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The mental health experts do not consider gender dysphoria a mental illness. In fact, the reason the diagnosis is used is to help get insurance coverage for it.
"A psychological state is considered a mental disorder only if it causes significant distress or disability. Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing or disabling, which implies that identifying as transgender does not constitute a mental disorder. For these individuals, the significant problem is finding affordable resources, such as counseling, hormone therapy, medical procedures and the social support necessary to freely express their gender identity and minimize discrimination. Many other obstacles may lead to distress, including a lack of acceptance within society, direct or indirect experiences with discrimination, or assault. These experiences may lead many transgender people to suffer with anxiety, depression or related disorders at higher rates than nontransgender persons."
Therefore, the fact that a transgender person sees a psychiatrist for depression or anxiety does not mean that gender dysphoria itself is a mental illness.
Source for your comments? "Most" will regret it? "Many" will have complications? No pleasure from sex?
The "stretching" can come from regular sexual activity or accomplished by wearing an internal device while sleeping.
Has geekigurl given you any indication of an intent to do that?
Really?
Any psychiatrist can do psychotherapy and most do so, some more than others. To see one for help with dealing with society's response to being transgendered is completely legitimate and does not mean that gender dysphoria is a mental illness. You are expressing an opinion based on a very faulty understanding of what psychiatrists do.
Poppycock. Plenty of people see psychiatrists for counselling who have no "mental illness".
This very post is condescending. You think your opinion that gender dysphoria is a mental illness outweighs that of psychiatrists who do not define it as one.
What is clear is that addressing being transgender during childhood and adolescence in the context of a supportive family does have better outcomes.
Attitudes like some expressed in this thread are the biggest part of the problem that results in anxiety, depression, and risk of suicide for transgender folks.
You have my empathy. I am sorry life has been so difficult for you.
You said you've been seeing a psychiatrist for five years. If you don't believe you are mentally ill, and your psychiatrist does not believe you are mentally ill, and you show no symptoms of mental illness, why have you been seeing a psychiatrist for five years? Or does your psychiatrist -- but not you -- believe you are mentally ill, which is why you've been a patient for five years?
No doctor is going to treat an asymptomatic patient, so I'm not sure why you'd need services for five years. And if this psychiatrist isn't helping you, maybe you should get another opinion?
You don't need to answer the questions. They are very personal. Just something to think about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by reneeh63
Soooooo....let's say you are a member of a group that is broadly discriminated against and harassed and otherwise treated badly by a good portion of society. It may be because you are a woman, or person of color, or have a physical disability, or are transgendered.
You are okay with who you ARE...you are NOT okay with handling how you are treated by others and how to handle these people and your feelings about how you are treated by these people. So you see a therapist, psychiatrist to understand how to better deal with how others act toward you.
And your condescension is very clear - you're not getting away with that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by newtovenice
If you are truly OK with who you are, what other people say/think doesn't matter.
And I'd like you to comb my posts for where I said it is OK to treat people with disrespect. I'll wait. Really, I will wait. Take your time. I have never EVER SAID THAT. Ever. Never. So go find it, and I'll wait.
Condescension? Hardly. Please define. Truth? Absolutely. People don't like the truth, and most people get madder after hearing the truth than after hearing a lie.
So you're saying there is no difference between treating someone for self-esteem issues versus treating someone for "delusions"? Seems like more black and white thinking - either you're perfectly healthy mentally or ....you are crazy and deserve no consideration? I don't know.
Another piece of this is that in order to be approved for surgery it may be required that they undergo psychiatric evaluation through the transition to confirm they are doing well before taking the next step.
Obviously condescension is in the eye of the beholder - if you feel good about yourself then what others say about you doesn't matter.
I've no skin in the game but that link doesn't support your assertion that the majority, let alone the vast majority, do live successful and productive lives. You've pointed out some very successful people - 50 - that's great. Transgender people certainly suffer more mental health problem incidence than the general population. However, whether this is innate or a consequence of societal discrimination against them - or a mixture of both - isn't clear. And a lot of them are marginalized and find it very hard to live successful and productive lives.
Given the hatred exhibited towards many of them - its clear they need all the help they can get in moderating and changing societal attitudes towards them. They aren't mass murdering anyone for a start....
I've only run across a few transgendered people and they all seemed fine to me.
But you're right -- I have never heard of them doing anything harmful. I wonder how many "normal" people are suicidal, depressed, addicted to drugs or alcohol, violent toward their spouses or children, murderous, chronically unemployed, terrorists (domestic or foreign), psychotic, etc.?
I do know a boy who had all* surgeries & now is female. It is surreal b/c she still acts & talks like a gay boy not a lady. And there are other transexuals that may not have had final surgery that still speak like a gay boy. I have only heard one on TV years ago that truly sounded like a woman. She was never a gay boy but obviously a woman in a man's body. I wish there was a law they cannot do surgery until around 35. I know that seems extreme to some but that is when a male starts to grow a little. It can be a very regretful experience. And many lose sexual feeling in body parts.
What's to talk about? Many of these folks who waiver back and forth have mental issues.
If someone REALLY feels they're not the sex they were born into, they do the deed, and are done...they are now another sex.....some of these folks need therapy...not surgery.
Either they're chimeras, or they're crazy. It is medical and moral malpractice to engage in "sex reassignment" treatment without proof of chimerism.
How about you provide your definition in the context you used it?
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