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?

Being trans isn't a mental illness

You don't know that.

trans people are profoundly happy after coming out.

Which is why some outright commit suicide after coming out, and even after transitioning.

Yes, people with MH issues function - but to do it consistently, they need help.

You mean, like taking hormones for life, and undergoing un-reversible surgeries?

You're really not helping your case...

trans people are profoundly happy after coming out.

Except the latest Danish research says you are completely wrong about that and mental health issues are 4 and 6 times more common after transition, depending on sex. You seem to have missed some posts from earlier this morning.

Felt a bit tearful reading this and thank you for sharing it with us.

It’s why I have always wanted my child to have full access to neutral, comprehensive and compassionate therapy. I know there is still a chance that she will choose at some point to explore cross-sex hormones - precisely for the voice and beard. She is needle phobic etc and even a tonsillectomy proved harrowing so SRS is very unlikely to be on the cards, but I and her dad have always said that if in years to come, once she is fully neurologically developed, has had the gamut of available therapies (currently doing 20weeks of DBT as it’s the gold standard for EuPD/DPD apparently and she instigated it), then we would be there for her if she chose to pursue transitioning.

We are hoping that her knowing that we would never abandon her or let her go through that alone is enough for her to know that its an option if she wants it, but that she MUST explore everything else. If the exploration of everything else, of addressing the OCD/ARFIDs/EuPD/all the other letters, still leaves her suicidally ideating and self-harming and hormonally transitioning is the last resort, we’ll be there for her. I am hoping she will not need to and will gradually address all the other issues, finish her degree, find some grounded friends, hopefully gain a sensible, loving partner along the way, that she can present as masc or maybe even embrace her female body to some extent and find some measure of contentment in her life without going down this route.

I want the access to all the therapies for her. I want her to have a chance at being happy and healthy and intact. The current care model does not offer this. It’s not transphobia to want this for her and other young, troubled, autistic and vulnerable people. It’s what a truly caring and compassionate model should offer as the first and second line of approach. Medicalisation and surgical interventions must surely be the last resort?

Anyone who has transitioned and isn’t overwhelmingly happy and just living their life without any help in the form of pills or therapy must not have been truly trans, according to TPA? Or is their unhappiness and need for help all everyone else’s fault? If only we’d beee kiiiiind?

That weird obsession as you put it is the simply a result of trans people forcing their sexist ideas about what type of mind is right for a "woman" or a "man" onto other people who do not wish to be defined that way.

I am female. I find the belief that a male person's personality makes them intrinsically, objectively, definitionally more like me than other male people, so much so that is is more appropriate to use female language for him than male, deeply misogynist and reductive of women.

I have no idea why a man's belief that he is somehow "the same on the inside" as me, a person who in reality he knows nothing about at all, means I have to perceive his opposite sex body as not in fact the opposite sex, and accept it as a female body in single sex spaces or on the provision of single sex care.

Frankly I am aghast that some people believe society should treat his belief as more meaningful to what it is to he female than mine.

It's exactly the same weird obsession that leads to me as a Feminist to reject the sexism of incels, the manosphere and the rest of the alt right kit and kaboodle.

@AnonyMumAuDHD

You get all the hugs from me, if you want them! 💝I really hope your daughter finds something more gentle than transition that works for her!

I know there is still a chance that she will choose at some point to explore cross-sex hormones - precisely for the voice and beard. She is needle phobic etc

A needle-phobic transman is not a good idea. First because even though there are ways to administer testosterone without a (huge) needle, from what I've heard, they can be quite annoying or have serious side-effects. And second and most importantly because once you're on T, you need to have a blood test very regularly!

Good luck to her and you!

@Seethlaw I haven’t dared mention that there would be lots of needles involved in even hormonal pathways in case she feels I am being obstructive!

And thanks for the hugs - always welcomed - and for sharing your experience and perspective here. It does make me feel a little less monstrous in the way I’ve dug my heels in over the years to safeguard my child.

