iHuman Posted January 24, 2015 Posted January 24, 2015 The following article discusses trans-racial people and trans-species individuals. Its primary thesis is that if trans-racialist and otherkin are delusional when they use the exact same justifications as transgender individuals, then transgender individuals have a major problem convincing people that they're legitimately transgender. http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/01/16/not-white-in-the-head-the-tumblr-teens-convinced-they-were-born-the-wrong-species-sex-and-even-race/ Its secondary thesis is that transgender young people who voluntarily reject society and spend most of their time browsing pro-transgender blogs will be much more likely to identify as transgender than transgender young people who don't voluntarily reject society and therefore spend more time socializing off-line. That is why they have the test I mentioned above, it filters out the fakes very effectively, the only exceptions are few and rare.
MMX2010 Posted January 24, 2015 Posted January 24, 2015 That is why they have the test I mentioned above, it filters out the fakes very effectively, the only exceptions are few and rare. I support the use of these tests, but I haven't heard of anyone "failing" the transgender test. Nor do I see disclaimers in pro-transgender lectures and videos that, "You're not truly transgender until you've taken this test." or that, "Without a medical test confirming that you're transgender, it's premature to get angry at anyone who refuses to accept your request for pronoun changes." So, to my perspective, it doesn't look like the transgender test is functioning identically to other medical tests.
iHuman Posted January 24, 2015 Posted January 24, 2015 I support the use of these tests, but I haven't heard of anyone "failing" the transgender test. Nor do I see disclaimers in pro-transgender lectures and videos that, "You're not truly transgender until you've taken this test." or that, "Without a medical test confirming that you're transgender, it's premature to get angry at anyone who refuses to accept your request for pronoun changes." So, to my perspective, it doesn't look like the transgender test is functioning identically to other medical tests. Oh It is working, their just isn't any statistics kept (to my knowledge anyway) on how many test negative/positive. those lectures you mention personally I haven't seen, but what would be the point in the lecturer bringing it up? if the test is negative you don't have Gender Disphoria, if it is positive you do (it is not something you WANT to have) also VERY few ever ask if their are tests for it, most are to busy trying to find ways to claim it is a mental illness/sin/perversion etc or defending against such accusations.
J. D. Stembal Posted January 25, 2015 Posted January 25, 2015 For Gender Dy-phoria to be a real and measurable phenomena, there would have to be hormonal, electrical or chemical indicators in the body and brain. Is this correct? I am very curious about what the test measures to give the positive or negative result. The reason I am wondering is because all mental illnesses in the professional diagnostic handbooks do not have measurable biochemical phenomena associated with them. It's only a behavioral checklist for a psychiatrist to fill out, which means that these disorders are a matter of subjective opinion when they are diagnosed. If there is diagnostic test for the condition of Gender Dysphoria, that means that it is more real than any mental disorder described by psychiatrists. Thank you for responding to my last post, iHuman. I'm still not convinced that the society at large plays the responsible role in not protecting and supporting people with alternative gender identities. If anything, diversity is celebrated above all else. I still think that lack of emotional support from parents plays a critical role and how the child handles pressure, stress, and challenges as a teenager and adult.
iHuman Posted January 26, 2015 Posted January 26, 2015 For Gender Dy-phoria to be a real and measurable phenomena, there would have to be hormonal, electrical or chemical indicators in the body and brain. Is this correct? yes I am very curious about what the test measures to give the positive or negative result. Complicated to answer, but i guess the most basic I could break it down to is that they look for Biochemical & Bioelectrical indications that the symptoms (which I have listed several times in past posts) have lessened or been eliminated. If there is diagnostic test for the condition of Gender Dysphoria, that means that it is more real than any mental disorder described by psychiatrists. That is why it has only recently been removed from the "Mental Illness" Lists (but not everywhere) the area of the medical industry that covers this is "Endocrinology" it is an area of medicine that has long been treated by the medical industry (mostly on the say of psychologists) as a load of nonsense (in a "Flat Earth" manner), its only recently that it has begun to be taken seriously. I'm still not convinced that the society at large plays the responsible role in not protecting and supporting people with alternative gender identities. I'm not here to "Convince" i'm here to list facts that people might not have otherwise looked up. again, the only thing "Society at Large" as you put it is responsible for is perpetuating & popularizing old baseless falsehoods (IE: the Earth is Flat/The Center of the Universe) that can be/are used by certain (for lack of a better description) "brain damaged" Individuals a false sense of justification for mistreatment/evil deeds against someone for not fitting into their own ideal of "Normal". If anything, diversity is celebrated above all else. Not sure I would go that far in saying that, their are still a great many out there that think otherwise to varying degrees.
MysterionMuffles Posted March 20, 2015 Author Posted March 20, 2015 Looks like the activity has died out on this thread, thank you for all your contributions. I think it's time that I take a read at this!
Alice Amell Posted March 20, 2015 Posted March 20, 2015 For Gender Dy-phoria to be a real and measurable phenomena, there would have to be hormonal, electrical or chemical indicators in the body and brain. Is this correct? I am very curious about what the test measures to give the positive or negative result. The reason I am wondering is because all mental illnesses in the professional diagnostic handbooks do not have measurable biochemical phenomena associated with them. It's only a behavioral checklist for a psychiatrist to fill out, which means that these disorders are a matter of subjective opinion when they are diagnosed. If there is diagnostic test for the condition of Gender Dysphoria, that means that it is more real than any mental disorder described by psychiatrists. Thank you for responding to my last post, iHuman. I'm still not convinced that the society at large plays the responsible role in not protecting and supporting people with alternative gender identities. If anything, diversity is celebrated above all else. I still think that lack of emotional support from parents plays a critical role and how the child handles pressure, stress, and challenges as a teenager and adult. I don't know if there is any test that can show gender dysphoria exists. For me, I was never given a test. I was never told I had a disorder. There is controversy about even labeling gender dysphoria as a disorder and I'm currently studying abnormal psychology - in my textbook the author specifically mentions that it will not be covered because labeling it as a disorder is stigmatizing (as if there is something "wrong" with those who have). Previously (and maybe in some places still), therapists have to write a letter of recommendation for hormone therapy. However, I never had to do that. I went to an informed consent clinic where they told me the risks of hormone therapy and I agreed, and then I was prescribed hormones. I actually don't know if it's provable, whatever I feel, but it's how I feel nonetheless and I have chosen to act on it and get hormones. I'm not sure if that addresses your question, but that's what my experience was.
labmath2 Posted March 23, 2015 Posted March 23, 2015 I dont think gender is just sex plus lies. I think it is sex plus some observations we gave made about the average person of that sex. Sure everyone is different, but there are enough similarities that we can establish norms. Take for example, if you are male, i can reasonably assume you like females, despite the fact that some males do not. Does the fact that there are men who do not like women render all of gender identity false? No, because being a man does not automatically mean you like women, it just makes life easier if i assume you do until you tell me otherwise. I meant like women sexually.
