actually trans I'm not sure why you are the authority on the happiness of trans people.

NotBadConsidering unless you're actually trans I'm not sure why you are the authority on the happiness of trans people.

But as a lesbian you’re an authority on medical treatment of gay people.

I have a strong interest in the health and well being of children. Funnily enough altering their bodies permanently for homophobic reasons isn’t part of that.

But you’re cool with it I see. Good for you Sapphos. Slow 👏

Sapphos
Could you link to some of these 'many studies' about the happiness of post-op transsexuals? So far you've linked to a conference presentation and a paper in an Iranian journal. I don't find these very convincing sources. Iran is a country in which homosexuality is illegal and gay people are offered GRS to avoid punishments such as imprisonment or execution, so I shouldn't need to explain to you why those who have undergone the surgery are likely to be happier than those who haven't.

"Something is really reminding me of being a confused 16 year old in church and being told by the Christians I would live a happier life if I was celibate than if I had a lesbian relationship."
The issue there is your reality (being attracted to other females), was at variance with their beliefs as to what god then wanted you to do about that. To which you are free to disagree (although of course I'm not minimising the struggles of gay kids being raised in a homophobic religion or society).
The problem with trans ideology is that the rest of us are required to believe in something not just that we don't believe in, but that we know is not true, in order to make the person about whom we are required to have that belief happy.
But hey, keep trying to lump us in with homophobes, cos if that and papers from Iran is all you have got, countering it isn't that hard.

@Jessbow

I think your comparisom with an amputee is really quite odd, offensive almost.

you dont ''identify' as an amputee, you either are, or you arent.

What the parrallel with gender dysphoria I have no idea!

It's not about amputees who have lost a limb for whatever reason. It's those who want to be amputees. They have all the usual body parts but dysphoria means they want to be rid of one. We as far as I know dont remove the offending part, we help them with the disconnect of what they want v what they have. Yet in gender dysphoria we affirm in every way.

Iranian Journal of Public Health as a legitimate source for trans health and wellbeing data

www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/mar/01/where-are-the-most-difficult-places-in-the-world-to-be-gay-or-transgender-lgbt

Iran

Iran’s leaders describe homosexuality as “moral bankruptcy” or “modern western barbarism”. Amnesty International estimates that 5,000 gays and lesbians have been executed there since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Iran carries out more sex reassignment operations than any other country in the world. It’s a double edged sword for some in the LGBT community though – the operations have become a controversial solution for gay men trying to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and the government refuses to recognise transgender people who don’t want surgery.

Does anyone still have any lingering doubts about the intentions of someone who uses Iran as a beacon for the health and wellbeing of trans people?

Oh could you just stop with the comparisons with being gay.

Being gay doesn't require lopping off perfectly healthy body parts and dosing up physically perfectly healthy bodies with all sorts of weird drugs. And children who think they might be gay don't have to do a single thing with their bodies to 'correct' themselves.

Being gay doesn't require anything from anyone else. No one has to lie, no one has to repeat mantras about men being women, no one has to pretend that you are something you are not. As you said yourself Sapphos vicars who do not to perform same sex marriages don't have to.

What you like sexually has absolutely nothing to do with being uncomfortable in the physical body that you are in.

thanks for your thoughts everyone - I totally agree that a comparison with being gay is not correct as there is no requirement to modify the body to 'fit' the person. There are people who actually identify as amputees to the point that they modify (or try to) their body to fit their identity ie. have one or more limbs removed. There was a lady in America who identified as a blind person so found a doctor who poured drain cleaner in her eyes to make her body fit her identity. Oliver Sacks, the famous neurologist wrote an amazing book - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat which describes the many ways in which people can experience a mismatch between what their brain experiences and material reality. I continue to research this but have still not found any evidence to show me that the trans experience is any different. Sadly, a number of studies to research further into this issue have been shut down by protests from the activists (and universities not standing up for intellectual freedom) so we will be none the wiser for the time being.

You might find this interesting gardenbird.

'Chloe' Jennings-White is transabled and also transgender. This article in the Times was written by a genuinely disabled woman (who is unimpressed about Jennings-White's claims to be a disabled lesbian).

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/spinal-column-no-truck-with-transableists-r3qrr3glx73

Jennings-White, a scientist in Utah, lives as a paraplegic, pretending to be paralysed from the waist down. She wears leg braces and uses wheelchairs and crutches. The problem, for those of us who struggle to indulge people – sorry, celebrate diversity – quite to this extreme, is that there is nothing physically wrong with Jennings-White. She lives a double life. When she’s out in the countryside, she happily gets out of her wheelchair and goes hiking. It is only in the company of others that she feels compelled to be seen as disabled.

Furthermore, she claims to want surgery to transect her spinal cord, so that she can really be a paraplegic. She calls it “Ability Reassignment Surgery”. Jennings-White, all in all, can best be described as the gift that keeps on giving. Often people who say they have BIID are transsexual or transgender men; Chloe, it has emerged, was apparently once Clive. Since becoming a woman in a wheelchair, she also claims to have suffered from selective mutism. (No, I don’t have a clue either.) On her own internet blog Jennings-White describes herself as “a disabled intersexed lesbian feminist with BIID… and deaf in one ear”.

