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Hormonal malfunctions can be treated with hormones (testosterone or estrogen, depending on the issue). Chromosomal disorders do not exist. There are two chromosomes. X & Y. Females have XX and men have XY. This is decided at birth.
Go back to high school or maybe junior high biology - because there are many chromosomal disorders related to gender:
I am aware that people undergoing sex change therapy will have to be questioned by a pyschologist. A Jennifer Diane Reitz (JDR), transgendered M->F, told people to lie to officials so the can get sex change ops easier- that "advice" is quite harmful
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a high suicide rate after gender reassignment surgery (though I find it interesting no one has posted a verified statistic, just done a lot of arm flapping). It's a HUGE change, and these people have felt like they were in the wrong body all their lives. Then they get the surgery and 1) maybe it's not matching up to their expectations because honestly the technology isn't THAT great and 2) it introduces a whole new set of uncertainty and problems or their problems not related to gender are still with them. So they make this big dramatic change and find that their life hasn't gotten that much easier. It's kind of like the very common phenomenon where people who lose an immense amount of weight find themselves incredibly depressed despite all the advantages of the weight loss - it does not miraculously make their problems go away. For someone who is already in a fragile state after years of confusion and pain, that's gonna be enough to tip them over the edge.
And yeah, there will be people showing up with regrets in Serbia because dollars to doughnuts, their standards aren't as strict there. Americans who can't afford a U.S. sex change will head there and so will the ones who are not deemed candidates for the surgery based on the mental health evaluations. Serbia had a massive genocide 20 years ago. This is not the most advanced society, and it's become a place where people are seeking out an incredibly complex and a emotionally fraught surgical procedure. That doesn't bode well for the outcomes.
As for the limits on free speech, oh my god, get a grip. Honestly, it mostly seems like y'all are arguing that your right to be a dick is being infringed upon - or rather that it could possibly be infringed upon sometime in the future because you understand your own vast capacity for being a dick. You wanna argue that gender reassignment surgery is denying biology? Fine. But that doesn't mean you get to harass people who violate your tender sensibilities because they're in your sphere. Mind your own business and don't get up in someone else's grill because you feel personally offended because they're breathing near you. At work, you act like a damn professional. In public, you respect some common-sense boundaries.
Or maybe you try not being a dick. Call me crazy.
Postscript: I just don't understand why people get all worked up about things like gender reassignment surgery. Really, think about it. At what point would you seek to change your gender? I'm like the butchest straight chick you'd ever want to meet, and the idea of becoming a guy is beyond abhorrent to me. Being female is central to my identity. If someone is that convinced that they are another gender, who am I to argue? What does it matter how someone identifies their gender and what business is it of mine to contradict them? It's for the medical professionals to sort it out at that point. Yes, take it mainstream and subsidize it - make sure any "mistakes" are minimized by not forcing people to go to sub-standard clinics overseas or trivializing their feelings of being in the wrong body simply because you don't have the empathy to do so. A lot of people who have never dealt with depression or anxiety can't imagine how I could become virtually delusional during my worst spirals, but it really does happen. Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't mean it's not a real issue.
I agree with all of this. Great post, Jrz. Thank you.
No one said there was a lack of empathy. The idea that because you disagree with someone means you have no empathy is not logical. Simply because you don't agree does not mean you have no compassion. They are two different things.
I have a TON of empathy for them, far more than those who are talking about tolerance. They need help, and aren't getting it simply because it is trendy to be transgender.
You think I'm trans because it's trendy? JFC, you've got to be kidding me. Yes, I came out and was subsequently disowned and lost everything in my life that I loved because it's just the thing to do these days. /SMFH
I'm not trans because it's trendy. I'm trans because it's who I am.
Teens come out and are driven from their homes...some of them commit suicide. Because it's "trendy". Right.
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Tolerating mental illness does not HELP THEM. It's why when someone is anorexic, I don't AGREE with them, and say yes, my GAWD you are fat. You need to run some more. Hey, why don't I take you to the gym? You can work out with my personal trainer, until you stop feeling fat. Which will never happen because anorexia is a MENTAL illness where the person's relationship with the body does not match up with the physical characteristics of the body. They do not see the body for what it really is.
Anorexia is body dysmorphia. As is transgenderism, where people do not see the sex as it is. They want it to be different. Yet, no one is jumping on the bandwagon, telling anorexics that what they believe and feel is REAL. Only with transgenders. It is appalling, absolutely appalling the way their mental illness is celebrated and enabled.
1. I've been under the care of a Psychiatrist for five years now. You'd think if I had a mental illness I would have presented symptoms by now. I have not. I am NOT mentally ill. I am NOT a deviant. I AM female. I AM normal.
2. Transsexuality (which is what we are discussing here - not all people who are transgender are transsexuals; all transsexuals are transgender. "Transgender" is an umbrella term encompassing all gender variance.) and body dysmorphia are too completely different things.
