Is being trans a 'disease'/mental health issue?

[SolveMyPrombles]

I'm asking on this board for deliberate considered responses so please do share your thoughts.

A lady on a local group has described being trans as a mental illness that should be treated with compassion not pandered to because it's a disease.

Looking into it more deeply I believe she's wrong and there is no current diagnostic manual that agrees with her take.

What do you think?

For some, yes-if i went about claiming to be Cleopatra or Marie Antoinette everyone would know i had a mentsl illness, how is "trans" different? Also some men have afetish for wearing frilly "feminine" clothes items like fishnet tights, very high stilettos, pvc miniskirts etc which apparently gives them an erection , similarly some men get a boner from breaking women's boundaries i e using the ladies or peeping at them, upskirting etc. Certainly not an indicator of good mental health or a healthy sexuality, never mind the disrespect for women and girls, and i would also see such misogyny as a sign of poor mental heslth.

There is one female experience that is shared by all and that is being born with a female body and having to navigate the world, from the outset, on that basis.

The extent of the sexism we encounter varies, as does our ability to shrug it off or oppose it; and in our life we may have more or fewer positive experiences connected with being a woman; but we all face it as someone born female.

The experience of choosing to feminise a male body, and the navigation of the world that follows from that, is a different experience altogether. Even if you "pass" enough to clock up a few experiences of being treated as the world treats women ( eg being groped on a bus; or more pleasantly, having a man give up his seat for you) that doesn't make you a woman. You are still navigating that experience as somebody born male who has chosen feminisation.

So non-binary doesn't have cross-cultural acceptance. You're trying to handwave that away as those places having cultural issues, but you're basically agreeing that it doesn't.

Neither do trans people if we are going to be that ridiculously obtuse. The social construction refers to the social categorisation reference point (concept) that trans people are identifying with which is 'man' or 'woman' that exists broadly. Trans people either relate to one or the other or neither of these socially constructed categories.

You seem to be confusing the social construction of words with concepts. 'Two spirit' isn't a widely accepted term in comparison to the term 'non binary' but both of their existence as phenomenas/concepts doesn't hinge on the broad social acceptance of terms/words. But as I said GC's clearly assert 'two spirit'/tutti frutti gender is all there is so perhaps they can get a 'vibe' happening on a renaissance of it & it will becomes as popularised as 'non binary'.

Imagine the possibilities? 'Tutti Frutti' usurping 'man' & 'woman' would end gender 'stereotypes'. LFG!!!!!! 😂

Isn't that what you’ve always dreamed of? No it's not? Why? Because it's never been about stereotypes but some dogged territorial ownership of a word for chrissakes.

Bullshit. It wouldn't matter what they call themselves or whether they 'stay out' & you know it. Why do GC's routinely use the term 'men in dresses' then if gender non conformity expression is soooo acceptable?

The facts are GC's are every bit as misogynistic as MRA's when it comes to natal men expressing feminine traits.

I adopt a butch presentation as my personal aesthetic, but I don't think that's the same as trans people - in their case, it's not simply personal, they are also making a very public claim that they somehow become/demand to be treated as/acquire the rights specific to the opposite sex.

But by virtue of an association to the inclinations, behaviours or psychology more common to women they qualify under the umbrella hood of 'woman'. Whether that should or shouldn't entitle them to the same rights is a separate issue.

There is a reason that personality tests are much less used now in recruitment. They were ineffective.

You are here trying to tell us that personality traits are an effective sex class categorisation tool. You haven’t told us how it will be meaningfully applied. Again, what you have been doing is effectively saying ‘but, but… behaviours … traits…’ as if what you are pointing to is in any way relevant to categorising humans into stable, reliable and useful sex classes.

For this tool to work, tell us again who the fuck is going to decide what point in some continuum qualifies a person as being ‘female’ on that criteria? Or is it a panel? Based on flawed methodology? Is there going to be a ‘Sexed Personality Panel’?

Who assesses the collection mechanic to rule out fashionable or learned habit personality traits so that someone doesn’t get miscategorised?

Who assesses that collection mechanic for the effects of mental health situations that will skew answers?

Who assesses that collection mechanic for the effects of dementia or brain trauma?

Then, who decides which criteria have the priority for deciding who is ‘female’ so the algorithm can work out if a person rates as ‘female’ on most things but is ‘male’ on others, are they male or female?

What happens if someone ends up in the neutral zone while rating highly female or male in their answers?

As a tool for sex categorisation what you propose is meaningless in so many different ways. By now, many of us have tried to point this out. Yet you keep returning to it with the desperation of ‘but but personality… but but traits … but but this ‘study’…

Some male people will have personality traits that are similar to female people. So what? That doesn’t make that male person female in anyway.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8099405/

“But by virtue of an association to the inclinations, behaviours or psychology more common to women they qualify under the umbrella hood of 'woman'.”

