Well "usual, typical, or expected" seem to speak to frequency. If we go back to your first post and use this definition:

...then this is not a very good point. That is, are you really saying that being transgender is rare and therefore like a mental disorder? As I said, being a redhead is rare, but that's not a mental disorder. Being left-handed is rare and based in the brain, but it too is not a mental disorder. Having a 140+ IQ is rare and brain-based but also not a mental disorder.

I think the other part of your posted definition of normal, "conforming to a standard," also speaks to this same point, but I could see people intending it differently. Do you mean it in some other way? Just in general, we don't label everything nonconforming as a mental disorder -- people can be different without being dysfunctional.

This isn't just some semantic point for the sake of semantics. It's just that I've been down this road before and know that "normal" is a bit of a loaded word that doesn't have a singular definition. As I said, being sure we are using the same definition avoids us arguing past each other.

We can agree to disagree as I don't care to argue. I firmly believe that if your brain is telling you that you are something you aren't (a person with a penis that thinks they're a woman), and tells you it's favorable to mutilate your body to achieve a fake vagina, you have an abnormal brain function. Be offended all you want but this is not normal behavior by any stretch of the word or imagination.

If I felt like my identity was wrapped around having 9 fingers and had someone remove one to fit this idea, I believe this should be observed as a mental malfunction.

Saying someone has a mental health condition isn't a negative thing, it means that they have some perceived issue with their mental state that is impairing their ability to function in the world. So if someone perceives a mismatch between their gender identity and physical sex that is causing them trauma, that is by definition a mental health condition.

What makes it a mental health condition is the fact that it's a source of trauma, not that it is perceived as arising from a misaligned gender. But if you follow this logic, it's also not a given that the best means of treating it is by addressing the "gender mismatch" through cross-sex hormones and cosmetic surgeries.

By analogy, if someone feeling trauma due to same-sex attraction presented to a mental health professional, the recommended course of treatment would probably be to help them come to terms with same-sex attraction being innate to who they are (i.e., accepting themselves as being gay or bisexual). I believe the same principle should be applied to those with gender dysphoria, to help them accept their body as it is.

So the real underlying source of our disagreement seems to be that you just don't think transgender people exist. You earlier said that the whole LGBTQ spectrum is abnormal -- does this suggest that you think gay people aren't actually gay but are instead suffering from a mental disorder that is making them feel as if they are?

I will never agree to what you're saying but I can agree that further discussion won't yield any results if I properly captured your thoughts above.

But there doesn't have to be trauma. Plenty of trans people find a way to accept who they are and lead typical, productive lives. Saying that simply being transgender indicates a mental disorder is therefore problematic.

You have a creative thought process. I didn't say that and you often attempt to make this point. I haven't seen any poster saying they don't exist.

A lot of folks in this forum have diagnosed Trump with disorders (sociopath, narcissist, etc.), but that doesn't mean they think he doesn't exist. Again, we are going 5,000 steps back for no reason

I find it very difficult to believe the upstanding people behind the DSM would ever politicize something like gender or sexuality by calling it a deviation from the norm. That never happened.

But does Trump actually exist?

If he is ruled by his mental illnesses wouldn't that suggest that there is no one actually behind the wheel, and that he is more of an automaton than a real person?

Well obviously I'm not saying that you don't think the people are real. You are saying that their transgender nature is a mental disorder. That means that they aren't actually transgender but instead the brain malfunction makes them think so. Saying Trump is a narcissist isn't saying he doesn't exist, but it's saying that the greatness he thinks he is isn't real.

I don't know why you think this is taking steps backwards. I responded to something you said just yesterday.

Your analogy is flawed. In the case of same sex attraction you’re locating sense of identity in the brain and in the case of gender dysphoria you’re locating identity in the genitalia. And as gangstaman says, gender dysphoria and transgender are not the same thing.

Go back and read precisely what I wrote. Thats what I think.

I don't quite understand what you're saying. Of course a "sense of identity" is inherently a psychological construct. Biological sex (which includes genitalia, among a wide array of physiological and psychological factors) is not.

