Being Transgender is a Mental Disorder

I agree very much that the connotation of 'mental disorder' is hugely negative. The mentality that being trans is bad (because gender dysphoria is a mental disorder and mental disorders are bad) influences these ideas that they would be collaborating with a mental disorder. I think removing HRT as an option is equatable to saying "You have chronic depression, but I'm not going to treat you for it, so have fun dealing with it on your own" (of course they are not directly comparable, but I think it is somewhat similar).

I also think that you could say: maybe there is a scientific reason that people experience gender dysphoria and we just haven't found it yet. Does that mean we shouldn't treat people for it and help them to achieve happiness? No. There are plenty of medical conditions without known causes, does that mean we don't try to treat them? No.

(I don't think that all doctors think this (and I'm not saying that you think that either), I just wanted to make that clear)

 

It used to be classified as a personality disorder - that was when "Gender Dysphoria" as a medical diagnosis was still called "Gender Identity Disorder". Modern psychology/medicine does not classify it as such. Some doctors just haven't cottoned on yet.

I disagree with you that changing your sex is impossible. This is fully arguable. If you transition, you will no longer be unambiguously male - you will be biologically intersex. So your sex will have changed. For the moment it's impossible to change one's sex all the way for example from male to female, but you can go a good way, in fact you can go far enough so that you're 'more female than male' biologically speaking.

I would also like to mention, that keep in mind that you're from Texas - which is not exactly famous for being a very open or progressive part of the world. I'm from Sweden, and in the time I've been in contact with the medical/psychiatric authorities here, I have not ever even heard mention of such views - the only time I've heard of it is reading about it online, for example here on EC.

 

I agree with this

 

"Mental disorders" are modern medical quackery, for the most part. The inner workings of the mind are not fully understood by scientists, or even at an abstract linguistic level by philosophers. So if we don't know what it's "supposed to do" at the best of times, how do we know when it's broken?! One guess would be that mental health is collectively defined by society. Each person has their own unique point of view, and we can only presume that each POV comes with personal assessments on "what's normal?" and "how do I rate in comparison with what I think is normal?" The diverse views all come together to create things like laws and trends, peer pressure, markets for drugs and medical procedures, lynch mobs, etc.

The DSM V and other medical bibles are simply a reflection of the society that they are written for. So if they say something is a mental disorder, sure, it may be society's best effort in drawing a line between normal and abnormal, but it's still just popular doctrine.

For what it's worth, wider society is correct. They control the definitions and if they say something is a mental disorder, no individual person can change the course of that tank/barge on their own.

 

For myself, I think of it as a medical condition, rather than a mental disorder. Mental disorder implies something wrong with the brain that needs to be fixed. I think of it as a physical condition that I have, a kinda funky wiring of my brain, but my brain isn't what needs to be fixed; my body is.

There are preliminary studies that have been done that support the hypothesis that dysphoria is caused by having a map of your body in your brain that is different than your actual body (you know how you know you have two arms without having to look down and count your arms? Your brain knows what body parts you have without looking, and in trans people it seems like our brains map us as having different sex characteristics than we actually have, which causes discomfort), so scientific support might not be that far away.

I think that if you are comfortable seeing your transness as a mental disorder, you shouldn't feel the need to change even if others disagree. There are plenty of other people who view transness in similar ways. As long as you're not running around telling people they're not actually trans, there's nothing wrong with that viewpoint. Personally, I find it is very logical and makes a lot of sense to me.

 

Who keeps saying that? I don't believe that's the current consensus in the medical/scientific community but I suppose it depends on where you live as well.

 

People who say it is a mental disorder make me feel like I am crazy. Transgender people are not I'll.
I've said it in another post and I'll say it in this one.

Transgender is to the mind what intersex is to the body.

 

Ditto on that I prefer people in general to talk about it in a more... shall we say nice way?

 

I don't think any modern psychiatry board would consider GD a mental disorder.

"Dysphoria" means roughly "anxiety, distress". It means that your gender identity causes distress and anxiety, and the cause of that is, in oversimplification, the way your body is viewed (or your body in general). You could say, it is "gender anxiety"

However, this is an anxiety over your gender, not a distortion of your gender. You feel dysphoric, because your gender (the one in your brain) is not happy with the gender of your physical form.

GD can be a sourse of mental conditions, such as depression and whatnot - just as any prolonged stress.

As far as I know, there are some mental conditions that can make someone feel like they were transgender, schizophrenia being the one I keep hear mentioned. However, that's a different condition, that might emulate similar feelings but is not an actual gender dysphoria.

