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?

Well except they are. I've met wonderful transwomen who just live their lives as women with no drama.

You can't live your life as a woman unless you are, in fact a woman.

You can just pretend and other people can go along with the the pretense.

I just won't pretend or as I see it, be forced to lie.

The Transes went bananas when it was suggested that a diagnosis could be made with a brain scan, mainly because they didn't want the diagnosis to be 'transness not found on scan'.

Also, no you can't just 'Google it' these days, so instead of telling people this, simply post your references if you aren't making it up.

It's just another way of saying 'I have more in common with the opposite gender I was born as & therefore want to be treated as such' so that's hardly mental illness territory.

It’s so many different things imo there’s a world of difference between really wanting to be the opposite sex and adopting those stereotypes and believing that you actually are the opposite sex or that your body repulses you. Both are difficult paths but only one is delusional thinking. Other dysmorphias are considered to be mental illnesses.And in teenage girls there is social contagion idk if that’s a mental illness.

Being trans means that you experience your gender as different to your biological sex.

’The reality is that trans people are not what they believe they are - they are not the opposite sex and never can be.’

You’re conflating sex and gender. You’re right that biological sex cannot be changed but gender is a more ephemeral construct that is, as far as I understand it, not yet that well understood. It’s reductive to say that trans people aren’t what they believe they are, however, as it suggests that all trans people believe they can alter their biological sex. The reality that most will be aware this isn’t possible, yet still experience gender as distinct from this.

I’m interested in what @Zoonosis says, as I believe that our understanding of this will evolve significantly in coming decades and much current discourse will be looked upon as narrow and even discriminatory.

A male person with a female soul is an interesting symbolic way of thinking about it.

What is a female soul?

@UnintentionalArcher so if my soul is a billionaire… should I expect people to accept my imaginary wealth re providing services?

I don’t think it’s a MH issue. But I have trans friends and family members whose mental Health is significantly improved now they’ve transitioned. I’m just so pleased to see them living happier lives.

Any secondary school teacher can tell you what the trans kids they have taught have in common with each other, and it is absolutely not 'a differently sexed soul'.

Probably something that is so undescribable that it just is. and if someone says that they have it we must believe them.

So yay! They’re happier forcing their male bodies and self onto women? How wonderful

@UnintentionalArcher

I've never seen any evidence that there is such a thing as gender. Can you provide any?

I'm sorry r u trying to claim that your brain believing your foot is not actually there when it is... Is not a mental health problem?

@PurpleLovecats So your family members and friends are happier now that everyone agrees with whatever they say and presumably complies with their demands to be viewed as the wrong sex.

Strange that.

You’re assuming they’re all mtf trans.

So something is only 'real' if it has a physical presence? Like a mental illness?

You can't have it both ways given both are mental & not physical states.

Where did I say that? Read this thread and it is clear that none of my friends and family are accepted by all. However, yes they are happier.

This is all gobbled gook nonsense and you're either a troll, a bot, or a cultist. Looking forward to the charlatans who pushed this nonsense on the world being dragged in front of a court and having to defend this nonsense under oath.

My opinion is this. Being gay is not the same mentally as being trans. If you are gay you know you are a man or woman and you are attracted to the same sexas yourself. Being trans is not accepting who you are man or woman which can't change. But on the other hand Chas Bono (Cher's child - born female) seems to have transitioned to male and living a happy life as a man. It's a difficult one.

Just wanted to point out that happiness post-transition doesn't mean that being trans cannot be some kind of mental disorder. Anorexic people are happiest when losing weight - even when they are already dangerously underweight.

Anorexia is a potentially fatal disorder, you can’t compare it to transitioning, which in most cases improves people’s mental health.

She only felt differently because she didn’t feel that she fit in with society’s expectations of her. I felt exactly the same but if we didn’t have gender stereotyping it wouldn’t be a thing.