I don't know I said anything was offensive, but if so it would be highly context dependent. The What Is A Woman documentary promoted by Elon is a ridiculous anti-trans hit-piece by noted "Transphobe of the Year" Matt Walsh. While that is transphobic, I suppose someone who is completely naive about trans people who was genuinely confused what it meant for a trans person with, say, male anatomy to identify as a woman they could ask this question in a benign way.

This starts ok, then falls off the rails. I agree with you that gender dysphoria is a characteristic a person may or may have and not chosen by that person. It is in this sense that lozen's post is ridiculous - one has as little choice of being gay or black as they do here.

However, you then suggest that "being trans" is a choice. This is problematic in two senses. Firstly, you really mean something like "social transition is a choice". Indeed, many trans people may never choose to express their gender socially and you won't ever know. But that is very different from being trans, a much more intrinsic property than social expression. Secondly, the whole "choice" rhetoric is itself problematic. We had the same debates back when gay people were first getting accepted where people tried to put up this false line saying ok it isn't their choice to be attracted to people of the same sex, but it IS their choice to act on that attraction and do things like have sex with people of the same sex. But that's stupid. If someone is a woman (or gay) then trying to frame them engaging in behaviours that represent who they truly are as choices is inherently minimizing. Instead, the LGBT movement has focused it's rhetoric not on choice but on being. One IS gay/trans, not just that one CHOOSES to be gay/trans. Maybe you find this a small linguistic distinction, but given decades of trying to attack LGBT by framing it as a choice this is not a small thing.

This isn't the first time you've tried to create some hard binary between, as you put it, "LGB" which you seem to accept as something people can just be and "T" which you find to be incomparable. But these are both just things on a spectrum of human expression, that some of us are attracted to people or identify as a gender different from the norm. That's ok. We can accept both groups of people equally. We can support both groups of people equally. They aren't identical, but they are comparable.

Also, ffs, trans people aren't asking you to believe a single non-scientific thing. It is a false suggestion to think there is some ask to treat trans people in a non-scientific way such as that a trans woman was born with female anatomy. That just isn't the ask.

Isn't a trans person by definition someone who has at least started to socially transition? Would you ever say of someone who hasn't that they may actually be trans? That kind of thing is said about gay people, and their friends often know before they do. Obviously the same thing is true about people with depression.

I agree the thing about gay being a choice as an argument against gay people is silly. And of course gay and trans people should be able to do whatever they want. But it seems you're saying one can be trans without acting on it in any way, which makes no sense to me.

If you have a definition of trans which doesn't require either gender dysphoria or social transition, then I guess you would say I am trans, as I have stated several times that I identify much more with most females than most males.

Or maybe you think they have to say they are trans, but then the definition of trans becomes just as foggy as the definition of woman as anyone who identifies as a woman.
If anyone says they are trans, for whatever reason, that makes them trans, even if they change nothing about their behavior? That seems problematic to me for reasons that I'm sure you can guess and understand, and likely to cause many more problems for the community.

Just like with gay people, many trans people are closeted and you won’t know, or maybe only a few close people know. There is zero requirement to have socially transitioned to be trans. Many trans people won’t feel safe even telling their own parents. That doesn’t make them any less trans.

Many people can be gay or depressed and not know it themselves. Do you think the same is true about trans people?

My last job in the Army was in US Special Operations Command Headquarters. As you might imagine, the place was populated with Army Special Forces and Rangers, Navy SEALS, Air Force Special Tactics people, as well as members of Delta and Dev Gru. There probably isnt a more concentrated population of type A, testosterone overloaded people anywhere. And the culture and environment at the time was as anti- gay, anti-women in the military as you could find. In fact, those units were referred to as the ultimate Boys Club.

Also at the time, if it was found out that you were gay you would be discharged from the service. If there were any gay or transgender people serving there, it would be an incredibly closely held secret. My immediate boss was an Army Special Frces officer who had a distinguished career, including commanding a Special Forces Battalion and serving in various important counter terrorist organizations. He retired about a year after I did.

Shortly after retiring, he applied for and was selected for a pretty high level counter terrorism job with the state dept. He was clearly the best qualified candidate for the job. It turns out that COL X was transgender all along. He lived in constant fear of being discovered and losing his Army career at any time. He didnt think about any sort of partial transitioning. It would have been career suicide. So COL X decided that he would begin transitioning before he started showing up at the office. That way people he met would meet him as a trans woman.

He met with his employers and explained the situation to them. Suddenly, a few days later the State Dept withdrew their job offer. Suddenly they didnt think his extensive counterterrorism expertise and experience was a good fit for the job. Of course that was all BS. They just didnt want him anymore because of the outward transition of his appearance to that of a female.

To make a long story short, the case went all through the court system and the State Dept was ordered to reinstate the job offer. And COL X began work as a trans womn who outwardly expressed herself as a woman rather than having to hide.

