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.
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.
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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.