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?

A man can only ever have the experiences of a man. What other experiences could he have? 😵‍💫

So a person at a fancy dress party cannot validly also claim to be trans? And trans persons never take hallucinogenic drugs, but if they do are they still trans if they say so under their influence?

The point you are missing with this obtuseness is there are circumstances when a non trans person can say they are trans & are not.

"the unbelievability of a mature man with only the experiences of a man."

Except, the ONLY experience in that statement she made that is of a male person is impregnating bit.

Truck driving is not a male only profession. Sure, it is male dominated for many many reasons, but it is not male only. Germaine Greer spent decades fighting for female people to be able to make those kind of decisions - for female people to enter professions that were viewed as being male dominated. Many of us on this board have stated we work in male dominated professions. It doesn't make us men!

And a female person can have a wife. I think that Greer knows this very well too.

So you are trying to make a statement mean something that it doesn't.

Considering you completely fucking balls up the interpretation of the other statement she made, I don't think you have any credibility at all in accurately interpreting what Germaine Greer says.

But please, keep going, this is entertaining. You have delivered some pearlers today!

Anyone who declares they are trans, are trans by definition. You're being transphobic again.

That is exactly it. It's wrong to think of this as having any underlying consistency or causes.

Because it didn't start with an origin story. It started with a desire. The desire to be seen as/accepted as the opposite sex came first.

Everything else is just re-conning origin stories to justify why that desire must be indulged.

TRAs will throw anything up to see what works best. And when one story stops working they move onto another.

There's no substance behind any of it, just a burning need and the belief that the end is so righteous it justifies any means.

Like religion? Are you suggesting belief can never be rational?

"there are circumstances when a non trans person can say they are trans & are not."

Another gem!

But brilliant stuff. So, now people who are not transgender can determine when a person who expresses their 'personally subjective values & beliefs' and it seems we can also determine whether or not it is a rational belief or not.

All from a person who has told us that they are not transgender at all, yet tells us all what being transgender means.

I await the usual posters to come and tell you that you are indeed transphobic, in fact, probably more so than the women you keep on derogating on this board.

Is religion rational???? really?

It seems the barrel may be bottomless...

Not in my 30 years experience.

Mind you, if Bailey believes that religion is rational, then that sure explains quite a few things!

A random GP on an email who doesn't identify themselves an 'expert in the field' of trans gender psychology now? Could we use this 'expert' GP email in court too?

Do we even know if the email is legit?

Bollox. How can the person hearing the claim KNOW that a person is trans or not in x circumstances but not y? That is at the core of the whole debate - one that you are being obtuse in not understanding. Either a person is trans because they say they are or they are not.

As we do not share Xavier’s mutant powers we are not able to see inside the person speaking to know whether they are being sincere or not, we cannot distinguish between the person taking the piss, the AGP with a fetish, the trendy m/c uni student for which this is their cause celeb today, or the deeply distressed autistic person struggling with their sexed body.

All we have is the evidence of our eyes and a lifetime of mental schema and socialisation with which to interpret that visual data - ie to ‘understand the context’ in which the statement is being made.

It is all smokes and mirrors. Unless there is a hotline I can call or an app I can use to ask whether the person standing before me is a ‘true’ trans or not?

'Beliefs' can be rational when they are based on materially reality and can be evidenced. It can be argued that some of those 'beliefs' are just labelled as 'facts' though. Like the fact that humans cannot change sex.

The context is sex and gender.
Sex is the provable immutable binary thing; gender is the self-defined 'whatever' thing.

I can change my 'personal aesthetic' if I want to, that's personal to me and doesn't call for any social/legal considerations.
I can't change my sex.

A changed personal aesthetic is not a basis for social/legal considerations.
That's where sex and gender are significantly different.

'Oh yeah, the streets are full of female truckies'

Said no one ever.

She chose a 50 year old truckie for a reason & it's to ram home the unbelievability angle via experience. She knows what she is doing

But do keep digging & pretending she doesn't.

What was that? You trying to establish credibility after you removed the significant context of her other quote to try to prove something that you thought was a great gotcha?

Nah, mate....

They never ever ever explain why gender has to take precedence over sex, nor why someone saying their belief that their gender identity makes me meaningfully the same as them takes precedence over me saying I believe the differences in our sex means I am not.

