Should gender dysphoria/transgenderism be considered a disability?

[LittleMissViper]

It's something that I've been wondering for a while. I'm not an expert in the field, nor have I had a lot of interactions with a wide number of affected individuals. I would be genuinely interested to hear other peoples experiences and thoughts.

Obviously the severity varies, but the affected individuals I know have described the severity of their gender dysphoria and the distress it causes them. They often speak about how they cannot live without going through a transition.

The transition often, but not always, leads to the individual beginning regulated medication that would need to be taken for the rest of their life. It also sometimes involves major surgical procedures being performed.

Considering this, should being under medical care for a chronic, lifelong condition be classified as having a disability?

Would affected people be able to claim financial support for the disability?

Would affected athletes then participate in disabled sport, after assessment using the standard classification systems?

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria I honestly don't know what to think of the SNP.

My take on the SNP is "collection of idiots and egos with occasional flashes of brilliance", @SingingSands

That could be their new strapline

@LittleMissViper

It seems likely then that I have been lead down the garden path by the people I am aware of with gender dysphoria, who have implied it to be significantly more disabling than perhaps it truly is.

I hasten to add that none of them, to my knowledge, have described gender dysphoria as a disability. However, how it is described as affecting them made me wonder if it should be.

Having not experienced gender dysphoria myself, it is hard to judge.

Oh bless you. Your heart is in the right place. You just need to look into this matter more thoroughly. It is not quite so cut and dried as some would like to think.

It’s no more or less “disabling” than I suspect what many women feel. We are always been told our bodies are wrong. Anguish isn’t rare at all.

To be fair to the SNP, the language of "identifying" as disabled came before it was taken up by trans people. It was intended to allow people who might classify as disabled to essentially opt out, that they are best placed to know whether they are disabled or not. Telling someone who cannot hear that they are disabled, when they consider it only a difference, is not a great approach.

Nobody in disability services imagined people using (appropriating?) this language to identify into disadvantaged groups to which they didn't belong - it started as an opt out.

You dont need to have dysphoria to be trans. This is what Self ID is.

Stonewall include part time cross dressers in their definition of trans. Are they to be considered disabled too, but just on the days they wear a dress?