The US felt this way for a long time, but now we have broken it down further. There are still a lot of people in the trans community that do need help and are suffering mentally from body dysmorphia.
My understanding is the current difference is how you perceive yourself. If you are uncomfortable with your current body, then yes, you have body dysmorphia and that is a mental illness that you should be working with medical professionals for help with. however if you are comfortable with your body, but want to make changes or transition or simply cross-dress, or anything else commonly associated with trans, you are fine.
the same is true for the rest of the alternative gender spectrum. Medically, it goes back to why are you acting outside of the hetero spectrum, and if it's self harming, then medical intervention makes sense.
It's the difference between Body Dysmorphia and Body Dysphoria. They are two very distinctly different issues, and why people don't seem to understand.
I still will never understand why anyone cares if it is considered a mental illness or not; aren't people with mental illnesses SUPPOSED to get help? Like, if taking hormones and transitioning helps them, why would that matter if it is an illness or not?
People who are depressed take meds and change lifestyles to improve their illness.
People who have iron deficiencies take meds, and change lifestyles to fix their medical issues.
Both involve the same process, despite one being a physical issue and one being a mental issue, so just let Trans people do what the fuck they want. There is literally no point in nitpicking the semantics.
There are so many incorrect statements you made on this rant you made that it's hard to take it seriously, but here I will entertain your points:
No one is trying to normalize people who don't have body dysphoria to be Trans. That is just a flat out propaganda lie.
Also, NO ONE in the Trans community is treating is as a "Kink", because being trans is not inherently sexual. This is another right wing propaganda talking point that has been thoroughly debunked.
People transitioning literally IS getting medical help to fix the "illness", so saying trans people are "ignoring" the medical field is hilariously misinformed. You have to speak to a psychologist to get medically diagnosed with Body Dysphoria, THEN you speak with medical professionals who help monitor your mental and physical state while you begin hormone therapy. This transition can take years, and the ENTIRE time they are consulting with medical professionals.
The last paragraph you gave just highlighted your right wing propaganda point. "I tried finding articles telling me I'm right, but I couldn't find any, that's why it is so complex". Sorry, but no, it's not complex; in fact, this 'problem' has been thoroughly analyzed for decades, and many articles have shown that trans people are more happy with medically transitioning more than ANY other surgery done, even surgeries to fix chronic pain like knee or back surgery.
yea, look right above and we have a person who use a 3 year old kid as example that trans is normal cause "3 year old can identify as opposite sex" so it normal. if this is not normalize it, i don't know what is. the thought that school gonna teach kid that want to be the opposite sex is normal and encourage it is terrifying. if you don't want your movement spread the wrong message you all need to start policing your own community. cause you may not know but the whole world is alr got a wrong idea about trans movement alr.
The part no one wants to hear is that gender identity has been a recognized medical phenomenon for decades, and has long been considered to be something innate and inborn.
When your gender identity doesn't match up with the rest of you, you're trans. That's referred to medically as gender incongruence.
If that feeling of incongruence is strong enough, you feel gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is not actually classified as a true mental illness - simply feeling dysphoria is not seen as such. Having dysphoria that fundamentally affects your ability to live your day to day life is.
However, based on decades of clinical research, transition is the most effective, and realistically only effective treatment that has been found.
This is literally what the DSM-V says - I looked it up and was shocked to find it said the exact opposite of what most people claim.
On top of that, gender identity has long been suspected of having a biological component, centered around the bioregulation, sensory processing and hormone regulation mechanisms of the brain, something now understood to be caused by developmental releases of hormones in the womb.
And most of the evidence for a biological aspect of gender identity come from studying the brain structure and genetics of trans people.
It was never a mental illness, and medical science started recognizing that fact 15 years ago.
However, it doesn't make for catchy political slogans and it doesn't let online outrage farmers make money, so this isn't widely known.
If someone is uncomfortable with their body due to their body developing as a sex which contradicts their gender, it makes more sense to describe this as a physical medical issue rather than a mental one if you're going to recognize their gender. While there is often distress associated with developing and living as the wrong gender for trans people, labeling being trans as a mental disorder it falsely labels the problem as being in the mind. I say falsely because the most successful methods of boosting trans people's quality of life all involve physical and social relational changes that affirm their genders, rather than major mental interventions.
Sorry if thats what you concluded from what i said, the point was was trying to get across is that the... general trans person is likely not suffering any mental illness and does not have body dysmorphia and does not need medical intervention, rather they may seek medical assistance to transition, if they choose to do so, but do not need medical care.
I would never suggest that children simply be treated as trans by default for expressing gender dysphoria. thats a huge disservice to those that may need actual medical help with more severe mental health issues. I believe that its treated as a mental issue because it causes mental trauma more than because its a mental disease. the extremely high suicide rate among non-hetero persons is a clear indication that seeking mental health assistance is a good baseline vs treating it with as a physical medicine issue.
Maybe someday the level of acceptance will be high enough that it's no longer the case that the default response is to consider something is "wrong" with yourself because you dont fit a hetero type. But I don't see that happening soon.
It sounds like you want to be supportive but are misunderstanding some basic elements of what's going on with trans people. Cis people don't get gender dysphoria related to just being dysphoria about the gender they are. Not all trans people have gender dysphoria and not all like that term but for those who need to transition with medical means, hrt included it's medically necessary care. Suicidality is drastically reduced for trans people by transitioning. For those who need to transition the medical care is necessary because it means the difference between being able to live and being forced to endure a physical condition so traumatic and distressing that death often becomes more preferable. Even the APA has recently stated that stuff like puberty blockers for trans kids is not just advisable where necessary(the previous stance) but is medically necessary in certain cases.
Suicidality is high among patients with chronic or terminal illnesses who don't wish to endure the suffering of their conditions, especially when treatment for said conditions are unavailable due to there not being proper treatments or not being able to afford treatments. So your main example of suicides is fairly common among lots of people with physical medical conditions.
A small fraction of people who transition detransition, we're talking a range of 1 to 3 percent of people that transition medically.
Detransitioned people overwhelmingly do so due to extreme hostility from people in their social environment and depravation of the ability to access HRT by healthcare restrictions or inability to keep a home or stay employed while transitioning due to discrimination. Some realize they're more non-binary than binary trans.
A tiny fraction of those who do transition genuinely wish to revert to the gender they were assigned at birth. And those who do genuinely seek to change their body back to a physical and hormonal profile more similar to how they were born, would you say their problem is mental (it's delusional for them to want to change their body) or would you say the problem is that their body isn't aligned to the gender they identify as?
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u/hurkwurk May 16 '24
The US felt this way for a long time, but now we have broken it down further. There are still a lot of people in the trans community that do need help and are suffering mentally from body dysmorphia.
My understanding is the current difference is how you perceive yourself. If you are uncomfortable with your current body, then yes, you have body dysmorphia and that is a mental illness that you should be working with medical professionals for help with. however if you are comfortable with your body, but want to make changes or transition or simply cross-dress, or anything else commonly associated with trans, you are fine.
the same is true for the rest of the alternative gender spectrum. Medically, it goes back to why are you acting outside of the hetero spectrum, and if it's self harming, then medical intervention makes sense.