This is the bollocks to which I was referring. Who is the arbitrator of which critieria is used and the points on each criteria where a candidate rates as being ‘woman’ is just the start of the failings of using inclinations, behaviours or psychology as being tools for categorising humans into sex categories.

"The largest study to look at detransition was the U.S. Transgender Survey from 2015 which was a cross-sectional nonprobability study of 27 715 TGD adults (4). This survey included the question “Have you ever de-transitioned? In other words, have you ever gone back to living as your sex assigned at birth, at least for a while?” The survey found that 8% of respondents had detransitioned temporarily or permanently at some point and that the majority did so only temporarily. Rates of detransition were higher in transgender women (11%) than transgender men (4%). The most common reasons cited were pressure from a parent (36%), transitioning was too hard (33%), too much harassment or discrimination (31%), and trouble getting a job (29%)."

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9516050/

"I don't understand what you mean. You say you have lived it. What do you mean. What have you lived. You can't have lived her statement."

I'm a cis female stay at home mother whose husband was able to pursue his career at the expense of mine so I fully understand a husband's lack of female life experience.

Greer does not say that there is a typical woman experience in the way that you say she does. She does not say that men and women are the same. She does not believe either of those things.

“If you’re a 50-year-old truck driver who’s had four children with a wife and you’ve decided the whole time you’ve been a woman, I think you’re probably wrong,” she said.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/12/germaine-greer-tells-qa-her-trans-views-were-wrong-but-then-restates-them

If Greer isn't referring to female life experience here by invoking a 50 year old truck driver with a stay at home wife what is she talking about?

Why mention the guy is old & a truck driver with a wife & kids?

She's implying you have nothing in common in terms of life experience.

Indeed, Nellie.

Think of the future law suits where some people were tested using personality, inclinations and behaviours and told they were one sex when the testing tools changed with updated theoretical information which changed a person’s historical sex! Or that with experience someone changed their reactions to situations and started showing typical opposite sex traits!

'It's not real because science never ends!!!!' Seriously?

Science has concluded so far:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology

Not every female experiences sexism as they don't many other typical female experiences like an inclination towards heightened femininity, agreeableness & neuroticism but certainly some natal men do.

For this tool to work, tell us again who the fuck is going to decide what point in some continuum qualifies a person as being ‘female’ on that criteria? Or is it a panel? Based on flawed methodology? Is there going to be a ‘Sexed Personality Panel’?

There's this thing called 'self identification'. Gender identification is a personally subjective values/belief system not an objective truth. Psychological & sex traits being biological realities don't change that.

Just like we can't determine if a person truly is religious but we still provide them with discrimination protection the same applies to trans people.

but but personality… but but traits … but but this ‘study’…

If I put on a headscarf because I'm cold, and some numpty assumes I must be a Muslim woman and insults me, I experience Islamophobia. But that doesn't make me a Muslim having a Muslim's experience. Experiencing sexism doesn't make a man a woman having a woman's experience.

In answer to your addition to your post:

”Just like we can't determine if a person truly is religious but we still provide them with discrimination protection the same applies to trans people.”

What is the relevance of religion here?

Religion is a belief an it may be temporary and it is changeable over time. But where is it relevant to the discussion on what sex class a person is?

When does a person have to act as if they share a person’s religious belief when they don’t? All another person has to do is understand that someone has a belief system, they don’t have to act as if they too believe what the person believes.

Then comes the question of what you mean by discrimination? For instance, is is not illegitimate discrimination to exclude a male person from a female single sex provision. It would be discrimination to not employ a person with a transgender identity if that was the only criteria for the decision on not hiring them.

Yeah. @Baileyonice it can’t be both so which is it?

@Baileyonice

There's thing called a 'prefix' that distinguishes words & for trans people its 'trans' & 'cis'. Of course that's not enough for those obsessed with territorial word ownership.

And yet those that are obsessed are those forcing "cis" on the rest of us.

The posts using 'cis' are a good reminder that the term 'cis' is meaningless because the term includes any male person who has a DSD yet has a body that is **formed around the production of small gametes that has any degree of sensitivity to any of the testosterone that body produces.
Using this word, cis, then means there is no word left for female people.

Because even male people are now saying they are also ‘female’ . When ^^ female means only a person of the sex category where that person's body has been formed around the production of large gametes, regardless of whether the body does, has or ever will produce those large gametes. ie that requires the presence of ovaries or ovarian tissue - never testes. This has also recently been the basis of the new IOC policy too,

(from the IOC policy:

This is under the definitions section:
Sex: Either of the two categories, Male or Female, into which humans are divided according to their reproductive biology.
Biological Female (Female): An individual who, regardless of their legal sex or gender identity, experienced female sex development usually based on their XX-chromosomes, ovaries, and estrogenic hormones.

https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/International-Olympic-Committee/EB/policy/policy-on-the-protection-of-the-female-category-english.pdf )

In fact, we now have examples of many male people declaring that they are female people. So even the word for female has become meaningless in that sense.

