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?

Yes, I am aware

That’s the point though, we don’t want to call them by a women’s name if they are a man and having to call a man ‘she’ instead of ‘he’. ‘He’ is the correct pronoun for a man, no one should be objecting to others using it in his absence.
You know you’re most likely going to upset that person by calling them ‘he’. You shouldn’t be forced to but you can always just use their name to avoid the issue.

How far is it reasonable to accomodate a sexist person though?

It's pretty offensive to have a man claim he is a woman, or vice versa, because he believes he thinks like a woman not like a man.

I don't think women should have to pretend we agree with his assessment of us. I think that is way beyond what is reasonable to expect us to do for the sake of politeness.

The law also exists in workplaces c the Workplace Regs.

And no. I wouldn't care. Of course not. Why on earth would I? Because I'm an actual adult woman with a spine.

If someone referred to me as 'he' repeatedly they would be using language incorrectly and would appear to be a bit unhinged. More fool them.

And I certainly wouldn't mind being called Bob.

How the chuff we managed to win two world wars with a population of people who can't cope with the basic use of language is sometimes frankly baffling.

Didn't you know about the GC group that's the equivalent of Bash Back?

No, me either...

I don’t think most people would agree trans women are inherently sexist. They not identifying as a woman because they are women as lesser than men. If anything it’s the opposite. Trans women aren’t transitioning to mock women.

We know intentionally calling that person he is going to be unpleasant for them, so I don’t understand why you would insist on doing it.

I don't think you understand sexism.

It's not saying outright that "women are lesser than men".

But in reducing half of humanity to a way of thinking, or dressing, or feeling, it's nevertheless saying exactly that.

Or do you actually believe we are all so similar, so lacking in diversity between us, that there actually is such as thing as "thinking like a woman" or "feeling like a woman"?

Do you not think it's a tiny wee bit arrogant that men can look at us from the outside and believe they know better than us what it is to be us? Is that not just exactly the same old sexism that a hundred years ago (and sadly even more recently) lead men to proclaim with utter confidence that women's minds just weren't up to the same level as men's in some areas, or that women just naturally preferred home and children and leaving the money and power to the men?

A man calling himself a "woman" because he thinks so little of us in our own right that he thinks he can wear our lives as a costume, as a way of expressing his personality, is unpleasant for me.

I don't understand why you would insist on my accomodating that he do it.

Why is a man's need to reduce womanhood into something he can appropriate to label his own feeelings more important to you than women's right to be recognised in our own right, recognised as so much more than he sees in us?

Of course male people deciding that they experience life as a female person is sexist. It is those male people telling female people what being female is about. It is them redefining the words that are unique to female people to include male people based on male people’s perception of what it means to be female.

That is pretty much the epitome of sexism.

There is a significant difference in someone using the wrong words as per that language’s conventions versus someone who rejects using someone’s demanded language which not only is not following established conventions for the language but also is demanding to have their subjective belief treated as if it is material reality when it isn’t.

”We know intentionally calling that person he is going to be unpleasant for them”.

When did individuals start believing that they should expect language to be tailored to their personal demands and subjective reality?

But males with a trans identity claim to “feeel like a woman” The criteria they use are a list of sexist, offensive, outdated stereotypes. You’ve had a go at people for “seeing transpeople as a monolith”, but this is exactly what males with a trans identity do to women. So yes. Males with a trans identity are sexist.

That's a good question!

The surgeries are not reversible, so that's that. The hormones, however, as far as I know, can be stopped without harmful effects, though that would require some significant mental health support to deal with the possible induced dysphoria as the body settles fully back into its sex characteristics (I'm thinking of the possible return of periods in transmen, for example.)

An interesting consideration would be the significant reduction in NHS expenses from paying for all those procedures. Not sure all the surgeons and laboratories making money off treating trans people would be happy either.

And of course there would need to be measures taken to deal with the inevitable black market of surgeries and hormone providers, and that could quickly become thorny - which is not a reason in itself not to deal with that problem, the sooner the better, since too many people are already self-medicating anyway.

I would argue someone is not mentally ill when they have received treatment and are functioning normally again. I have OCD and there was a time where I lost hours everyday to compulsions. I had therapy and I’m better now. Would you say I’m mentally ill?

If you don't need therapy anymore to function normally, then no, you're not ill anymore. By contrast, I still need my meds to keep my depression under control and function normally, so I'm still mentally ill.

Gender dysphoria is the mental illness and that is what causes the distress.

Yes, and treating it with surgeries and hormones is the current accepted treatment but very likely not the best one, far from it. We should be looking for something FAR less invasive, but TRAs won't let such research happen.

Many posters here would say they had gender dysphoria but aren’t trans.

Heh? I'm not sure I would agree with that. Some posters have shared that they went through a gender dysphoric episode as teens, but they typically no longer feel it anymore.

It’s possible for gender dysphoria to reduce or go away with transition, so I don’t know if I’d say ‘being trans’ on its own is a mental illness.

Most, if not all, trans people still feel some degree of gender dysphoria after transition, simply because they are not the opposite sex and never will be. Whether it's dysphoria induced by the still "deficient" body, or the memories in the "wrong" sex, or the impossible fertility in the "right" sex, or the sexuality/romance problems induced by being trans, or the occasional clocking, or whatever else, there remains plenty of sources of dysphoria, and it's a very lucky trans person indeed who never experiences dysphoria again after transition. And since you agree that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, then trans people are mentally ill by definition.