I mention this rather long story to illustrate how for many transgender people coming out even to close friends is not an option. They must go to extremes to appear as one of the boys (or girls) or risk their careers and livelihood. You can imagine the pressures that involves. But COL X didnt suffer from the mental illness of gender dysphoria. He was able to handle the conflicts and still function effectively. Others cannot. Just as some people can handle the anxiety or sadness of various stressful life situations and still function while others cannot and suffer from depression or panic attacks when faced with the same circumstances.

So just as some people can handle stress or grief in a way that does not require medical intervention, some can't. Those people suffer from depression and require medical help. Likewise, some transgender people, while fully aware of the conflicts between their mental gender identity and anatomy can handle those stresses without needing medical intervention. But for some the effects are debilitating enough that they suffer from gender dysphoria and require medical help.

Others handle their transition situation along a continuum. Some are fine living with the differences. Some determine that the social discrimination they would face with an outward transition is not worth it. Some feel that dressing and presenting oneself as the other gender meets their needs without surgical procedures, while others desire a complete a transition as possible. It's not a measure of "how transgender are they" or "are they really transgender at all if they dont fully transition".

So it is in this light that my concern about how we permit discussions about transgender people proceed. I have indeed removed posts where the poster specifically states that all transgender people are just people who are imagining things in their head and so there is no actual group of people who are transgender. Rather he claimed anyone claiming to be a transgender man or woman is just suffering a mental illness (he actually called them delusions as well) and therefore no one should actually be considered transgender and be acknowledged as such anymore than someone who believes they are Napoleon should be acknowledged as such.

So it's a complicated issue with lots of misinformation and disinformation flying around it. This is why I am seeking opinions on how this matter, along with others should be handled.

Thanks

I'll try to address a couple arguments in here without adding to the transgender derail that seems to be happening. I say thay with no judgement, as it's hard to have some of the discussion browser's asking for without getting in to specific topics.

When someone says being transgender isn't real, they will get responses that they are denying the person's existence. I think everyone knows that doesn't mean it is being argued that the person literally does not exist, that they are a figment of the imagination. I guess it can be argued it's a rhetorical device, but it's one being used to counter an assertion that strikes at the core of a trans person's identity.

As for the suggestion that it's not necessarily derogatory to suggest that it's a mental disorder - the problem with that is once you go down the mental disorder road, the suggestion by some will be that it needs to be treated through therapy or medication, and "cure" the person of being trans.

I don't think anything productive comes from discussions about whether being transgender is real, or if it is a mental disorder. For some, either is an argument based on bigotry. For others, they don't hold ill will against trans people, but they use these beliefs to argue against any acceptance of transgender people in society on their own terms. Also, I don't think it's a gap anyone can bridge. If someone is convinced that being transgender either isn't real or is a mental illness, will I ever get anywhere arguing otherwise in a Politics thread? Or vice versa?

While I appreciate that story, and I'm glad the individual was finally allowed to present himself as desired eventually, I still cannot believe that she would have put herself through all of that trouble, potentially ending her career, if she hadn't felt at least a "sense of unease" at being presented to the world as a man for all those years. If she was more comfortable presenting herself as a woman, then she must have felt uncomfortable as a man, and I consider uncomfortable and uneasy to be complete synonyms in this context. Having gender dysphoria doesn't mean that one can't be successful at their job without medical attention, and many people who are depressed still can function well. Personally I was at one time a non-functioning depressed person. Luckily I am now able to function (with medication), but I still have a diagnosis of clinical depression.

Honestly I think you don't want to think this person suffered from gender dysphoria because you still think it says something negative about someone with that diagnosis.
Many people think being a depressed person is a complete negative, even though studies have shown depressed people are better at predicting what will happen in the future, and a disproportionate number of the greatest artists / musicians / actors, etc. in history have suffered from depression, many having eventually taken their own lives.
Society should stop the value judgements about people who have particular mental conditions, just as they should stop judging people for their sexual preferences or the way they dress. And I still believe that far fewer people would feel the need to be considered a member of a different sex than the one they were born into if society didn't have explicit or implicit rules and expectations for people just because of differences in their anatomies.

It's not just feeling unease that means you have gender dysphoria any more than just feeling sad means you have depression. You have to have significant clinical impairment. Here is the line in the dsm that people dont get to because they dont read the whole thing:

"In order to meet criteria for the diagnosis, the condition must also be associated with clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning."

https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-...er%20dysphoria.


But I agree with Bobo that I am guilty of the very thing I wanted to avoid about specific topic derails. So I'll stop with that.

I'm using a different definition, the one from the NHS in the UK, as I stated earlier. It says that "This sense of unease or dissatisfaction may be so intense it can lead to depression and anxiety and have a harmful impact on daily life." But this is only the possibility of it leading to impacts on daily life, that is not a requirement for the diagnosis. Really the same is true for depression as well. Depression is different than just "feeling sad", but it does not necessarily cause any impairments.

Here's where part of the confusion comes from. The NHS defines gd as the uneasiness caused by the incongruence between gender identity and anatomy.