Heh, maybe she'll find out about the needles herself 😉

You know, the weird thing is that I don't want to be arguing against transitioning! That's such a crazy position to find myself in, really. But the TRA insanity leaves me no choice. Adults can do whatever they want, but the children need to be left alone!

And no, you're really not any kind of monster for wanting to preserve your child's physical and mental well-being as much as possible, quite the contrary 💜

“trans people are profoundly happy after coming out.”

Please stop spreading harmful misinformation by way of this type of blanket generalisation that is misleading and false.

Or maybe they’re unhappy when people choose to treat them badly. Choosing to transition was me accepting myself btw.

I’ve never demanded anyone refer to me a certain way. They just get it right anyway so there is no problem.

I think there is great danger in male people who have had surgery and hormones making declarations about how little health consequences they have as if that is then applicable to the female affirming treatment outcomes.

Considering mastectomies alone can be significant trauma that leaves limitations, pain and future health issues is just the start. Then there are the very negative consequences of testosterone on the female body. Phalloplasty have very poor results.

We too often see male people come onto MN FWR threads and make dismissive minimising statements about the health outcomes of treatment based on their own experiences. Having asked previously about it, the issue is then that those male people don’t want any negative outcomes discussed because they don’t want public discussion which might limit access to treatment.

Which is just another misogynistic and deeply sexist action.

And you passively allow that to happen while continuing to not tell female people who might need to know, what sex you were born.

Considering mastectomies alone can be significant trauma that leaves limitations, pain and future health issues is just the start

To be fair, from what I know, affirming mastectomies are quite different from cancer ones. Well-done affirming mastectomies don't leave limitations or pain, and there shouldn't be future health issues (very cautious about that, since we lack the longitudinal data.)

Agreed about testosterone, and especially phalloplasty, though.

Having asked previously about it, the issue is then that those male people don’t want any negative outcomes discussed because they don’t want public discussion which might limit access to treatment.

That's a classic, yes. And when you try to argue that people should make choices as informed as possible, it inevitably goes back to, "But what about the possible consequences to me, me, ME!?" Well, other people's lives are not about you!

Sorry. That was in reference to “I’ve never demanded anyone refer to me a certain way. They just get it right anyway so there is no problem.”

What do you expect from me? Whenever someone calls me ‘she’ I’m meant to say actually no I’m a man? Don’t be ridiculous.

There are at least two women who have fallen pregnant and delivers babies after transition mastectomies who have experienced trapped milk issues.

Perhaps the issue is the ‘well done’ bit?

What do I expect from you?

I expect any male person who finds themselves in a position where it is important that their sex be known to be honest about their sex category. And to understand that consent cannot be assumed without that information being clear.

But then, if someone doesn’t understand how safeguarding and consent works, maybe that very obvious point doesn’t ever cross their mind.

A bit like declaring, as a male, how little negative health issues they have from transition on a feminist forum without being clear that they are talking about male transition.

OW OW OW! D: D: D:

I'm pretty sure my surgeon mentioned that he would remove the milk glands, which is only logical since the ducts are removed.

But then he also ranted about having to correct horrible mastectomies performed on other transmen. And from all the pics of recent mastectomies I've seen on the net, it doesn't seem like the number of butchers out there has declined, quite the contrary...

What situations is it important for it to be known?

It’s funny the number of TIM who come on here telling is they totally pass abd no one can ever tell they were trans. Wasn’t there one a few weeks ago who apparently even fooled his doctors and his children, who believed he was their mum or some such nonsense.

Reddit isn't real life, and anyone can pretend to be who they want on there.

Most trans people live under the radar.

Happiness is rooted in being loved, accepted - and not persecuted for who you are. Self-acceptance is key. It's other people that are the problem. Parents in particular.

So if it’s only self acceptance that’s important, other people refusing to affirm you should not be a problem should it?

Parents definitely can be a problem, I agree.

It’s impossible for any of us to completely know how we are seen by others. But you can get a pretty good idea by how you are treated day-to-day.

Why do you find that funny? It’s reality for a good number of trans people

That's nothing. I had one assure me that his gynaecologist assured him that she wouldn't have noticed he wasn't female if he hadn't told her. I kid you not.