DaVinci Posted March 26, 2015 Posted March 26, 2015 For Gender Dy-phoria to be a real and measurable phenomena, there would have to be hormonal, electrical or chemical indicators in the body and brain. Is this correct? I am very curious about what the test measures to give the positive or negative result. The reason I am wondering is because all mental illnesses in the professional diagnostic handbooks do not have measurable biochemical phenomena associated with them. It's only a behavioral checklist for a psychiatrist to fill out, which means that these disorders are a matter of subjective opinion when they are diagnosed. If there is diagnostic test for the condition of Gender Dysphoria, that means that it is more real than any mental disorder described by psychiatrists. Thank you for responding to my last post, iHuman. I'm still not convinced that the society at large plays the responsible role in not protecting and supporting people with alternative gender identities. If anything, diversity is celebrated above all else. I still think that lack of emotional support from parents plays a critical role and how the child handles pressure, stress, and challenges as a teenager and adult. So what makes you think it has to do with childhood and emotional support? I've heard people say there is a link between a lack of emotional support in childhood and gender dysphoria before, but it also reminds me how Stef thought that same thing about gay people. That it was rooted in childhood. So that makes me wonder if Stef's orignal argument had merit, but he backed off of the issue, (which I don't think is the case), or if people are apporaching gender dysphoria in the same way people used to approach being gay. That process that goes from "It's unnatural/a sin" to "It's a disease" to "It's a choice" to "Okay, it is real, and based in fact proven by science". Seems like with gender dysphoria we should just cut straight through all that other stuff and just go straight to science.
MMX2010 Posted March 27, 2015 Posted March 27, 2015 Seems like with gender dysphoria we should just cut straight through all that other stuff and just go straight to science. If we were to do this, the simplest practical outcome would be, "If you don't have a doctor's note supporting the existence of your transgender condition, then I'm not going to honor your request to change my pronouns to please you." In my opinion, the vast majority of transgender individuals wouldn't accept this outcome, choosing instead to deem me "transphobic" for mentioning it.
iHuman Posted March 28, 2015 Posted March 28, 2015 I don't know if there is any test that can show gender dysphoria exists. For me, I was never given a test. I was never told I had a disorder. There is controversy about even labeling gender dysphoria as a disorder and I'm currently studying abnormal psychology - in my textbook the author specifically mentions that it will not be covered because labeling it as a disorder is stigmatizing (as if there is something "wrong" with those who have). Previously (and maybe in some places still), therapists have to write a letter of recommendation for hormone therapy. However, I never had to do that. I went to an informed consent clinic where they told me the risks of hormone therapy and I agreed, and then I was prescribed hormones. I actually don't know if it's provable, whatever I feel, but it's how I feel nonetheless and I have chosen to act on it and get hormones. I'm not sure if that addresses your question, but that's what my experience was. That I did not know about, to my knowledge to get HRT approval a diagnosis was required, this must be something new along the lines of some doctors just prescribing people whatever they want (I have encountered a couple prescription drug addicts who used that method). I will need to look into this more for myself later. Personally I was diagnosed twice, and educated about it by the doctor once which was also when I was told I & shown that I was born intersexed (look up "Persistent Müllerian duct syndrome" for a variant) HRT was reccomended but I turned it down both times due to several personal reasons. I dont think gender is just sex plus lies. I think it is sex plus some observations we gave made about the average person of that sex. Sure everyone is different, but there are enough similarities that we can establish norms. Take for example, if you are male, i can reasonably assume you like females, despite the fact that some males do not. Does the fact that there are men who do not like women render all of gender identity false? No, because being a man does not automatically mean you like women, it just makes life easier if i assume you do until you tell me otherwise. I meant like women sexually. Sex Plus Lies? No, Definitely not, but who is to say their isn't (or isnt supposed to be) more than just 2 Genders? Medical Science itself has said many times that we are not even scratching the surface with understanding the human body, so who knows for sure. So what makes you think it has to do with childhood and emotional support? I've heard people say there is a link between a lack of emotional support in childhood and gender dysphoria before, but it also reminds me how Stef thought that same thing about gay people. That it was rooted in childhood. So that makes me wonder if Stef's orignal argument had merit, but he backed off of the issue, (which I don't think is the case), or if people are apporaching gender dysphoria in the same way people used to approach being gay. That process that goes from "It's unnatural/a sin" to "It's a disease" to "It's a choice" to "Okay, it is real, and based in fact proven by science". Seems like with gender dysphoria we should just cut straight through all that other stuff and just go straight to science. um, no, not when gender disphoria is biochemically & neurologically identifiable. where you are going would be along similar lines to Gender Disphoria being purely a Mental Disorder, as was believed to be the case before more actual scientific research had been done proving that to be false.
J. D. Stembal Posted April 2, 2015 Posted April 2, 2015 So what makes you think it has to do with childhood and emotional support? I've heard people say there is a link between a lack of emotional support in childhood and gender dysphoria before, but it also reminds me how Stef thought that same thing about gay people. That it was rooted in childhood. So that makes me wonder if Stef's orignal argument had merit, but he backed off of the issue, (which I don't think is the case), or if people are apporaching gender dysphoria in the same way people used to approach being gay. That process that goes from "It's unnatural/a sin" to "It's a disease" to "It's a choice" to "Okay, it is real, and based in fact proven by science". Seems like with gender dysphoria we should just cut straight through all that other stuff and just go straight to science. If the way you are raised can affect your cognitive development, it stands to reason that it is probable that upbringing can affect hormonal development. The following has no specific relevance to gender identity, but I have at times been confused about my sexuality, and very promiscuous. I have a hunch that being genitally mutilated against my will as a week-old infant plays a significant role in it. Also, when I was two months old, I was abandoned by my parents so they could continue pursuing their careers. I don't have many memories of my father prior to age five or six. He went to night school for his MBA in the intervening years after my birth. My mother told me recently that she used to keep me up past 11PM so that my father could see me before I went to bed. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I've never pursued a full-time job where I was asked to work before Noon. That's really eerie. The circadian rhythm is regulated by hormones, namely cortisol and melatonin, so I was hormonally imprinted by my parents to have an irregular sleep schedule. I've mostly got a handle on it now, but sometimes I still struggle to fall asleep even if I'm extremely tired. Weight lifting, D3 supplements, and tanning have been helping, but it's as if my body is still waiting for my father to return home thirty years later. I am curious about the bio-markers that indicate gender dysphoria because if we can identify them, then we can determine what factors contribute to the condition. I hypothesize that gender dysphoria stems from a disruption in the brain's hormonal development at a very early age or in the womb. There is also a psychosocial element reinforcing gender confusion, where feminist-dominated propaganda actively shames men for their sexuality and gender identity. The male species is constantly groomed to be something other than what it wants to be. You're too nice. You're too mean. You're too strong. You're too weak. You're too passive. You're too aggressive. Women are also propagandized from an early age, such as in the theory that women are silent victims of rape culture, when in fact, they have always been in charge of sexuality. Women are the sexual gate-keepers, and men are the swarm of flies that congregate around the piles of feces, hoping to score a piece of coprophilia.