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According to Britain's National Health Service, the definition of the latter is as follows:
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), or body dysmorphia, is an anxiety disorder that causes sufferers to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance and to have a distorted view of how they look.
I want the highlight that very last clause, "have a distorted view of how they look." This is crucial to understanding why even the physical aspects of gender dysphoria (sometimes called sex dysphoria to differentiate those aspects from the gender expression and presentation aspects) cannot be compared with body dysmorphia.
To be consistent, I will use NHS's definition of gender dysphoria as well:
Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity...This mismatch between sex and gender identity can lead to distressing and uncomfortable feelings that are called gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a recognised medical condition, for which treatment is sometimes appropriate. It is not a mental illness.
I'd be fine calling a guy Michelle instead of Michael, as he tries to sort it all out. Doesn't matter to me if that's what he wants to be called. But when he insists he is a female and should be addressed as such, that's redefining what biology is, and making it a law that says it must be recognized and supported is anti-science. Similar to when an anorexic says she is fat, I don't agree. You are not fat, you are shockingly thin.
Anti-science? Oh that's rich. Here is some real science for you.
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A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality.
Transsexuals have the strong feeling, often from childhood onwards, of having been born the wrong sex. The possible psychogenic or biological aetiology of transsexuality has been the subject of debate for many years. Here we show that the volume of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminals (BSTc), a brain area that is essential for sexual behaviour, is larger in men than in women. A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female transsexuals. The size of the BSTc was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation. Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones.
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Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus.
Transsexuals experience themselves as being of the opposite sex, despite having the biological characteristics of one sex. A crucial question resulting from a previous brain study in male-to-female transsexuals was whether the reported difference according to gender identity in the central part of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) was based on a neuronal difference in the BSTc itself or just a reflection of a difference in vasoactive intestinal polypeptide innervation from the amygdala, which was used as a marker. Therefore, we determined in 42 subjects the number of somatostatin-expressing neurons in the BSTc in relation to sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and past or present hormonal status. Regardless of sexual orientation, men had almost twice as many somatostatin neurons as women (P < 0.006). The number of neurons in the BSTc of male-to-female transsexuals was similar to that of the females (P = 0.83). In contrast, the neuron number of a female-to-male transsexual was found to be in the male range. Hormone treatment or sex hormone level variations in adulthood did not seem to have influenced BSTc neuron numbers. The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity disorder.
Anti-science. Please.
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Biology is biology and mental illness is mental illness.
I want to add something that I think needs to be said.
People seem to think genitalia makes us who we are, but that isn't where our identity comes from. Our identity...what we feel, think, what we fear, what we dream, what we do begins in the brain. That is where our identity comes from. I ask people to get to know us. Read our stories, listen to what we are saying about ourselves.
On suicide, I'll just say this. We don't commit suicide because we are mentally ill, we aren't. We commit suicide because of how we are treated in society. We are continuously mocked, laughed at, dehumanized, demonized, sometimes beaten and/or raped. The single reason I am here typing this is because I had a few people that stood with me, and held me up when I was too weak to stand on my own. Losing my family was catastrophic. Because up to that point, my family was my life. Which is why I didn't come out until I was 38, because I honestly didn't think I could live without my family. It was more or less all I had known. Even today I miss them so much I try not to think about it. We commit suicide when there is nothing left to hope for. Not because we're mentally ill.
Please do not let people like that get you down (I know, easier said then done).
Some people are just hateful (race, religion, gender... you name it, they'll hate it).
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1. I've been under the care of a Psychiatrist for five years now. You'd think if I had a mental illness I would have presented symptoms by now. I have not. I am NOT mentally ill. I am NOT a deviant. I AM female. I AM normal.
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.
I want to add something that I think needs to be said.
People seem to think genitalia makes us who we are, but that isn't where our identity comes from. Our identity...what we feel, think, what we fear, what we dream, what we do begins in the brain. That is where our identity comes from. I ask people to get to know us. Read our stories, listen to what we are saying about ourselves.
On suicide, I'll just say this. We don't commit suicide because we are mentally ill, we aren't. We commit suicide because of how we are treated in society. We are continuously mocked, laughed at, dehumanized, demonized, sometimes beaten and/or raped. The single reason I am here typing this is because I had a few people that stood with me, and held me up when I was too weak to stand on my own. Losing my family was catastrophic. Because up to that point, my family was my life. Which is why I didn't come out until I was 38, because I honestly didn't think I could live without my family. It was more or less all I had known. Even today I miss them so much I try not to think about it. We commit suicide when there is nothing left to hope for. Not because we're mentally ill.
Plenty of people are mocked, tortured, abused, ripped to shreds, face indignities that are incomprehensible. They don't kill themselves. What makes people kill themselves is MENTAL ILLNESS. Healthy people do not commit suicide. healthy people are able to overcome adversity. You cannot blame society for suicide. It's the person that commits the act against THEMSELF because they are mentally unstable and need HELP.
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