Indeed, in the race to see who can be the most disabled, in this age of barmy victimhood, Jennings-White puts many a nose out of joint because she is hard to trump. Especially disabled gay women, a fearsome pressure group, who on the internet froth with rage. “It is already so hard for disabled lesbians… this man is appropriating so many identities and causing so much harm,” posted one.

More about Jennings-White here.

www.gendertrending.com/2012/02/01/national-geographic-taboo-fake-paraplegic-chloe-jennings-white/

And an article about BIID.

thefederalist.com/2017/04/04/woman-demands-doctors-sever-spinal-cord-fit-body-mind-transsexual-man/

I don't really knows why it matters anyway?

There are two points:

1. Adult wants to permanently alter their own body - fine.

1. Adult wants everyone in society to recognise their altered body as the opposite sex in every situation - not fine.

I don't see the point in debating Point 1 as it is nobody else's business really. If a person is determined enough they will do it anyway, as per the OP's recent examples.

It matters Sapphos because your approach to all your posts is to post something to make a contrary point. In this case you’ve used gay conversion therapy in one of the most oppressive countries in the world, Iran, to make your point. You. Who calls themselves a lesbian. Made that point. We see you Sapphos.

And doctors are bound by ethics that they don’t - shouldn’t - just do anything a patient asks. If a patient finds an unethical doctor that should be exposed.

And it matters because doctors are doing this to children. So it’s everyone’s business. As you well know.

I find it despicable that someone is so determined to be disruptive to this board that they would use gay conversion therapy to make a point then not even apologise for it.

I have an identity disorder. I havent been diagnosed yet. I am diagnosed with OCD and anorexia. Which isnt incorrect but it's the larger identity issue causing these two things. Currently under psychiatrist treatment.

As I have learned more about my own mental health and gained more insight I have come to believe that a lot of these men have some sort of similar condition to myself.

The behaviour and the way they describe it. I understand it. The only difference I see is that their other identity isnt the sex they are. Mine are all female. No one would encourage my others behaviour because it is not how a healthy adult behaves. I have to put a great deal of work into not letting that part take over. I also have amnesia during some switches. I STILL dont get let off if I do something stupid or bad.

@SapphosRock living as a homosexual doesn’t involve doing irreparable damage to your body. How deeply offensive a comparison.

EmperorCovidula not sure how old you are but this very argument was made against reducing the age of consent for gay men back in the early 90s. It was claimed that men under 21 would never physically or psychologically recover from having anal sex with other men and would hugely regret it.

@SapphosRock

That would be relevant if most trans identified men were ever going to go through with the surgery. Most of them have no intention of having irreversible surgery.

You cant include most trans identified males in that comment about being happier post surgery when they're not getting surgery in the first place.

Nonny That thread by Malcolm Clark is illuminating.

17./ Reid had argued no amount of counselling could ever change these patients. But is it psychiatry's job just to affirm every obsession patients have or help realise every fantasy or fetish? After the show went out Reid's colleagues & the discipline in general were horrified.

18./ Experts became concerned about the sudden boom in wannabe amputees and worried that it was psychiatry's fascination that was fuelling it. Here's the Atlantic arguing insightfully about how a pathology was being normalised by science.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/304671/

19./ Psychiatrists realised they'd made a huge mistake, & there was a clampdown. But somehow Russell Reid's views on transsexuality were unaffacted, despite them and the concept of 'gender identity being the driving inspiration for his stance on "elective" amputees.

20./ Reid developed much of today's approach to trans care. He pioneered the use of cancer drugs like Goserelin as puberty blockers. He'd used them first to dampen the libido of paedophiles, a use for which the manufacturer complained it wasn't licensed.

21./ This risky attitude eventually though came a cropper. He was found guilty of Serious Professional Misconduct by the GMC for inappropriately prescribing hormones. Among other breaches he'd given them to a woman who wanted to be a man because she believed she was Jesus."

This video is quite good and covers thoughts on surgery from trans people themselves:

www.facebook.com/bbc/videos/464891117780739/?vh=e

So Sapphos’s latest evidence that surgery for trans people results in greater happiness is a 5 min Q and A BBC video with trans people of which maybe 30 seconds is about surgery and the answer is “don’t ask, it’s private”.

Well, in terms of evidence quality, at least it’s not morally reprehensible like Iran’s gay conversion, so big thumbs up there Sapphos! Shame about the actual evidence part though.

Still no apology for using the horrendous situation in Iran to make a point. But I’m not expecting one.

Quite difficult to answer the OP's question when people who are happy to take part in a study don't count, Iranians don't count and trans people themselves don't count.

Perhaps the OP could be rephrased to 'anybody gender critical want to back up my opinion that trans people have a mental illness' ... it would probably get the 'correct' response than generate debate.