iHuman Posted April 4, 2015 Posted April 4, 2015 I am curious about the bio-markers that indicate gender dysphoria because if we can identify them, then we can determine what factors contribute to the condition. I hypothesize that gender dysphoria stems from a disruption in the brain's hormonal development at a very early age or in the womb. There is also a psychosocial element reinforcing gender confusion, where feminist-dominated propaganda actively shames men for their sexuality and gender identity. The male species is constantly groomed to be something other than what it wants to be. Bio-Markers as in what? Their is a good deal of theorizing that one contributing factor is in many cases is during a particular phase of the development of the fetus where the fetus is given a large dose of the correct hormonal balance for their gender, instead getting a near overdose with the exact opposite hormone balance. that said it is a "theory" even among the so-called "experts", actual scientific studies on that have not been done, as for "why" there is a plethora of "reasons" given which cover everything from "Stigmatisms" (both Religious and non-Religious) to the Medical Industry (at least in the USA anyway) currently having a disinterest in almost everything outside pharmaceutical research. I don't think the "feminist-dominated propaganda" is a contributing factor as Gender Disphoria actually Predates it by quite a great deal.
J. D. Stembal Posted April 4, 2015 Posted April 4, 2015 Bio-Markers as in what? I have no idea, but if gender dysphoria is real phenomenon it must be measurable. What causes it? If child development is a factor, as I am theorizing, then feminism has definitely affected gender dysphoria to some degree because feminism affects the family, usually to the detriment to the father and the children. I'm not sure how we would measure this correlation because we have no evidence that dysphoria actually exists empirically and we don't know what causes it.
iHuman Posted April 5, 2015 Posted April 5, 2015 I have no idea, but if gender dysphoria is real phenomenon it must be measurable. What causes it? If child development is a factor, as I am theorizing, then feminism has definitely affected gender dysphoria to some degree because feminism affects the family, usually to the detriment to the father and the children. I'm not sure how we would measure this correlation because we have no evidence that dysphoria actually exists empirically and we don't know what causes it. If you mean the "Root Cause" of Gender Disphoria, no real research has been done into finding it (see my comments above). as for it being measurable, it is, yet no system of measure has to my knowledge been developed for it or applied to it, yet it has been proven it can be identified via Biochemical and Neurological tests. it is not a social issue (except in the way some perceive it) and it predates feminism by quite a bit (has had mentions in a great many ancient historical finds dating back over a thousand years ago).
MysterionMuffles Posted April 30, 2015 Author Posted April 30, 2015 http://www.bustle.com/articles/76762-11-ways-to-be-a-trans-ally-according-to-transgender-people-themselves?utm_source=FBTraffic&utm_medium=fijifrost&utm_campaign=CMfacebook&ts_pid=2 An article on how to be a trans ally.
utopian Posted April 30, 2015 Posted April 30, 2015 Gah, how did I miss this thread? Can someone summarize a TLDR version of some of the more important points reached in this thread? I will read it all if I must, but someone could save me a lot of time.
iHuman Posted May 2, 2015 Posted May 2, 2015 I Can "Try" to create a TDLR version, but it will take a fair amount of time.
iHuman Posted May 6, 2015 Posted May 6, 2015 sorry, haven't had much free time to get started on the TLDR version, hope to be able to tomorrow.
_LiveFree_ Posted May 11, 2015 Posted May 11, 2015 The World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender-Nonconforming People http://admin.associationsonline.com/uploaded_files/140/files/Standards%20of%20Care,%20V7%20Full%20Book.pdf
Frosty Posted May 11, 2015 Posted May 11, 2015 I'm coming back to this thread after doing some research and some more thinking, I've also read the thread up to date. One thing that I still can't get my head around is this idea of feeling like you're in the wrong body (that is to say you feel like a female but you have a male body, or vice versa), how is this something you can have a strong conviction about when it's impossible to experience what it's like to be both male and female. As a man I can only speculate what it might feel like to be a woman, I cannot with a strong conviction assert what it is like. Obviously a lot of this comes from behavioural traits, which is where the horrible world of gender comes in, I really dislike these ideas because I don't find they helpful. Masculine traits are just traits which we observe most males exhibit which most females do not, feminine traits are ones which most females exhibit and most males do not, most importantly these things are just observed aggregate behaviours across society, with genetic diversity and mutations we observe plenty behaviour which crosses this gender divide, some women are tomboys for example and are generally pretty happy about behaving like a boy/man while acknowledging they're biologically a female and that these 2 things can coexist without issue (to the extent that they're not shamed or bullied by others for their behaviour). This is where my problem with gender is, I think it's fine labelling common behaviours as masculine or feminine when we observe those things to be the case, we do this with language all the time because it's a helpful short cut for describing, the problem is when people use it prescriptively such as parents encouraging or discouraging behaviour based on some mythical gender, that's just wrong and borderline violation of the NAP in my opinion. This post was particularly enlightening to be honest - http://lindsayleighbentley.com/2014/06/30/i-am-ryland-the-story-of-a-male-identifying-little-girl-who-didnt-transition/ So gender isn't a complete picture, the desire to act in a certain way alone isn't enough to suggest being the wrong sex, you have to have some motivation or feeling of unease, this has to be an active belief that something is wrong which leads to a desire to fix the problem. I've read up a bit about xenomelia AKA foreign limb syndrome, I've heard of these kind of mental illnesses before, there's a really interesting chap called Vilayanur Ramachandran who does work in this field and does public talks and lectures on many of the fascinating mental disorders that exist, in the case of xenomelia it's a type of body identity disorder where patients feel like their limbs do not belong