# 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:** 32
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/622 "2017-12-05T05:49:49Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Where on earth did you get the idea that mental illness has any basis whatsoever in science? > > “Mental illness” is a theory about being crazy — it dates back to the golden age of medical discovery and it reflects an optimistic hope that the human condition of being insane would prove to have a specific biomedical cause. But mostly that didn’t happen. In the rare cases where a proven biomedical cause was determined to be the source of behavioral and cognitive craziness, the illness was swiftly _removed from_ the auspices of psychiatry and handed over to the branch of medicine relevant to that biomedical condition — neurology in the case of epilepsy, internal medicine in the case of tertiary syphylis, endocrinology in the case of hypothyroidism. > > Perhaps you mean the whole thing about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression being caused by chemical imbalances? Surely those ailments are still classified as psychiatric!? Oh indeed they are — they just aren’t caused by chemical imbalances. Here’s how the chemical imbalances thing got started: some pharmaecuticals were found to blunt the most extreme symptoms displayed by psychotics in an institutional setting. There was a hopeful and optimistic suggestion that maybe those pharmaceuticals had those effects precisely because they addressed a medical deficit or blocked the action of some kind of medical agonist — a “chemical imbalance” — and that if we studied how the pharmaceuticals worked in the brain we’d quickly get a handle on the true nature of the underlying conditions and what they actually consisted of. But, nope, it simply isn’t so. Just as headaches are not aspirin-deficiency diseases, there was no chemical imbalance of that kind to be found even if the pharmaceuticals were wonderful as symptom relief. Actually they weren’t so wonderful even as symptom relief, but that’s a bit tangential to the point, which is that, no, regardless of what you may have heard, there is no medical science clearcut explanation of what any of the mental illnesses are and how they work at the brain level. > > What we do know is that the _label_ “mental illness” has a social function. It serves as a way of simultaneously discrediting the thoughts and behaviors of disturbing people, designating them as meaningless brain static, while giving the appearance of sympathetic and compassionate caring, which together excuse and exonerate the practice of involuntary incarceration and forced treatment of people. It masks the act of dealing with inconvenient and disturbing people as “for their own good” and therefore, magically, not a police function, not a coercive social response to them, oh no not at all, it’s a _caring_ intervention. They don’t appreciate it because they’re too crazy to know how crazy they are. We do it to them for their benefit, not ours, really we do. It’s for their own good. > > Sorry to say that latter insight comes from the social sciences. If you feel the need to confine yourself to what the physical sciences have to say about mental illness, you’re stuck with “their entire existence is an unresolved hypothesis”. > > Those same disparaged social sciences do shed some light on why someone might wish to perceive transgender people as “mentally ill” though. It’s a way of stripping away any and legitimacy of whatever _they_ may be saying about their identities and about gender in general, it sets the stage for declaring them to be “disturbed” (translation: _disturbing_), and it shifts the focus from “how do we need to change our collective behavior to better accommodate them as they’ve requested” to “how do we change or treat them with or without their consent since if they’re mentally ill they can’t decide that for themselves and it would just be for their own good anyhow”. The brain is a physical organ. Are you saying it can’t have the possibility of being damaged or abnormal like every other organ? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/623 "2017-12-05T06:11:45Z")
> [@CrazyTiger](#): > > Rather than bastardising science at the alter of healthcare, my advice would be that your country implement universal health care for all its citizens. My country has that, not only for its citizens but also for most other people in it. I’m from Spain. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@CrazyTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyTiger)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/624 "2017-12-05T08:23:37Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Where on earth did you get the idea that mental illness has any basis whatsoever in science? There is an entire medical framework built on physics, chemistry and biology to start with to qualify as a doctor. To become a psychiatrist one must become a doctor first. If you are suggesting that psychiatry is a black art then I agree. The maths and science is so complicated that it devolves into art. However to suggest mental illness has no basis in science is ludicrous. In particular psychiatry involves rigorous use of scientific method like any other branch of medicine. > [@AHunter3](#): > > “Mental illness” is a theory about being crazy — it dates back to the golden age of medical discovery and it reflects an optimistic hope that the human condition of being insane would prove to have a specific biomedical cause. But mostly that didn’t happen. In the rare cases where a proven biomedical cause was determined to be the source of behavioral and cognitive craziness, the illness was swiftly _removed from_ the auspices of psychiatry and handed over to the branch of medicine relevant to that biomedical condition — neurology in the case of epilepsy, internal medicine in the case of tertiary syphylis, endocrinology in the case of hypothyroidism. I’m no expert in the history of