But you then state above that gd is definitely a mental disorder. That absolutely has a negative connotation, at least n the US.

Yet the NHS states this about GD:

"Gender dysphoria is not a mental illness, but some people may develop mental health problems because of gender dysphoria."

I say this as somebody that doesn't have any particularly strong feelings on the topic:

If there are going to be such strict limitations on what appears to be even the basics of trans discussion, why even allow trans topics to be discussed on these forums? When I was in college, not too long ago, Gender Identity Disorder was in the DSM-4 as a mental disorder, and I see that it still is now in the DSM-5 as Gender Dysphoria. Even in the discussions from scientific sources, it is a complicated issue from a psychiatric/psychology perspective. So to essentially say that if you think there may be a mental illness component, you are either a bigot or want trans people locked away somewhere is bizarre.

I understand the need to not allow bigotry to run rampant in these forums. Some people may very well use a discussion of mental illness in order to justify bigotry. I don't really see why you would allow the topic to be discussed if you even consider the current scientific thinking of the topic to be bigoted.

Its amazing how much stigmitation of mental health is being made here. Why is it that we all seem to agree that anyone considering trans treatments which involve medications that have never been tested or gender affirming surgery should undergo counseling with a licensed mental health professional before they go through with it. Sadly though it can take as little as 22 minutes to be approved for surgery in todays system

Why cant your position be Yes there are people born in the wrong bodies but not at the rate we are seeing in todays society.

GID and Gender Dysphoria are not the same. DSM 5 (which came out 10 years ago) makes clear that being transgender by itself is not a mental disorder. It's only gender dysphoria when the distress or impairment reaches a "clinically significant" level ("clinically significant" is never really defined but gives us the leeway to not pathologize every normal human experience that isn't completely pleasant).

Oh, I see. So these guys aren't demonizing transgender people, they're merely demonizing people with mental health issues.

No, you are demonizing people with mental health issues. If your stance is that to even mention the possibility that mental illness may have a role is bigotry, then you are saying that those with mental illness are inferior.

I feel like one can have the (incorrect, imo) stance that every single trans person has a mental disorder, that the appropriate treatment may very well be hormone therapy or sex reassignment, and that those people that undergo such treatment should not be stigmatized. That is not bigotry. On the other hand, the implication that it is so awful that it is tantamount to hate, that there may be a component involving mental illness, hurts people with mental illness everywhere.

Furthermore, not discussing the mental health component of this issue hurts trans people. There may be:

(1) People that truly have gender dysphoria and would benefit from extreme treatments, such as sexual reassignment.

(2) On the other hand, there may be people with significant mental health issues that become part of the trans community, but may not legitimately be trans. Young people are particularly susceptible to wanting to belong to an out-group as they feel rejected by normal society for a variety of reasons. People in this group certainly would not be helped by a permanent change to the structure of their body.


I mentioned before that I don't have strong opinions on this topic. I do have strong opinions when it comes to wrongly demonizing people. If your stance is "you say trans people are mentally ill. People that are mentally ill are bad, so you are saying that trans people are bad", then you are a POS, regardless of what you think you are intending.

Is that my stance? Is that even remotely close to anything I've said?

Try again.

I don't think this is anyone ITTs stance. Both things are possible. Sadly, weaponizing mental illness as a way to attack trans people is a standard trope of the anti-trans right. We can condemn that while also noting that of course - OF COURSE - it is possible to have an empathetic conversation about mental health and trans people in a way that is supporting and uplifting them. And then there is the category of people who try to act like they are doing the latter while really doing the former.

Ah I see you're following the Matt Walsh bit line by line.

You have an interesting take on literacy if that's how you interpreted my post.



Circling back, the DSM doesn't give you people permission to be jerks to trans people. Sorry.

Of course, you are right. It seems that the official stance here seems to be that doing that is not allowed, as it is either explicit bigotry or a backdoor to bigotry. It is not limited to these forums: there are many people in this world that have the opinion that the mere suggestion that there may be a mental illness component to being trans is hateful. I don't feel like these extreme positions help the trans community.

Thank you for the lesson in reading comprehension. The best person to give advice on the topic is the forum troll that writes one or two vague sentences at a time, with the intent of playing "gotcha" when anybody calls him out.

Your stance is clear. You can dance around it all you want, but it is what it is.

I think the problem isn't that some transgender people may have a mental illness condition that is precipitated by the incongruence between their gender identity and their anatomy that manifests itself by debilitating anxiety, depression, etc. It is the position that having that incongruence at all is itself a form of mental illness. That is, if you believe you are transgender then by definition you have a mental illness. While at some point in the past that was the standard scientific belief, with more study and data the opinion of the scientific community has changed its position on that.

Homosexuality as a mental illness went through a similar change as more information became available. Years ago, if yiu were gay it was considered that you had a mental illness. I dont think you will find today any mainstream medical professional who believes that.

What is the correct rate of transgender people for a society to have?