to them. I've been reading some of the opinions of Milo Yiannopoulos and I think I agree with him that this kind of transexualism where you feel a desire to alter your body with operations and hormones should be considered a more of a mental disorder, similar to how people who want to chop off their arms due to xenomelia are. It turns out that John Hopkins University that pioneered the sex change operation has stopped doing them now, the suicide rates of people who have transitioned shoot up dramatically to something like 20x that of healthy people, especially much later after transitioning, studies followed post ops over 10+ years, the transition simply doesn't address the underlying psychological issues. This makes sense to me because coming back to this idea of males who act feminine and females who act masculine, plenty of males and females do this happily and just go about their lives without ever feeling an urge or need to change. This underlying persistent nagging feeling that something is wrong seems like the root of the problem when it comes to unhappiness in trans people, and it's psychological in nature. There is good evidence that the brains of trans people look more closely like that of the opposite sex and it seems likely that this is directly linked to different behaviour, biological realities change behaviour for example the preference of females to be more interested in people and males more in systems turns out to be closely related to testosterone, even in new borns with no social influence baby girls will prefer to stare at faces and will do for longer, males are the opposite and tend to prefer to stare at objects and systems for longer. This gets reflected in preferences in later life, women who were measured to have more testosterone exposure as a foetus are more likely to go into STEM fields. But again I don't think that's enough alone to make someone be unhappy, plenty of women who have obviously more male orientated brains are happy with their life and don't feel any need to change their body. I'd be interested to see a study that does a wide range of brain scans across some trans and non-trans and compares them to see if it's only trans people who are observed to have similarities to the brain of the opposite sex, or if there's an occurrence of that in the general population who do not consider them self trans. My gut tells me that there'd probably be some not-insignificant portion of the population like this. I'd also be interested to know if there's any trans people who feel like they're in the wrong body or whatever variation of that makes sense to you, but express gender traits of your natural sex. For example are you a man who feels like you are really a woman but maintains fairly masculine traits? After all, some non-trans women display masculine traits. I'm interested to what degree these 2 issues are separated because the more I think about it the more it seems likely that a feeling of unease and unhappiness that something is wrong could be a more general mental issue and biological realities like a brain which is a bit more like the opposite sex are simply catalysts for how that feeling of unease manifests, could the people with xenomelia have a very similar problem but it just manifests with their limbs instead of gender? Some things to ponder.
MMX2010 Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 I'm coming back to this thread after doing some research and some more thinking, I've also read the thread up to date. One thing that I still can't get my head around is this idea of feeling like you're in the wrong body (that is to say you feel like a female but you have a male body, or vice versa), how is this something you can have a strong conviction about when it's impossible to experience what it's like to be both male and female. As a man I can only speculate what it might feel like to be a woman, I cannot with a strong conviction assert what it is like. Obviously a lot of this comes from behavioural traits, which is where the horrible world of gender comes in, I really dislike these ideas because I don't find they helpful. Masculine traits are just traits which we observe most males exhibit which most females do not, feminine traits are ones which most females exhibit and most males do not, most importantly these things are just observed aggregate behaviours across society, with genetic diversity and mutations we observe plenty behaviour which crosses this gender divide, some women are tomboys for example and are generally pretty happy about behaving like a boy/man while acknowledging they're biologically a female and that these 2 things can coexist without issue (to the extent that they're not shamed or bullied by others for their behaviour). This is where my problem with gender is, I think it's fine labelling common behaviours as masculine or feminine when we observe those things to be the case, we do this with language all the time because it's a helpful short cut for describing, the problem is when people use it prescriptively such as parents encouraging or discouraging behaviour based on some mythical gender, that's just wrong and borderline violation of the NAP in my opinion. This post was particularly enlightening to be honest - http://lindsayleighbentley.com/2014/06/30/i-am-ryland-the-story-of-a-male-identifying-little-girl-who-didnt-transition/ So gender isn't a complete picture, the desire to act in a certain way alone isn't enough to suggest being the wrong sex, you have to have some motivation or feeling of unease, this has to be an active belief that something is wrong which leads to a desire to fix the problem. Your argument is very coherent and echoes what I said earlier: that either the majority or a significant minority of people who have imagined being the opposite sex are not transgender. ---- Lindsay Leigh Bentley's article is fantastic. Thanks for posting it. ---- TheLastPsychiatrist sarcastically suggests where the motivation / feeling of unease comes from. http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/01/couple_reveals_childs_gender_f.html
Frosty Posted May 13, 2015 Posted May 13, 2015 Thanks, oh and the Lindsay Leigh Bentley article was something someone posted prior in the thread, I was just re-posting it for reference, I think her attitude is much more healthy, you can express traits from the opposite gender but you don't need to label it anything and you certainly don't need to use a label to narrow down your choices of lifestyle, this desire to have everyone else see you as the other gender and actively acknowledge it and accept it seems to be something a more troubled mind seeks, a lot of the transgender people who try to transition also often have a wealth of other mental issues which partly adds to their suicide rate.