Believing that "trans people are who they say are" apparently only works one way.

The bit they never say out loud is "and that means you have to be who trans people say you are as well".

But that's the only way this works, because trans people can only "be who they say they are" by imposing their own beliefs about who everyone else is as well.

So very very bored of the hypocracy and autocracy of this supposed "free thinking" movement.

Although in the interests of finding middle ground, I offer that I will be a lot more open to this whole "walk the walk" social commonalities thing if someone provides evidence to show trans women are picking up child- and elderly- care burdens at the same rate as people of female biology.

Agreed.

As long as that doesn't include 'chest feeding '. 🤮

You could make the same wacky argument about religious people. 'But but but how can we know if they are truly religious?'

The fact is much of human interaction relies on accepting people at the face value of what they say that could be wrong. But somehow for trans this is an existential threat?

Careful, your transphobia is showing.

Re truck drivers being an unbelievable example.

The following is the beginning of the wiki description of a man claiming to be a woman who shot and killed his ex-wife, son and father-in-law at a baseball game in the US.

He had fathered six children and claimed to be trans aged 51.

'Roberta Dorgano (July 15, 1969[32][33] – February 16, 2026), a 56-year-old trans woman, was identified as the perpetrator by law enforcement officials.[34][35] Dorgano joined the US Marine Corps on April 26, 1988, but was discharged three months later on July 13, 1988, her service being "incongruent with Marine Corps' expectations and standards".[19][36] In 1989, Dorgano was charged with simple assault and battery, but the case was dismissed.[37] Dorgano later lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and worked as a truck driver.[38] Dorgano owned a van which was registered with a shipping company in Bath, Maine, and she had told employees working there that she lived in her van.[39] At the time of the shooting, Dragon was employed at Bath Iron Works.[40]'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Pawtucket_shooting

Yeah, like biologically influenced personality traits that's scientifically uncontroversial.

and yet.... biologically influenced personality traits is not scientifically proven. It is theorised.

A self selected, self determined data collection exercise using a mechanic that is not able to screen out aspirational or self perception biases does not equate to 'scientifically uncontroversial'. It would be considered the opposite I would expect.

Garbage in, garbage out is a significant issue.

@Baileyonice , as far as I can tell, your argument is:

I) Biological sex results in 'typical' male and female behaviours
(You haven't told us what these typical behaviours are, but I believe big boobs and handbags were mentioned)

ii) We can all browse through a list of these typical behaviours, total how many 'male' and 'female' typical behaviours we have, and therefore determine whether our gender identity is 'male', 'female' or 'non-binary'
(presumably if our split is exactly 50-50 we're non-binary. What percentage of male or female typical behaviours is required for being male or female is so far undetermined. Perhaps this is a matter of personal judgement)

The question is: once we have determined our gender identity, what are we supposed to do with it?

Here's an analogy:

I) Biological age results in typical 'elderly person' and 'young person' behaviours
(E.g., elderly people may be more likely to enjoy garden centres and sudokus than nightclubbing)

ii) We could look at a list of typical age-related behaviours and determine whether our chrono identity is 'elderly' or 'young'. For example, if I prefer garden centres and sudokus to nightclubbing, I can determine that my chrono identity is 'elderly person'

Now I've determined my chrono identity, what am I supposed to do with it?

Should I dye my hair grey and adopt a stooping, shuffling walk?

Should I have surgery in order to socially pass as elderly?

Can I enter veteran races and sporting categories on the basis of my chrono identity?

Can I demand to be accepted into retirement homes, and demand a pension, a bus pass and a free TV licence?

Or would we say that dying my hair and adopting a stooping, shuffling walk are insulting biological appropriation? That having surgery to pass as elderly would be attempted deception, a cause for concern about my mental state, or both? That I can't enter veteran races and sporting categories because I have an unfair biological advantage? And that retirement homes, pensions, bus passes and free TV licences are given to people of biological old age due to their biological need and not due to their propensity to enjoy garden centres and sudokus?

Why is gender identity any different to chrono identity, and why should anyone take gender identity seriously?

But all men can only have the experiences of a man. However “feminine” they are. They are still men