Anyway, I don't think my post mentioned identity at all. I was talking about trauma. If someone has trauma due to feeling same-sex attraction, I assume the best course of treatment would be to help them accept that experiencing same-sex attraction is likely an inherent element of who they are. If someone has trauma due to feeling that their subjective experience of gender doesn't align to their biological sex, I would argue that the best course of treatment would be to help them accept that their biological sex is inherent to who they are.

If someone experiences "misaligned gender" to some degree, but doesn't experience it as traumatic and gets along fine in life, I wouldn't say that they have a mental illness. Same with people who don't have gender dysphoria but choose to identify as the other gender. So if there are people in these categories who categorize themselves as "transgender" I wouldn't say that being transgender is necessarily a mental illness.

How many men and women would you estimate enjoy a genuine fulfillment with life, then add in whatever gender identity is and transitioning

I'm sorry and I hope I'm wrong, it seems farfetched

An “inherent element of who they are” is another way of saying identity. My point was when you talk about same sex attraction you are considering only who they are as an internal sense and when you’re talking about gender dysphoria you’re focusing on the body as who they are instead of or in addition to the internal sense. You’re changing your definition of what who they are means in the comparison. That’s why I think the analogy is flawed.

I think a better analogy would be like being aware that you are homosexual in a society where you could not live as openly homosexual. Your suggestion of how to treat gender dysphoria is like saying the person in such a society should be encouraged to accept living as a heterosexual rather than moving to someplace where they could freely live their same sex attraction sexual identity.

Don't be cute. The entire subject of discussion was obviously LGBT people. Obviously this (bad) criticism was being given towards them.

This isn't the first time just completely normal human behaviour things gets tossed out as a negative when an LGBT person does it. Won't be the last.

Obviously not. Trying reading the whole thing again for the proper context.

Maybe take your pet theories about how terrible it is that people form group identifications to some other thread not about LGBT people if you don't want it read as a criticism about LGBT people?

Holy ****.

How more dishonest can you be here?

Let me ask you a question: what thread was it where I made the post I made?

In order to make it real simple for you: what thread was that post in when it was originally made?

Lmao nice try. Obviously the context of that discussion was LGBT people - notice how browser dumped your and chillrob's posts into this new trans thread as well? My goodness.

More importantly, you need to get on a better forum skin or whatever it is. Why is it saying the name of the thread on top of every post?

You literally lied and said that I was making generalized posts about identity in a LGBT thread when that's patently and easily proven false. And I'm way too lazy to write my own OPs but I'm certainly not going to not take the opportunity to broaden the horizons of a topic such as this when the opportunity presents itself.

And that's the old school skin.

What I'm saying is that experiencing same-sex attraction is (for most people who experience it) an immutable characteristic feature of who they are, in the same way that biological sex is. A biological male can't choose to be a biological female, in the same way that someone who experiences same sex attraction can't choose to not experience it.

So comparing two people:
- one experiences trauma due to the subjective experience of feeling "like a woman born in a man's body"
- someone who experiences homosexual desires and experiences trauma due to feeling that these desires are bad or unnatural
Both are experiencing trauma due to the feeling that some immutable characteristic is wrong.

I would argue that the best outcome for both would have to involve accepting and coming to terms with the things that can't be changed. How they go on to live their lives will depend on the individual circumstances.

Lol. Ok sure, so so so sorry I "lied" by not typing out the full "in the middle of a discussion about trans people that started in the mod thread and then was moved to it's own thread about trans people". Didn't realize you needed that extra bit of clarification. I suggest you report your own post because browser so egregiously moved it to this thread about trans issues since it isn't about that!

The topic is "trans people and mental illness" and the one of the questions being debated is about whether calling trans people mentally ill invalidates their identity.

I would be really interested in hearing how wondering if all identity is a form of mental illness isn't germane to the discussion.

Thank you! I'm glad you've figured out that the context of the remark was - as I said all along - clearly in response to the discussion about trans people. '

Let me put it this way, if you are going around wondering whether identity is a form of mental illness in sports threads and gun threads and politics threads and any other places where people form identity then great. That would just be a pretty silly but ultimately innocuous thing to say. What I am objecting to is a pattern where when a trans person does a totally normal human thing basically everyone does, we suddenly then start to question whether that totally normal thing basically everyone does is really a ~*mental illness*~.