iHuman Posted May 14, 2015 Posted May 14, 2015 First I would like to apologize in advance if my response is not up to par, I have been having some severe allergy problems lately that are leaving me quite badly run down. (also why I have not been able to compile the TLDR post.) One thing that I still can't get my head around is this idea of feeling like you're in the wrong body (that is to say you feel like a female but you have a male body, or vice versa) As I have posted before that is a poorly worded vague description that is often used, I can assure you that there is "MUCH" more to it than that, the actual depth of it sadly falls outside of many people's language ability to convey. as I wrote in an earlier post Link for Reference iHuman: It isn't a matter of "I just knew I was meant to be X" as you said, it's a matter of "Everything about myself feels wrong, and I Naturally Behave & Think Like X and don't know why." the "I just knew I was meant to be X" part you mention is only ever said by those who have found out what is wrong and lack the popper language skills or drive to explain it in a way that others will understand. even if you do have the ability and drive to explain it well, the vast majority tend to avoid using their grey matter will ignore what you say in favor of sticking with the "popular" misconceptions and societal/religious views/bs regardless of how wrong they might be. FYI what I said there myself isn't even close to descriptive enough, I can post a more in depth description later if you want, but i hope that will convey the gist a little more accurately, one thing to note though is that this "feeling" as many coin it, gets stronger with time, the only known effective treatment is to change the hormonal balance more towards what is "normal" for the opposite gender (HRT), Transition is only actually needed in cases where HRT alone cannot lessen the Dysphoria enough. (Some push the full HRT+Transition+SRS as the only solution incorrectly as those are major $$$ Generators for the doctors) Lindsay Leigh Bentley is a poor example to use for non-transitioning, she does not have Gender Dysphoria as indicated by her own article, as I mentioned above, untreated, It gets worse with age, not the opposite, she is a Tomboy, not Transgendered. xenomelia is a completely different un-related issue so I wont say more to that. It turns out that John Hopkins University that pioneered the sex change operation has stopped doing them now, the suicide rates of people who have transitioned shoot up dramatically to something like 20x that of healthy people, especially much later after transitioning, studies followed post ops over 10+ years, the transition simply doesn't address the underlying psychological issues. This makes sense to me because coming back to this idea of males who act feminine and females who act masculine, plenty of males and females do this happily and just go about their lives without ever feeling an urge or need to change. This underlying persistent nagging feeling that something is wrong seems like the root of the problem when it comes to unhappiness in trans people, and it's psychological in nature. ok, this part is run together in such a manner as to "seemingly" push a "It's a Mental Illness" view, it is not. Johns Hopkins ceasing SRS is no big surprise as JHU have been VERY reluctant to view Gender Disphoria as anything other than a Mental Illness In-Spite of the evidence showing it is not. I'm not sure wich suicide study you are referancing, can you post at least a link to it? The Post SRS Suicide rates I know of are from Multiple causes, some from SRS being pushed as a "Requirement" when for that person it was not, some from Post Op issues either from poorly done (disastrous) SRS, Some from Endless Harassment etc from other people if they don't "Pass" Perfectly an others from actual Mental Issues that can commonly develop (depression etc) as a result of the severity & Duration of the Gender Dysphoria they have/had. There is good evidence that the brains of trans people look more closely like that of the opposite sex and it seems likely that this is directly linked to different behaviour, biological realities change behaviour for example the preference of females to be more interested in people and males more in systems turns out to be closely related to testosterone, even in new borns with no social influence baby girls will prefer to stare at faces and will do for longer, males are the opposite and tend to prefer to stare at objects and systems for longer. This gets reflected in preferences in later life, women who were measured to have more testosterone exposure as a foetus are more likely to go into STEM fields. But again I don't think that's enough alone to make someone be unhappy, plenty of women who have obviously more male orientated brains are happy with their life and don't feel any need to change their body.I'd be interested to see a study that does a wide range of brain scans across some trans and non-trans and compares them to see if it's only trans people who are observed to have similarities to the brain of the opposite sex, or if there's an occurrence of that in the general population who do not consider them self trans. My gut tells me that there'd probably be some not-insignificant portion of the population like this.I'd also be interested to know if there's any trans people who feel like they're in the wrong body or whatever variation of that makes sense to you, but express gender traits of your natural sex. For example are you a man who feels like you are really a woman but maintains fairly masculine traits? After all, some non-trans women display masculine traits. You have some things right others not quite, but you are getting there and you are doing research which counts for a lot. as far as studies on brain development go their are several, here is one: http://www.transgendercare.com/medical/hormonal/brain_sex_diff.htm the difference between those who eventually go on HRT (and the ones who progress to other stages) and those who don't such as with mrs Bently is the "Gender Dysphoria" itself, if you have Gender Dysphoria you are either Transgendered or like myself were born physically both (Intersexed) and were Surgically "Assigned" as one or the other incorrectly. Gender Dysphoria itself can vary in strength from one individual to the next, and in every case gets stronger as you age, their are notable cases where it has lessened when the individual's hormone production drops off late in life, but that is not always the case. I'm interested to what degree these 2 issues are separated because the more I think about it the more it seems likely that a feeling of unease and unhappiness that something is wrong could be a more general mental issue and biological realities like a brain which is a bit more like the opposite sex are simply catalysts for how that feeling of unease manifests, could the people with xenomelia have a very similar problem but it just manifests with their limbs instead of gender? xenomelia is a completely different and un-related issue, Gender Dysphoria is in addition to being Neurologically identifiable, but is also Biochemically identifiable, xenomelia to my knowledge is not. For Example (this is a proven biochemical test), take an average person "without" Gender Dysphoria (sometimes Termed CIS) who's hormone levels are low, increase those levels and they become calmer and more energetic. Do the same to someone with Gender Dysphoria and the Gender Dysphoria worsens Dramatically, but if you alter their hormone balance to that of the opposite physical gender and the Gender Dysphoria lessens or goes away, when it goes away they become calmer and more energetic. Alter the Hormone balance of a CIS person to the opposite and they will experience Gender Dysphoria (not something I would wish on anyone) and will have anxiety problems and lethargic to a degree. this is why I often liken it to being "Allergic" to your own hormonal balance, it might not be the exact same thing but the reaction is "very" similar, in essence your own hormonal balance is effectively toxic to you. I hope this helps, and I have written it well enough, if you have more questions just ask, meantime i will be working on the TLDR version of this topic for Utopian as much as I can. please note, i'm not posting in this topic to "change people's minds" i'm just here to provide facts from my own research on what is often a very unclear subject, that just happens to also affect me.
J. D. Stembal Posted May 15, 2015 Posted May 15, 2015 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/ Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.