 

Just a general note. Some people here seem to think that a mental disorder is the same thing as being crazy. This is not true and it is highly stigmatizing to people suffering from various mental disorders.

Psychiatric disorder is a condition that is listed in a particular list of conditions affecting the normal functioning of the brain which causes pain, anxiety or distress to the patient and no clear cause or mechanism can be attributed to the birth of the condition. It is true that various sorts of conditions that we call "craziness" are also called psychiatric conditions but most psychiatric disorders have nothing to do with craziness.

The two most authoritative lists currently are ICD-10 and DSM-IV. Both list conditions such as depression, anxiety and various sexual paraphilias as mental disorders. Gender dysphoria is also listed in both sources.

 

So, I was caught in incorrect use of the terms... however, DSM-5, quoted above, does support my intention from the previous post.

That is, being transgender is NOT a disorder according to the manual. The distress that MAY accompany being trans is. So here, gender dysphoria is understood as a condition stemming from being transgender, but the identity itself is free of such label. That makes sense.

The topic states that being transgender is a mental disorder, and as for the up to date list of disorders, that is not correct. Being transgender may be accompanied by a disorder, which is distress/anxiety/discomfort (the meaning of the word dysphoria), however gender itentity (being transgender) is not a disorder.


Bottom line - this is an amateur interpretation, however I think my logic here is sound and supported by sources. Can't paste the whole text of the DSM chapter on GD, I believe it's copyrighted. So, I just put that short definition.

 

Mental disorders are just the rules of society anyway. I see it this way: You may have certain chromosomes but you can still habe the brain of the other gender. And I stick to neurodiversity.

 

Well, this is a little besides my point which was not to confuse mental disorder to being "crazy". Becoming trans is a one course of treatment to gender dysphoria and as such it cannot be mental disorder no more than antibiotics is a disease.

If a person feels they have been born to the wrong sex but do not feel anxiety or depression because of this feeling even if they are unable to change their physical or legal sex then this person is not suffering from a psychiatric disorder. A mere feeling that one's physical sex does not match one's gender is not a psychiatric disorder. Changing one's sex is not one either but it is virtually always done to resolve the associated dysphoria which is a psychiatric disorder.

 

I second what others said in that they view it as a birth/medical condition, and not a mental one. Implying it is, is to suggest trans people are mentally ill or disturbed because they're trans--and that it's something that can be cured or treated. It's the same thing people decades ago said about being gay, and things have changes, and this is true for Gender Dysphoria (or Gender Identity Disorder as it was called not too long ago until the DSM-V changed).

 

People who bring up "chromosomes" aren't typically very well educated, and I would be sad and a little scared if doctors were doing it. There's a difference between genotype and phenotype. Chromosomes are instructions or blueprints. If they're bringing up "chromosomes" that's at least a little bit better than them bringing up the X and Y chromosomes. I absolutely would not trust any doctor that brings up the X or Y chromosomes as defining physical sex with my health or the health of anyone I loved and cared about that depended on me, that is some 8th grade biology stuff. The Y chromosome's only real role is being the likely receptor site for the SRY gene, which gives one testicles or ovaries. The hormones those produce determine how people sexually differentiate, including the organ that becomes a penis or a vagina. And chromosomes neither X nor Y set up how your body actually accepts those chromosomes. Androgen insensitivity, for instance, is not caused by the X or Y chromosomes.

 

Strangely even though they will hang you in Iran for same sex activity.. The fact is they have fully accepted Transgender people as healthy normal human beings... It is a sad day in America when a Mid East Bunghole like that is more liberal then us on something!

 

I wouldn't really say that they have accepted transgendered people either. The logic why the state is offering free gender reassignment surgeries has very little to do with tolerance and more to do with notion of masculinity. The government is pressurizing gay and effeminate men changing their sex even if they are not having doubts about their gender.

 

I watched a documentary about this. It was basically a blog of a few trans women and the doctor they see. I actually thought the lines seemed to be very blurred between whether they were trans women or they were gay men transitioning so they could legally be with other men. The doctor, though, actually didn't seem to be homophobic at all and he joked about how he tells surgery horror stories to gay people who come to him and want to transition. But the trans women all said that they hated gay people. Either way, they seemed incredibly unhappy, so I am sceptical about how accepting Iran really is of transgender people.
Also, I think the doco is on YouTube if anyone wanted to watch it