# Are all transgendered people mentally ill? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 1, 2017, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378 "2017-11-01T12:20:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/402 "2017-11-21T00:22:03Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > [OKCupid](http://home.earthlink.net/~ah3files2/okcupid%20choices.jpg) [does](http://home.earthlink.net/~ah3files2/okcupid%20choices%20II.jpg) > Which dating site did you make the dummy account on which didn’t? eharmony. Was that a bad idea? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/403 "2017-11-21T00:39:32Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > It seems very similar to telling a woman she can’t wear certain clothes, go to certain places, talk to certain people, or else she bring any assault or rape on herself. Which is victim-blaming. No. Its not. If rape at the “rape night club” was as common as violence against transgenders is, then why isn’t it good advice to tell a woman not to go to the “rape nightclub” wearing nothing but a thong and a bikini top and spend all night drinking and flirting with the “rape dudes”? Telling someone who has been raped that it was her fault for going to the rape night club is victim blaming. Telling her not to go in the first place is good advice. > [@](#): > > Because you can’t apply any basis for the exact break-point of where it becomes more “utilitarian” to go ahead and have cisgender men be forthright about their preferences, it certainly seems like that. > **[Sorites paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy#Fred_can_never_grow_a_beard)** > > The sorites paradox (/soʊˈraɪtiːz/; sometimes known as the paradox of the heap) is a paradox that results from vague predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are removed individually. With the assumption that removing a single grain does not cause a heap to become a non-heap, the paradox is to consider what happens when the process is repeated enough times that only one grain remains: is it still a heap? If not, when did it change from a heap to a non-hea The w... I do not have to be able to tell you whether the flip happens at 50/50 or 20/80 to be able to tell you that 0.5 vs 80 places the burden on the 0.5 > [@](#): > > Honestly, I don’t know why you aren’t seeing why it’s simply in your opinion - because you cannot give a concrete reason for why you chose the breakpoints you did. I asked earlier, how many transgender persons would there need to be on dating sites before your argument no longer holds for you, and you couldn’t say. That makes it entirely your opinion. You could easily claim so long as less than 49.5% of the women on a site were transgender, that the majority should rule - due to “utilitarian” principles. Fortunately that is not what I am saying. But I can say that if only 0.5% of people had an aversion to dating transgender and 80% of people were transgender then the burden would be on the people with the aversion. In other words if the situation was flipped so would the burden. > [@](#): > > Here’s my utilitarian principle: because the “burden” on poor, oppressed cisgender males is merely to have to type “no trans” (I timed it, it took 2 seconds to type. Two miserable measly seconds) or whatever else they feel into their profile, that pales compared to the burden of proactively giving out **personal medical history and information** to the entire general public on the dating site. Thus they should be doing it if there is any chance they might hook up with a transgender person. That’s my “utilitarian principle.” > > AGAIN, I can’t read minds but it really seems like it’s just that people don’t want their bias exposed to the light of day. Kinda like all the Trump voters who were ashamed to answer honestly in polls and interviews. Nope. Like I said. I will never date again. I am not trying to avoid telling people that I have an aversion to dating transgender. I am placing the burden where it rests most lightly. > [@](#): > > Dress it up with whatever PHIL 101 words you want, it’s still just your opinion. Just as mine is mine. Yes but your opinion is mostly “I don’t wanna because it hurts me feelings” and my opinion is “society would experience fewer transaction costs” There may be some sort of equitable argument but there is not really a good utilitarian one. Utilitarian logic frequently leads to unequitable results and maybe that’s the case but I don’t think I have not heard that argument yet. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/404 "2017-11-21T00:44:47Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Your argument is what, at that point? “Why can’t kids today just meet their sweethearts at the sock hop or for a chocolate phosphate at Elmer’s diner?” Something like that. I’ve probably dated maybe 50 people in my life. I don’t think any of them were total strangers. Some of them were strangers in the sense that we were set up but something like transexualism would not have been something that got revealed after we started the first date. These are things that would be pretty clear early on. Like I said, I don’t want to pass a law or anything but it is pretty clearly dishonest to neglect to disclose this very uncommon material fact that over 80% of the population would find material. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/405 "2017-11-21T01:11:47Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > eharmony. Was that a bad idea? [Yeah. Uh… eharmony isn’t known for being LGBT friendly](https://www.advocate.com/business/2013/02/13/eharmony-founder-gay-marriage-damaged-our-company). They hide the conservative christian bent of their company pretty well though so I can’t blame you for not knowing. ---
**Author:** ![DUCKofDEATH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6f9a4e/32.png) [@DUCKofDEATH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DUCKofDEATH)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/406 "2017-11-21T04:24:20Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Do you actually have anything new to add? Just askin’. Why did you waste your time and ours making that pointless posting? Curious. ---
**Author:** ![DUCKofDEATH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6f9a4e/32.png) [@DUCKofDEATH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DUCKofDEATH)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/407 "2017-11-21T04:31:59Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > You’re conflating “gender” and “sex”. Psychology and medicine have considered these separate issues for quite some time now; if you won’t keep up with the cutting edge of medical science, you could at least keep up with the stuff that was cutting edge _before my parents met_. Nonsense. You’ve got it wrong. Sex is a subset of [Gender](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender). You must be so embarassed. As for what you think psychologists believe, since psychology is a soft science, they’re not really scientists, so I don’t credit their opinions as having gravitas. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/408 "2017-11-21T13:18:17Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > [Yeah. Uh… eharmony isn’t known for being LGBT friendly](https://www.advocate.com/business/2013/02/13/eharmony-founder-gay-marriage-damaged-our-company). They hide the conservative christian bent of their company pretty well though so I can’t blame you for not knowing. Hunh. I thought it was like the best one. All their commercials say so. OK so it look like OK cupid basically requires you to “opt in” to dating transgender. How do transgender folks end up dating people that did not opt in? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/409 "2017-11-21T14:09:33Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If rape at the “rape night club” was as common as violence against transgenders is, then why isn’t it good advice to tell a woman not to go to the “rape nightclub” wearing nothing but a thong and a bikini top and spend all night drinking and flirting with the “rape dudes”? When someone ignores the weather report and goes out without an umbrella and gets soaked to the skin, we tend to tell them “Your own fault! Your own responsibility!” The weather, however, is not a conscious deliberate participant. And men are not the weather. Yes, there is still a valid sense in which self-preservation means taking into account the behaviors of men at the rape night club. It’s not bad _pre facto_ advice. But it’s not valid _post facto_ assignment of blame. Rapists, and not their victims, are _responsible for_ their behavior. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/410 "2017-11-21T14:15:18Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > When someone ignores the weather report and goes out without an umbrella and gets soaked to the skin, we tend to tell them “Your own fault! Your own responsibility!” > > The weather, however, is not a conscious deliberate participant. And men are not the weather. > > Yes, there is still a valid sense in which self-preservation means taking into account the behaviors of men at the rape night club. It’s not bad _pre facto_ advice. But it’s not valid _post facto_ assignment of blame. Rapists, and not their victims, are _responsible for_ their behavior. Sure, that is why my sentence immediately following the part you quoted is: “Telling someone who has been raped that it was her fault for going to the rape night club is victim blaming. Telling her not to go in the first place is good advice.” ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/411 "2017-11-21T14:30:20Z")
> [@DUCKofDEATH](#): > > There are x and y chromosomes that determine gender. When everything is operating normally, that gives us men and women. Normatively, not normally. That something is the typical, or normative, situation doesn’t make it the healthier, or more desirable, or proper and appropriate situation. Exceptions to the rule can be entirely valid, healthy, desirable, etc individuals. > [@](#): > > Any other results are malfunctions that we should try to heal. Certainly society shouldn’t change as a result. Certainly society should. It’s sick, it has undesirable characteristics, it exhibits pathological behavior that hurts its individuals and those of us to whom that hurting has been done are going to change it. Society, incidentally, resides in people’s heads. Thanks for participating. > [@cyberpvnk](#): > > If you have a penis, you are a male. If you have a vagina, you are a female. No matter what you think, whether you are a male and think you are a female or vice-versa, it does not change the fact that you have the sexual biology you were born with. If you think you are a male, when biologically you are not, there is something wrong with your head. Here’s the crux of the “transgendered people are mentally ill” argument, and as arguments go, it’s a stupid one. If someone who is a male thinks they are a female, they don’t identify as transgender; they aren’t the people we’re talking about! _Why would they identify as transgender? By your definition they’d be unaware of being male_. A transgender person who seeks to transition is better conceptualized as someone who thinks they _were supposed to be_ female in body but is aware that they are _not_ and intends to address that situation. And this (for you too, **DUCKofDEATH** ) is where it is necessary to use a different set of terms for the body and the sense of self, and for the sake of clarity and communication it helps if we use the same ones. SEX is the body. That’s your x and y chromosomes and their (normative) phenotype configurations, which are “male” and “female”. GENDER is the sense of self, both from the inside (self perception) and as attributed by other people. A transgender person _is defined as_ a person whose gender does not match the gender assigned to them at birth. Some doctor attributed a gender, or a parent did, or whatever, usually based on seeing the characteristics we call SEX characteristics (penis, vagina). So it might be clearer to say that their gender doesn’t match their sex. If you’re going to ignore the entirety of gender (as I’m defining it, not as you may have been using it) and discuss only sex, you’re going to miss the point. Trans people are generally as aware of what body morphology they’ve got in their underwear as you are. And if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be coming out as trans. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/412 "2017-11-21T14:33:04Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Sure, that is why my sentence immediately following the part you quoted is: > > “Telling someone who has been raped that it was her fault for going to the rape night club is victim blaming. Telling her not to go in the first place is good advice.” But you’re still doing the former; you’re just inserting a layer of plausible deniability in there. You’re not saying that its their fault they got beaten up because they didn’t tell their date they are transgender, you’re saying it’s their fault because they engaged in risky behavior and the risky behavior was not telling their date they are transgender. And you are doing so specifically in order to move the burden of action from the potential assailant to the potential victim to support your “utilitarian” argument. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/413 "2017-11-21T14:36:00Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Sure, that is why my sentence immediately following the part you quoted is: > > “Telling someone who has been raped that it was her fault for going to the rape night club is victim blaming. Telling her not to go in the first place is good advice.” I know. So so far we’re on the same page. Good. Now, about telling her not to go in the first place. I said there was _a_ valid sense in which self-preservation means not going to the rape night club. But if every woman did that, the rapists would move on to the next night club and make that one the rape night club. And if every woman continued the self-preservationist behavior and ceased going to any and all night clubs, the rapists would move on to wherever the women were, in order to rape them. And the women’s range of freedom shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until they’re locked behind walls with the threat of rape keeping them there. With me so far? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/414 "2017-11-21T14:45:11Z")