Frosty Posted May 16, 2015 Posted May 16, 2015 As I have posted before that is a poorly worded vague description that is often used, I can assure you that there is "MUCH" more to it than that, the actual depth of it sadly falls outside of many people's language ability to convey. as I wrote in an earlier post Link for Reference I'm aware of this problem, it's actually partly why I'm more inclined to liken it to a combination of both a biological issue and a mental one. My mother suffers extreme anxiety which is getting worse with time, it actually seems to run in our family although I have no idea if that's genetic or purely behavioral, both me and my brother have/had a lot of anxiety although we function in society really well. She's gotten so bad that she's got this constant sense of foreboding that there's something wrong with the world and that she just can't explain to anyone, she thinks the banks will collapse and there will be rioting in the street, so she stocks up on food and whatnot. I see accounts from people with phantom limb syndrome or other BID issues and what they describe again is of a similar nature, they can't describe accurately describe it but they have a overwhelming powerful feeling that nags them that their arm doesn't belong to them, and it really cripples their ability to be happy because it just constantly bothers them. I see these as mental issues (just my opinion) because there's no clear source of these feelings, the fact that you can't describe it accurately seems to suggest that it may be in the same kind of sense of unease that other mental issues have but manifest in different ways. One way I look at it is, if you could hypotehtically give someone a drug which alters their brain state and just creates a feeling of foreboding or unease/unrest then that might manifest in different ways in different people due to preexisting biases or issues, for example it might result in a sort of "the sky is falling" kind of way like it does with my mother, and with another person it might be that a part of their body isn't right somehow, be that their limbs are wrong or their sex is wrong, etc. I guess I'm just not convinced that it's biology alone, while trans people show different brain scans showing a clear biological difference we've been quick to jump to the conclusion that all people with this difference are trans people who are to some degree are unhappy, we need a really big control group of scans of people who don't consider themself trans to see if these brain differences exist in the population, again my gut tells me that if you took a tomboy girl and did the same kind of scan you'd likely see brain structure more like a man than a woman, we already know about things like testosterone in women causing male like behaviour but it not being directly linked to any kind of unease or unhappieness. What I'm trying to say is that it could be entirely possible there's people with brain differences and hormonal imbalances out there who display traits of the opposite gender but who do not have gender dysphoria and so we'd have good reason to decouple the feeling of the need to change with the biological differences and say that it's a combination of both the physical differences together with mental. This is why I find the case of tomboys and other women who clearly are different from other women because they have a very strong tendency to work with systems and do STEM subjects and things like that, I meet them from time to time and it's not just those things that are different they very clearly have a male brain in some sense and they know they do they normally admit this, the case of Lindsay was a good example, i'd be very interested to see a brain scan there and see if it's similar to what we see with trans people. Again this is mostly just my speculation, it's not something I believe with any strong conviction, I'm not really trying to argue a case or change anyones minds It's just kind of the logical next step that I'd take if I say had funding to investigate the issue further. It seems inconceivable to me that nurture alone that creates very strong personality and gender differences in some people who also do not have gender dysphoria and in some cases we do have evidence for things like testosterone exposure are the cause. But these things aren't coupled with gender identity issues, it's possible for a woman to behave very strongly like a man because of biological issues yet be perfectly happy and we need to explain that. I need to find a better source for that, it was brought up in a Norwegian documentary called Hjernevask (means brainwash) which you can find online with English subs and I would highly recommend to anyone interested in gender issues. It tackled many of the gender studies and theories coming out of the Nordic gender institute which turned out to be a huge amount of unscientific nonsense driven by ideology. To contend a lot of the modern bad idea they reference a lot of science studies one of them is with Simon Baron-Cohen which is to with testosterone exposure during foetal development casing difference in brain structure and leading to some of what we consider more masculine traits, it happens in both males and females.
iHuman Posted May 21, 2015 Posted May 21, 2015 ok, maybe the 3rd time will be the charm, I keep having computer problems that wipe my post before I am done writing it. Please do not take this in a negative way (it is meant to be constructive). you seem to be linking things where the probability of them being linked is very small if not non-existent. (or it could simply be how you worded it) your mothers Anxiety issues for example, you seem to be confusing a concern over a legitimate and likely future probability and preparation for its occurrence (the same as buying Insurance) with an inability to explain it to your/others satisfaction as a Anxiety/Mental issue, and then cross linking it with phantom limb syndrome.....? I see these as mental issues (just my opinion) because there's no clear source of these feelings, the fact that you can't describe it accurately seems to suggest that it may be in the same kind of sense of unease that other mental issues have but manifest in different ways. You are attributing inability to describe something accurately to Mental Illness? why not the Degradation of education? their is literally mountains of proof that the quality of Education (at least in the USA & Europe) has degraded significantly. here is a small example of the amount the US education system has gone down hill. http://therundownlive.com/8th-grade-test-from-1912-shows-how-far-american-education-has-been-dumbed-down-take-the-test/ One way I look at it is, if you could hypotehtically give someone a drug which alters their brain state and just creates a feeling of foreboding or unease/unrest then that might manifest in different ways in different people due to preexisting biases or issues, for example it might result in a sort of "the sky is falling" kind of way like it does with my mother, and with another person it might be that a part of their body isn't right somehow, be that their limbs are wrong or their sex is wrong, etc. ok, a few corrections, Hormones are not a Drug, nor do they alter your brain state, Foreboding does not directly enter into the equation with Gender Dysphoria symptoms, it is more of a Extreme Discomfort & or Extreme Stress with no apparent cause etc. I guess I'm just not convinced that it's biology alone, while trans people show different brain scans showing a clear biological difference we've been quick to jump to the conclusion that all people with this difference are trans people who are to some degree are unhappy, we need a really big control group of scans of people who don't consider themself trans to see if these brain differences exist in the population, again my gut tells me that if you took a tomboy girl and did the same kind of scan you'd likely see brain structure more like a man than a woman, we already know about things like testosterone in women causing male like behaviour but it not being directly linked to any kind of unease or unhappieness. unhappiness is only a symptom of the "symptoms" of Gender Dysphoria (are you Happy when you don't feel well?), the Control group test you mention has been done, the only ones they found to have the same kind of brain development were Intersexed Individuals (those born Physically both male & female), Tomboy's etc did not have the same kind of brain development. This is why I find the case of tomboys and other women who clearly are different from other women because they have a very strong tendency to work with systems and do STEM subjects and things like that, I meet them from time to time and it's not just those things that are different they very clearly have a male brain in some sense and they know they do they normally admit this, the case of Lindsay was a good example, i'd be very interested to see a brain scan there and see if it's similar to what we see with trans people. See Above. Again this is mostly just my speculation, it's not something I believe with any strong conviction, I'm not really trying to argue a case or change anyones minds It's just kind of the logical next step that I'd take if I say had funding to investigate the issue further. It seems inconceivable to me that nurture alone that creates very strong personality and gender differences in some people who also do not have gender dysphoria and in some cases we do have evidence for things like testosterone exposure are the cause. But these things aren't coupled with gender identity issues, it's possible for a woman to behave very strongly like a man because of biological issues yet be perfectly happy and we need to explain that. Tomboy behavior is more of a personality and preferential trait, it may appear to be similar to Gender Dysphoria, but is not. not a lot of major research has been done into the root cause of Gender Dysphoria for a multitude of excuses, some social, some political, and some financial. I need to find a better source for that, it was brought up in a Norwegian documentary called Hjernevask (means brainwash) which you can find online with English subs and I would highly recommend to anyone interested in gender issues. It tackled many of the gender studies and theories coming out of the Nordic gender institute which turned out to be a huge amount of unscientific nonsense driven by ideology. To contend a lot of the modern bad idea they reference a lot of science studies one of them is with Simon Baron-Cohen which is to with testosterone exposure during foetal development casing difference in brain structure and leading to some of what we consider more masculine traits, it happens in both males and females. Never seen that documentary, but then again I do not speak/understand Norwegian. On Hormonal exposure during fetal development, this I am familiar with and is quite well known and in some cases has been proven to be a likely root cause, although most of those cases are in relation to chemical pollution & later discovered side effects of now banned medications, it is also theorized that a mother that experiences high levels of stress during the same stages of fetal development can can have the same effect. one documentary (in english) I have personally watched that covers a reasonable amount of actual science rather than focusing on purely emotional or sensationalized content like many others, is the 2009 National Geographic Sires "Explorer" Episode "Sex, Lies and Gender" more has been discovered since then but it does provide a good foundation of facts to work from.