I could look at the gender-critical trolls who send death threats, dox people, and hurl abuse online

I've personally never seen a GC person act that way, but I admit I don't go looking in the seedier part of the internet.

However, one only needs to browse the perfectly normal internet to see plenty of TRAs acting that way. In fact, one doesn't even need to be on the internet at all, but only to happen to be walking down the street during a TRA march to see placards calling on people to "Punch a TERF" or declaring that "The only good TERF is a dead TERF". And just a couple days ago, we had a troll here on MN who repeatedly tried to dox the FWS women. We don't need to go looking for these things: they come to us.

When did individuals start believing that they should expect language to be tailored to their personal demands and subjective reality?

You know what? Now. Right now! I demand that you all on MN stop this "she"/"they" business when talking about me, and only use "he". I shall from now on correct anyone who misgenders me 👿!

... Damn, I'm exhausted just thinking about it. And miserable at the very prospect of having to check every mention of me for which pronouns are used, and then having to work myself into enough of a froth to mention it. Boo.

Nevermind, ladies! I've changed my mind 😅

From an article which I read this morning.

newly released Finnish data, covering every under-23-year-old individual who’d been referred for gender treatment in Finland between 1996 and 2019—a cohort containing almost 2,100 people. Following gender-clinic referrals, the study found, clinically trans-affirmed patients exhibited greater psychiatric morbidity than members of a control group.

At last we are getting the truth.

The answer to your title question @SolveMyPrombles is "if they didn't have a mental health issue before transition, then they are more likely to have one afterwards."

The data from this was shocking and yet seems to have gone unacknowledged by the UK Govt. In and of itself it should be enough to stop the PB trial completely. The stats showed that natal males were 6x more likely - and females 4x more likely - to develop significant psychiatric illness post medical intervention.

Can you explain how the needs or requirements of a middle aged man with an ex wife, kids and a highly paid job in any way correspond with a teenage girl with a history of trauma and autism?

I thought the PB trial was unethical before, it's absolutely unconscionable now. Given that research, the children who are enrolled in the study could surely sue if they are among the cohort who become psychiatrically damaged adults?

You are right to highlight this immense emotional pressure. I cannot imagine the constant stress when someone has been led to believe that they are entitled to expect society to change language conventions specifically for them, and then discovering that others don’t comply. And that not complying isn’t an act of ‘hate’ or even disrespect as some people have come to believe.

This is my thought too - I wrote to my MP about it at the weekend as I just cannot see how there is any ethical justification [in terms of research ethics ctee processes, not just ‘morally’] to proceeding. It’s the equivalent of starting a thalidomide trial today.

Many posters here would say they had gender dysphoria but aren’t trans.

I think you are confusing rejecting gender stereotyping with having gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria only applies when you believe that your body doesn't match your gender. My body is fine, I just like many of the behaviours, clothes and attitudes that would typically be seen as male.

You can only have gender dysphoria if you are trans or mentally ill.

“We know intentionally calling that person he is going to be unpleasant for them, so I don’t understand why you would insist on doing it.”

Why do you believe a person’s demand to be treated as the sex they are materially not over rides another’s’ to speak with accuracy?

It is not a harmless act when you consider the consequences for female people either to use female language for male people. Individually or for female people collectively, and directly or indirectly. Just to start, how many times have we seen that male activists have used other people’s language changes to support significant policy or law changes. The ‘everyone uses female language for me so therefore they see me as a woman, it is cruel to exclude me from women’s [insert provision here]’ support has been very successful.

You are gaslighting and DARVOing here, @DumbfoundedAndUnhappy . It is the transactivists that continually dox (one was only banned on here last week for posting addresses of the FWS women) and give us women rape threats and death threats. Women don't go around doxxing or giving rape threats and death threats to males. So please don't lie, and get back to me when women do the similar like this, to males;

You know you’re most likely going to upset that person by calling them ‘he’. You shouldn’t be forced to but you can always just use their name to avoid the issue.

Well no, not really - they generally won’t even be there so how can it upset them? We almost always use pronouns to refer to a person not present. Most people including me see it as rude not to use someone’s name when they are present.

Unless it’s not just my language they wish to dictate, it’s also my thoughts, and they require me to pretend that I think they’ve really changed sex when I know they haven’t? That to me is the epitome of delusion and a strong indicator of a mental health issue. As with any other delusional episode it needs proper treatment.

It upsets me greatly to have my thoughts and language mandated in this way so why does their upset take precedence over mine?

What about how unpleasant it is for women, girls and rape and DV survivors to be expected to mis-sex a male to make him feel better? Why is it always only one way? Why does the expectation of women to mis-sex men not being pleasant, not matter to you?

It is not pleasant, or respectful or trauma-informed to gaslight women to deny their lived experience as the oppressed sex class to allow their oppressors to claim our oppression in order to cosplay unwillingly with men.

Would it be 'pleasant' to demand African Americans call Rachel Dolezal, a snow white anglo saxon white woman who wears an afro wig and tans her skin with bronzer as a black woman?

Well, would it? Should African Americans be gaslit to call Rachel Dolezal, a black woman? Have the courage and honesty to answer the question.

The oppressor does not have the right to gaslight and manipulate the oppressed to adopt the oppressor as one of theirs. Among people who aren't anti-women misogynists, it is not considered pleasant for the oppressor to make demands of the oppressed to include the oppressor.