How is transgenderism not a mental illness?

[Vic 2.0]

Originally Posted by TheDragonslayer

Being gay is not a mental disorder anymore than being straight is. I guess it makes people feel "okay" to discriminate against gay people if they can make a good enough reason to. Why must people feel that they have to put people in these labeled boxes of hate.

I have no idea, Dragonslayer. But to be fair, the poster I was replying to seemed to be asking for the question's sake, not to target homosexuals. The two (transgenderism and homosexuality) are comparable in the minds of the majority, whether they are against or for gay rights (hence the very acronym "LGBT"). But when it comes to this question in particular, I distinguish between.

[GCSTroop]

I do realize there's the conception that having a penis automatically makes one's brain primed to watch football, obnoxiously burp and fart, and tell tall tales to one another. There is also this conception that having a vagina somehow makes one prone to doing the dishes, cleaning up the house, and being a slave to the football watching primate in the living room.

What the OP fails to recognize is that extra appendages don't necessarily mean much in the way of thought patterns. There is so much focus on the genitalia of an individual as to what we should expect from them and that is what is wrong with the OP's assumptions. His thoughts basically consist of "It has a penis. Therefore it should act like it has a penis. If it doesn't act that way, it must have a mental illness."

The sad reality is that there are people out there who were born with genitalia opposite of how they think, act, and feel. It's highly probable that because our sex is not immediately decided once conceived (that's why men have nipples), there could simply be some sort of "cross-linking" of certain expressed traits. There could be epigenetic factors at work and possibly other environmental issues involved.

The male and female genitalia are really inward and outward opposites of one another. The female genitalia is not drastically different than a folded inward penis and testes. The focus should not be on what has descended and what has not but rather on what a person thinks and feels. Having an extra digit whether it be on one's hands, feet, or mid-section should not have emphatic bearing on how we feel about ourselves.

[GCSTroop]

Originally Posted by BigHouse9

Really? Tell that to a relative of mine who decided it was cool to be gay. He chose his lifestyle and admitted to it. He was married, had a child etc. So yeah, I can choose to do certain sexual acts or not. Don't be so close-minded.

You're the type who perpetuates this stupidity that the sole factor of one's sexuality is based on who they have sex with and because that is a choice, being gay is a choice. As a straight male, I could indeed CHOOSE to go to a gay bar and have sex with another man but I'm comfortable enough in my sexuality to realize that it still wouldn't make me gay. I don't want relationships with men, I don't seek men, I don't think about men, but if I just decided to go get my jollies off with a guy one day then I'm suddenly gay? No. It takes more than a simple ejaculation in the presence of a person of the same sex to make someone gay.

There is a vast expanse of human sexuality from "completely straight" on one end to "completely homosexual" on the other end. Most people would probably not be on the ends, nor would they be in the middle (where completely bisexual would be). They would probably fall in between the middle and one of the ends.

The term "homosexuality" is, in my opinion, misunderstood. It seems to trigger a thought that sex the action, not sex the gender, is the working factor here. When we hear homosexual, we should think "Of the same gender" not "Two dudes doin' it." Homosexual sex would be the act of two people of the same sex having sex. But a homosexual is defined by more than who they have sex with. It's really important to understand that.

I suspect there are a lot of men, such as your relative, who feel utterly confused because of these labels. I think it's highly probable that many men have a sexual encounter with another man and automatically feel labeled as "gay" - on the "completely homosexual" end of the scale. I think there are a lot of people who then go on to suspect that it's something they just discovered about themselves and now they have to revamp their entire lives to mold this societal impression. In other words, it's the same stupidity of "Oh, crap! I just touched a man's penis in the shower at the gym. I guess I'm gay now!"

I think most people have bisexual sexual impulses but prefer to stay in heterosexual relationships. There's this huge fear that if they somehow act on these bisexual fantasies or impulses that somewhere at Gay Headquarters an alarm goes off, all heterosexuality has been erased, and the gayness has just been brought to life - after all these repressed years, too!

[Fiyero]

Originally Posted by BigHouse9

Really? Tell that to a relative of mine who decided it was cool to be gay. He chose his lifestyle and admitted to it. He was married, had a child etc. So yeah, I can choose to do certain sexual acts or not. Don't be so close-minded.

What that means is he's bisexual and chose to pursue his other attractions. He didn't choose his orientation.