Frosty Posted May 21, 2015 Posted May 21, 2015 you seem to be linking things where the probability of them being linked is very small if not non-existent. (or it could simply be how you worded it) your mothers Anxiety issues for example, you seem to be confusing a concern over a legitimate and likely future probability and preparation for its occurrence (the same as buying Insurance) with an inability to explain it to your/others satisfaction as a Anxiety/Mental issue, and then cross linking it with phantom limb syndrome.....? Well I'm not linking them, I'm exploring different ideas and possibilities, as I've said before I've not made up my mind on this whole thing, part of getting to a solid understanding of what is going on is investigating and rejecting some bad ideas. My mothers anxiety isn't about anything specific, it's just a constant feeling of impending doom with no real driving motivator, it causes her to go looking for end of the world scenarios and she ends up on David Ikes site and god knows where else, clearly this is a mental issue and again she fails to be able to describe the feeling in a coherent concise way. Not being able to describe the source is suggestive to me that it's the sign of a mental issue, if for example she'd been bitten by a dog before and a dog is snarling at her and she is scared then we can trace that emotion to a specific source, but to be perpetually worried about something vague and non-descript doesn't have a clear cause, especially given not much obvious has changed in her life. I don't think it's a case of education, I think if you have a foreboding feeling or a compulsion to do something and there's no obvious cause then that is going to be hard to describe or articulate to someone because there's no way other people can relate to that feeling. I'm not so much cross-linking these things, I'm just open to the possibility that a more general mental problem that causes a person to be bothered or upset/unhappy with the current state of affairs for no obvious reason could manifest in different people for different reasons. They seem to share this common element that the mental issue cannot be satiated by actually making changes, my mother is no more happy hording food and many people that transition simply still aren't happy in accepting their new body and go on to have depression and in many cases kill themselves. Again what makes me think this is that we know for sure that some men are very feminine and some women and very masculine and also are perfectly happy to act and behave that way and have no other issues, they're not bothered by the fact that they have what many would describe as a female brain or a male brain, they just sorta get on with life and are happy. That seems very distinct from somoene who has these same feelings but is perpetually bothered that they're not "in the right body" or society doesn't perceive them how they feel. ok, a few corrections, Hormones are not a Drug, nor do they alter your brain state, Foreboding does not directly enter into the equation with Gender Dysphoria symptoms, it is more of a Extreme Discomfort & or Extreme Stress with no apparent cause etc. It was just a hypothetical, but hormones are very close to drugs, they're substances which alter how the body functions and we know scientifically alter the brain, especially their presence and amount during foetal development. What you're describing as extreme discomfort and/or stress is precisely the kind of thing that appears in my mother and mirrors how people with xenomelia feel, these people clearly suffer to the point they want reality to mirror their mental state by removing a limb, very similar to trans people wanting to modify their body to appear like the other sex. We now know after long term studies that this doesn't address the underlying mental problem for a large number of people who have transitioned, that feeling of discomfort and stress doesn't go away. Nor does it when my mother prepares of the end of the world with her food stash, it still nags at her day and night. unhappiness is only a symptom of the "symptoms" of Gender Dysphoria (are you Happy when you don't feel well?), the Control group test you mention has been done, the only ones they found to have the same kind of brain development were Intersexed Individuals (those born Physically both male & female), Tomboy's etc did not have the same kind of brain development. I'd be interested in seeing the studies so I can review the details, if you have any citations? I've not been able to find much on this and quite frankly given the rare occurrence of this we'd need an extensive study of many people to be fairly sure there's no occurrence of this outside of trans folk. The Norwegian documentary has English subs and can be found online, I highly recommend you watch it as there's some really good insights into a lot of gender issues which are extremely common misunderstandings and a lot of which are being peddled in so called educational institutions which fly in the face of modern science.
labmath2 Posted May 21, 2015 Posted May 21, 2015 From my understandong there are two main arguments in favor of transgenderism. 1) its physiological as well as psycological, 2) its benign. On the second point, what is benign has always been a matter of public opinion. Public nudity is still considered somehow damaging to children. On the first and more important point, almost all psychological problem has a physiological component (almost all that have been well researched). The question then is about which version of reality is more real, the one constructed by your brain or the one outside of it? Mental ilnesses like schizophrenia have given us some answer when it comes to this question. When the person's brain deviates from reality, treat the brain. The simple answer for transgenderism would be a treatment that reconfigures the persons brain. If we change reality outside the persons brain to more closely match what is in their brains, we will most likely do a terrible job of it. All transgenders will never truly experience what it is like to be the opposite gender. I am not familiar with the science of how effective gender reassignment suggery is in alleviating many of the discomfort resulting from their condition. The real concern is that by embracing gender reassignment as the only solution, we stop looking for better ones.
DaVinci Posted May 21, 2015 Posted May 21, 2015 It turns out that John Hopkins University that pioneered the sex change operation has stopped doing them now, the suicide rates of people who have transitioned shoot up dramatically to something like 20x that of healthy people, especially much later after transitioning, studies followed post ops over 10+ years, the transition simply doesn't address the underlying psychological issues. This makes sense to me because coming back to this idea of males who act feminine and females who act masculine, plenty of males and females do this happily and just go about their lives without ever feeling an urge or need to change. This underlying persistent nagging feeling that something is wrong seems like the root of the problem when it comes to unhappiness in trans people, and it's psychological in nature. I don't think this is just a psychological issue. I think a lot of people who transition do so thinking it will solve the problem of how they are perceived by society. So a man will go on hormone replacement or get surgery, but will still have the musculo-skeletal structure of a man. So the way they are perceived doesn't really change, and may in fact intensify as they now have to deal with both an increased level of rejection in society and the issues that come from hormones and surgery. I think this is why you see men who still present as female but don't go on hormones or transition.