Look, if women don’t want to be raped they shouldn’t leave their cloister. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/415 "2017-11-21T16:20:16Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > But you’re still doing the former; you’re just inserting a layer of plausible deniability in there. You’re not saying that its their fault they got beaten up because they didn’t tell their date they are transgender, you’re saying it’s their fault because they engaged in risky behavior and the risky behavior was not telling their date they are transgender. And you are doing so specifically in order to move the burden of action from the potential assailant to the potential victim to support your “utilitarian” argument. So how was what I said different from what Ahunter said except in your imagination? I am not saying that getting beaten up is the inevitable and certainly not a deserved consequence of being transgender and not telling their date. I’m responding to people saying “transgender folks get beat up, Oh and BTW we insist on going on dates with total strangers… without telling them we are transgender” ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/416 "2017-11-21T16:30:09Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I know. > > So so far we’re on the same page. Good. > > Now, about telling her not to go in the first place. I said there was _a_ valid sense in which self-preservation means not going to the rape night club. But if every woman did that, the rapists would move on to the next night club and make that one the rape night club. And if every woman continued the self-preservationist behavior and ceased going to any and all night clubs, the rapists would move on to wherever the women were, in order to rape them. And the women’s range of freedom shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until they’re locked behind walls with the threat of rape keeping them there. > > With me so far? No, the rapists don’t travel from night club to night club they don’t go out searching for people to rape. Or are you saying that the transgender beatings are by men that go out there looking for transsexuals to beat up? Not dating total strangers without telling them will not eventually lead to transgender women staying at home and never peeking out of their homes. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/417 "2017-11-21T16:31:12Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Look, if women don’t want to be raped they shouldn’t leave their cloister. There are different levels of risk. You take a risk when you cross the street. You take an entirely different kind of risk when you try to cross a busy freeway in the middle of the night wearing a ninja outfit. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/418 "2017-11-21T19:25:42Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No, the rapists don’t travel from night club to night club they don’t go out searching for people to rape. 😕 Cite?? Am I missing something that was specified in a hypothetical upthread, or do you think rapists in real life congregate at specific locales and would not, in fact, seek out victims in other places if they disappeared from where they’ve been finding them? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/419 "2017-11-21T19:31:46Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > 😕 Cite?? > > Am I missing something that was specified in a hypothetical upthread, or do you think rapists in real life congregate at specific locales and would not, in fact, seek out victims in other places if they disappeared from where they’ve been finding them? I thought it was supposed to be an allegory for transgender women dating total strangers without letting them know that they were transgender. That is the risk we are talking about. Like the risk of going to “rape night club” wearing a thong and a bikini top to flirt and get drunk with the “rape boys” in the club. This seems like a particularly risky thing to do. Does this mean that Transgender women would also be warned away from dating acquaintances or friends of friends who know they are transgender because those total strangers would suddenly show up on those dates as well? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/420 "2017-11-21T20:10:06Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I thought it was supposed to be an allegory for transgender women dating total strangers without letting them know that they were transgender. I understand that much. Staying within the boundaries of the situation being used as the allegory, and not (as of yet) hopping out to talk about transgender women and their dating behaviors, > [@AHunter3](#): > > I said there was a valid sense in which self-preservation means not going to the rape night club. But if every woman did that, the rapists would move on to the next night club and make that one the rape night club. And if every woman continued the self-preservationist behavior and ceased going to any and all night clubs, the rapists would move on to wherever the women were, in order to rape them. And the women’s range of freedom shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until they’re locked behind walls with the threat of rape keeping them there. to which you replied > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No, the rapists don’t travel from night club to night club they don’t go out searching for people to rape. Leave transgender women out of this, for the moment, unless you want to say that the allegory falls apart at this point and that what is true of women risking rape is not true of transgender women going on dates. Just focus on the women being raped at the rape night club. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2017, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/421 "2017-11-21T23:52:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > No, the rapists don’t travel from night club to night club they don’t go out searching for people to rape. > > Or are you saying that the transgender beatings are by men that go out there looking for transsexuals to beat up? > > Not dating total strangers without telling them will not eventually lead to transgender women staying at home and never peeking out of their homes. Thing is, most rape victims know their attackers. The whole “stranger jumping out of the bushes” isn’t as common. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378.md?page=22)