But 'cis' is a* *word that was repurposed from its original usage and is meaningless for the purpose of discussing female people in its current usage. It has been used in academic papers as well in an attempt at using inclusive language which then renders the papers meaningless because the term is not describing a unique grouping of human bodies, even when it claims to be doing just that.

To see how this works, we have been told that 'girl' and 'woman' both now include:

1 Male person who has been incorrectly registered as a female at birth, but has a male body **.
2 Any male person has now claimed a transgender identity using those labels.
3 And any person who has a female body ^^.

Under the label of 'girl' and 'woman', extreme transgender activists have been telling us for years that those labels break down into two types of girls or women:

Cis and Transwomen/transgirls.
These terms mean:

Cis
= (1) Male person who has been incorrectly registered as a female at birth, but has a male body **
and
= (3) Any person who has a female body^^
Trans
= (2) Any male person has now claimed a transgender identity using those labels.

Therefore there is no unique word to mean female people who have a body ^^ formed around the production of large gametes.

Cis is meaningless as a unique description for female people and it always was. It is also misogynistic because it leaves female people with no unique word for their needs.

And that is not even covering the discussion about forcibly categorising someone to believe in gender identity when they don’t, which is what the use of ‘cis’ forces.

@Baileyonice

Imagine the possibilities? 'Tutti Frutti' usurping 'man' & 'woman' would end gender 'stereotypes'. LFG!!!!!! 😂

Isn't that what you’ve always dreamed of? No it's not? Why? Because it's never been about stereotypes but some dogged territorial ownership of a word for chrissakes.

You're almost there. GC people do want to put an end to gender stereotypes, so everyone identifying as being Tutti Frutti would be great! However, that wouldn't change the biological reality that some of those people would be male, and some of them female, and neither group could enter the other group's single-sex spaces.

Remember: you are the one who confuses gender and sex. GC people don't.

Gender identification is a personally subjective values/belief system not an objective truth.

Finally! I totally agree: gender identification is not an objective truth. Consequently, it shouldn't be treated as such, with societal support and validation.

Just like we can't determine if a person truly is religious but we still provide them with discrimination protection the same applies to trans people.

Indeed, and that is already done. There's no need for more privileges, such as forever altering the development of thousands of children to see if, maybe, that subjective belief holds up forever. This is not needed, and it shouldn't happen.

The term non binary is understood by many to be meaningless.

As an aside, what do you say it means?

If your answer is “does not identify as either sex”, then it is trivial and meaningless. If your answer is “is neither male nor female in reality”, it is absurd as well as meaningless.

Her pointing out that a man made a decision that is common and one that he benefitted from, is not her saying he can’t be female because of that decision.

Put the statement back in context, she also referenced, before making that statement you consider significant, about how he was awarded a ‘woman of the year’.

It was her way to pointing out that he could achieve that award because of the success of his career which was supported by the mother of his children making the decision she did. Leaving him free to pursue success which led to supporting him gaining an award. (One meant for women)

You drew a flawed conclusion from her statement. You also removed important context about what she was referring to.

“a man who has lived for 40 years as a man and had children with a woman and enjoyed the services – the unpaid services of a wife, which most women will never know ... then decides that the whole time he’s been a woman.”

This above was a follow on statement to the comment about the women’s award Jenner was given. Context matters.

But getting back to what you seem to be attempting to claim.

Typical family decisions such as who is the primary carer, who of a couple may make a choice to not follow a previous career path but to look after the children, is just as weak as a tool for categorising sex classes in humans as personality traits.

She used the decision that family made to highlight the fact that Jenner benefitted from being male, while then declaring he was female. And then winning an award that was meant to recognise female people’s achievements, while he achieved the success he was awarded for as a male person.

She did not use the statement in any other way, in my opinion. She didn’t say ‘Jenner cannot be female because of the decision the family made’. That would be absurd. She used the statement to highlight the fact that he is male and he used the advantages of being male that he started acquiring from birth to his benefit.

Not that anyone making that same decision must be ‘male’. Because that too would be an absurd statement for Germaine Greer to make, given her many words in the past that would contradict such a statement.

If your assertion is that she declared that because Jenner didn’t choose to be the primary carer that Jenner is therefore not female, I think you have misinterpreted what she intended as I and others have pointed out.

There are zero actual scientific studies that prove any such thing. Whenever scrutiny is applied to these pseudoscience 'studies', they fall apart. They don't control for homosexuality for one example. Another is that the more scientists study brains, the less there is evidence for a 'male brain' or a 'female brain'. theconversation.com/you-dont-have-a-male-or-female-brain-the-more-brains-scientists-study-the-weaker-the-evidence-for-sex-differences-158005 and
Debunking the “Brain Sex Hypothesis” — Excerpt from Binary — Paradox Institute Hence, no such thing as a 'cis' brain. I suggest you stop falling for debunked junk science that is laughed off by actual real scientists. Not even trans themselves believe it either, or want it to be true.