Frosty Posted May 22, 2015 Posted May 22, 2015 I don't think this is just a psychological issue. I think a lot of people who transition do so thinking it will solve the problem of how they are perceived by society. So a man will go on hormone replacement or get surgery, but will still have the musculo-skeletal structure of a man. So the way they are perceived doesn't really change, and may in fact intensify as they now have to deal with both an increased level of rejection in society and the issues that come from hormones and surgery. I think this is why you see men who still present as female but don't go on hormones or transition. Oh and I absolutely do not think it's purely a psychological issue, the difference in brains of trans people through scans clearly shows there is some biological difference, and quite frankly I believe that all mental states are inherently backed by biology because I believe there's nothing magical about the brain, it's just a bunch of nerves and so all mental states are necessarily just some configuration of neurons. What I'm trying to say is that I think the mental issues can be separate from this, we shouldn't lump everyone into the same pot, some people feel like they have a brain very different from their sex and just go about their lives happily, there was a fantastic interview with a MtF trans on Gavin McInnes free speech show which i saw a few days ago (that guy has some very non-PC views on trans which got him into a lot of trouble, but it was a very level headed and respectful interview, which you can see on daily motion). There's a striking difference between this happy person who just saw their transgenderism as merely an annoyance and presented as female and that's more or less the end of the story, vs someone who is plagued by all this stress and discomfort of things not being "right". There's something very hard to fathom about this curious problem that some trans people are perpetually bothered and in this state of discomfort, having a brain that is biologically closer to that of the opposite sex doesn't seem enough to cause the discomfort, after all plenty of males have male brains and are perfectly fine. The question that keeps coming back to me is why can't you just go on with your life, outside of other unrelated problems you're a normal functioning person who can go get a job, earn a living and do whatever you desire and be happy. I see anyone in this level of discomfort they feel they need to go under the knife and mutilate parts of themselves as having a mental problem. The more I think about it the more I see these things as distinctly different issues, the occurrence of happy and productive trans people who don't suffer this seems to be evidence of this, I don't think it's merely a difference in being able to cope better. Here's the interview I was on about - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ke4nq_free-speech-justine-tunney_fun
DaVinci Posted May 26, 2015 Posted May 26, 2015 There's a striking difference between this happy person who just saw their transgenderism as merely an annoyance and presented as female and that's more or less the end of the story, vs someone who is plagued by all this stress and discomfort of things not being "right". There's something very hard to fathom about this curious problem that some trans people are perpetually bothered and in this state of discomfort, having a brain that is biologically closer to that of the opposite sex doesn't seem enough to cause the discomfort, after all plenty of males have male brains and are perfectly fine. The question that keeps coming back to me is why can't you just go on with your life, outside of other unrelated problems you're a normal functioning person who can go get a job, earn a living and do whatever you desire and be happy. I see anyone in this level of discomfort they feel they need to go under the knife and mutilate parts of themselves as having a mental problem. The more I think about it the more I see these things as distinctly different issues, the occurrence of happy and productive trans people who don't suffer this seems to be evidence of this, I don't think it's merely a difference in being able to cope better. To be fair there are plenty of men who aren't happy with how male they are and turn to steroids to bulk up. There are people who lose weight just to get bypass surgery so they can have a smaller stomach or whatever. So there are more than just the transgendered getting surgery and taking drugs to feel normal. In that sense "go get a job and be happy" sounds strange. I doubt most transgendered people are masochists for pain. They do want to be happy, but happiness will be in spite of the world around them. It might be a bad example, but what if strawberry ice cream was suddenly illegal, and you love it? Sure you could still get some "Black Market Brand: Strawberry Ice Cream" (sounds scandalous) and enjoy it in secret in your home, but what about everywhere else? What if you want to eat strawberry ice cream in your car, or at the park, or at work? Some people might be okay with the limitations. Others won't. Does that mean something is wrong with those who aren't okay?
labmath2 Posted May 26, 2015 Posted May 26, 2015 If you cannot survive without eating strawberry ice cream, you probably need to see a therapist.
Frosty Posted May 27, 2015 Posted May 27, 2015 To be fair there are plenty of men who aren't happy with how male they are and turn to steroids to bulk up. There are people who lose weight just to get bypass surgery so they can have a smaller stomach or whatever. So there are more than just the transgendered getting surgery and taking drugs to feel normal. In that sense "go get a job and be happy" sounds strange. I doubt most transgendered people are masochists for pain. They do want to be happy, but happiness will be in spite of the world around them. It might be a bad example, but what if strawberry ice cream was suddenly illegal, and you love it? Sure you could still get some "Black Market Brand: Strawberry Ice Cream" (sounds scandalous) and enjoy it in secret in your home, but what about everywhere else? What if you want to eat strawberry ice cream in your car, or at the park, or at work? Some people might be okay with the limitations. Others won't. Does that mean something is wrong with those who aren't okay? That's true but they don't kill themselves with suicide rates that are 20x higher than the normal population, we're talking about people who are profoundly unhappy. I don't think they're masochists for pain, that's the whole point, this seems unavoidable and it's why I lean towards the more traditional definition of mental illness, the unhappiness near as we can tell doesn't stem from being in the wrong body, certainly nothing that surgery can solve. Like Stefan has said before that solving a lot of issues comes down to first defining what we're talking about and being under the constant impression you're in the wrong body is a mental issue, once we've accepted that we can stop indulging this delusion and look at better alternatives to fixing the problem. HRT certainly seems like a better option for some people although we should probably be aiming to alleviate mental suffering rather than aid in transition. Presumably that would be a desirable end goal? Some kind of synthetic hormone you inject once in a while and it removes this mental conflict but doesn't have the body changing aspects of oestrogen to aid transition. I think ultimately people will be better off when this is seen as a medical issue rather than us wrapping peoples mental gender in a special bow and saying that because you feel this way then it must be this way so that's what we'll work toward. This is why I liked Justine Tunneys approach to this, she described it in a very practical and pragmatic way that it's a problem not unlike a medial issue like cancer and you deal with that the best you can, I get the impression if we did have drug we could offer her that would remove the disconnected feeling of body and mind with respect to sex, that'd probably be something she'd consider, just a guess.
iHuman Posted June 5, 2015 Posted June 5, 2015 how many times do I have to write this before someone will read it and have it stick....? The MAJORITY of the "Post Transition" Suicide rates are down to downright evil treatment by other people which are caused by baseless religious and socially driven stigmas. If for example you kept bringing up and pushing an issue that a person with depression gets severe depression over and constantly harass them about it then their likelihood of suicide will increase in the same way. Many Transgendered Individuals often have depression problems as a result of the Gender Dysphoria and or (or a combination of) needless highly negative interactions from other people. I apologize if i seem overly blunt, but when spending hours writing well referenced and detailed explanations that ultimately get completely ignored my patience tends wears somewhat thin.
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