Yo. So on this one episode of Criminal Minds, the unsub had dissociative identity disorder. His name was "Adam," but his alter was called "Amanda." In the episode, Amanda took full control of Adam and "locked him away." I'm not considering the possibility of that, but this: in Adam being locked away, and Amanda becoming the dominant conscience to the point of being the only conscience, would it be proper to consider her as trans? This kinda perplexed me...
Technically, no, they woudn't be trans. People with dissociative identity disorder usually are aware of the other identities while they are in control. So Amanda wouldn't feel like she was in the wrong body. She would just know that she is taking over for now. Unless her personality was in fact already trans to begin with. Also, and this is very controversial, but in order for you to go through either surgery or HRT you need to be evaluated by a psychologist. You must be mentally sane to be able to be classified as "truly" trans, and I would doubt that someone with dissociative identity disorder would be in that category. But all of that is from what I can remember about the topic and dissociative identity disorder is an intricate mental state so I could totally be wrong xD
[criminal minds fanboy] I remember this episode! Yeah, one of the murders was in a hotel. The whole episode was themed around spring break in... some beachy place, so there were college kids running all over a resort. And Adam/Amanda worked there, IIRC. I wouldn't say that they're trans though, seeing as Amanda is very aware that Adam still exists, just isn't allowed to surface in terms of the person's thoughts/actions. If I'm understanding correctly (someone correct me if I'm wrong), a trans person would be and identify as Adam, but would not feel "right" as Adam, would feel more feminine, and assume the name Amanda when they assume the female gender. For all intents and purposes though, they'd be the same person: same personality, same habits, just finally getting to identify how they actually feel on the inside. For this case with DID, they're two separate identities with very different personalities (as you know from the episode). [/criminal minds fanboy]
What made it interesting to me is that at the end of the episode, we see Amanda manifested in typical feminine clothing. I understand what you guys are saying about it though, in that ze would not be considered trans because of the awareness of the alters. Ugh, it's so confusing and interesting! Hahah.