psychiatry, however I am well aware that it has a very chequered past. The history of psychiatry has largely been rendered irrelevant due to the pace of technological and scientific advancement. > [@AHunter3](#): > > \*\*Perhaps you mean the whole thing about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression being caused by chemical imbalances? \*\*Surely those ailments are still classified as psychiatric!? Oh indeed they are — they just aren’t caused by chemical imbalances. Here’s how the chemical imbalances thing got started: some pharmaecuticals were found to blunt the most extreme symptoms displayed by psychotics in an institutional setting. There was a hopeful and optimistic suggestion that maybe those pharmaceuticals had those effects precisely because they addressed a medical deficit or blocked the action of some kind of medical agonist — a “chemical imbalance” — and that if we studied how the pharmaceuticals worked in the brain we’d quickly get a handle on the true nature of the underlying conditions and what they actually consisted of. But, nope, it simply isn’t so. Just as headaches are not aspirin-deficiency diseases, there was no chemical imbalance of that kind to be found even if the pharmaceuticals were wonderful as symptom relief. Actually they weren’t so wonderful even as symptom relief, but that’s a bit tangential to the point, which is that, no, regardless of what you may have heard, there is no medical science clearcut explanation of what any of the mental illnesses are and how they work at the brain level. Those example certainly spring to mind. As somebody with two of those disorders I can assure you that there is a lot to be said for those medicines that are developed my medical scientists. > [@AHunter3](#): > > **What we do know is that the _label_ “mental illness” has a social function.** It serves as a way of simultaneously discrediting the thoughts and behaviors of disturbing people, designating them as meaningless brain static, while giving the appearance of sympathetic and compassionate caring, which together excuse and exonerate the practice of involuntary incarceration and forced treatment of people. It masks the act of dealing with inconvenient and disturbing people as “for their own good” and therefore, magically, not a police function, not a coercive social response to them, oh no not at all, it’s a _caring_ intervention. They don’t appreciate it because they’re too crazy to know how crazy they are. We do it to them for their benefit, not ours, really we do. It’s for their own good. A mental illness is problem with ones brain functioning incorrectly. That it is highly stigmatised where you come from is a great shame, and seemingly a massive source of paranoia on your part. The US does indeed have a problem with mass incarceration and observing the mindless hate towards transgender people in the US, I shudder to think how the mentally ill are treated across the board. Still, you are projecting the US’s societal ills onto a medical profession that dwarfs the United States. > [@AHunter3](#): > > Sorry to say that latter insight comes from the social sciences. If you feel the need to confine yourself to what the physical sciences have to say about mental illness, you’re stuck with “their entire existence is an unresolved hypothesis”. Mental illness is unresolved. I have limited regard for the social sciences in that their conclusions should not be used to bully scientists (including medical professionals and psychiatrists) into what they may conclude. Primarily I am referring to the demand that transgender people be declared not mentally ill because the social scientists think its mean. Tough. The science goes where it goes. > [@AHunter3](#): > > Those same disparaged social sciences do shed some light on why someone might wish to perceive transgender people as “mentally ill” though. It’s a way of stripping away any and legitimacy of whatever _they_ may be saying about their identities and about gender in general, it sets the stage for declaring them to be “disturbed” (translation: _disturbing_), and it shifts the focus from “how do we need to change our collective behavior to better accommodate them as they’ve requested” to “how do we change or treat them with or without their consent since if they’re mentally ill they can’t decide that for themselves and it would just be for their own good anyhow”. I don’t see how insisting transgendered people aren’t mentally ill helps them. If you need a team of psychiatrists, lawyers, surgeons and anaesthetists to help you cut your nuts off then there is probably something wrong with you. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/625 "2017-12-05T09:29:50Z")
> [@CrazyTiger](#): > > I look forward to reading all about it. > > Which branch of science would that be? Well, let me give you a hint. Which branch of science has anything to do with mental illness as a category? ---
**Author:** ![CrazyTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@CrazyTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyTiger)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/626 "2017-12-05T09:39:54Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Well, let me give you a hint. Which branch of science has anything to do with mental illness as a category? Neuroscience? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/627 "2017-12-05T09:43:45Z")
> [@CrazyTiger](#): > > Neuroscience? Psychology and psychiatry, actually. Now why don’t you see what _they_ think about gender. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@CrazyTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyTiger)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/628 "2017-12-05T10:07:56Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > **Psychology and psychiatry** , actually. Now why don’t you see what _they_ think about gender. lol. I’m a fan of both disciplines however I think describing either as a branch of science is being a little over generous, and that is being kind. Both disciplines do employ scientific method and are supported by science, i.e. physics, chemistry, biology and so forth. The true sciences though are by their very nature unimpeachable. Take psychiatry in the US: Psychiatrists in the US are bystanders, cuckolded by their own deluded self importance and financial interests as a lunatic threatens life on earth. If psychiatry was really a science, the entire discipline would not be cowed to silence. Since they are so easily cowed by the social sciences on transgender issues it is hardly a surprise though. Feel free to share a collection of concise articles detailing your revelation that being transgender is not a mental illness though. I expect a broad consensus of psychiatrists and the majority of neuroscientists as well. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/629 "2017-12-05T10:54:36Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Lets say J Date didn’t have that. > … Then the people who really care would find some other way to find potential partners. I’ve learned from this thread that okcupid asks both whether you are trans and whether you are okay dating someone who is trans. Maybe, if you have need for a dating site, that would be a good one for you. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/630 "2017-12-05T11:01:56Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > We see biological age as the only useful marker for age because the reasons why biological age are relevant are all _biological_. Why can’t a 10-year-old drink while a 20-year-old can? Because alcohol is _really_ bad for people whose brains and bodies haven’t fully developed. … I would say that we use age as a proxy for maturity because it is convenient. And in cases where it is critically important, we allow the courts to declare otherwise. So, minors can sue to be emancipated from their parents, or can ask the courts (themselves or via proxies) for permission for medical care their parents don’t approve. In many states, minors can marry with their parents consent. On the flip side, some people are legally recognized as incompetent despite their biological age. For less critical matters, like drinking, the proxy is good enough. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2017, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/631 "2017-12-05T11:07:37Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > The brain is a physical organ. Are you saying it can’t have the possibility of being damaged or abnormal like every other organ? No. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/632 "2017-12-05T11:14:15Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Doesn’t science also describe a phenomenon called gender dysphoria? Yes, and I think that’s a form of mental illness, especially if it’s serious. Some trans people suffer from gender disphoria. Some successfully transitioned and no longer suffer from gender disphoria. Others are born feeling a disconnect between body and brain, but don’t suffer from it and aren’t made ill by it. The child of a college friend says that he is really a guy, but he is okay with his female body, except for feeling a little impotent during sex. He has parents who met him where he was, and friends who are supportive and think of him as a guy, and I suspect those are reasons he doesn’t suffer from gender disphoria. > [@CrazyTiger](#): > > … > I don’t see how insisting transgendered people aren’t mentally ill helps them. If you need a team of psychiatrists, lawyers, surgeons and anaesthetists to help you cut your nuts off then there is probably something wrong with you. Yes, there probably is. But it’s something that might be cured or alleviated by those actions. That’s why people do it. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/633 "2017-12-05T11:20:04Z")
Speaking of that child-of-friends… It’s very weird to be with him. Physically, he is the spitting image of his mother when she was in college. Psychologically, he is the spitting image of his father, who has a very distinctive personality. It’s as if someone grafted the father’s soul into the mother’s body. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2017, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/634 "2017-12-05T11:31:01Z")
> [@CrazyTiger](#): > > However to suggest mental illness has no basis in science is ludicrous. In particular psychiatry involves rigorous use of scientific method like any other branch of medicine. Cite? > [@](#): > > Those example certainly spring to mind. As somebody with two of those disorders I can assure you that there is a lot to be said for those medicines that are developed my medical scientists. So in alleging that transgender people are “mentally ill” you’re embracing them as people akin to yourself, people with the same ailments that you consider yourself to have. The difference is, you’re armchair-diagnosing people who aren’t complaining about their own mental status. You are observing a cognitive and behavioral pattern that _you_ (not them) find provocatively disturbing and concluding from that that there is something wrong with their brains. Couldn’t be any other explanation. You flat-out do not know that. > [@](#): > > A mental illness is problem with ones brain functioning incorrectly. That it is highly stigmatised where you come from is a great shame, and seemingly a massive source of paranoia on your part. The US does indeed have a problem with mass incarceration and observing the mindless hate towards transgender people in the US, I shudder to think how the mentally ill are treated across the board. Still, you are projecting the US’s societal ills onto a medical profession that dwarfs the United States. Not really, no. The entire world in which psychiatry operates as a profession uses “mental illness” in roughly the same way. > [@](#): > > I have limited regard for the social sciences in that their conclusions should not be used to bully scientists (including medical professionals and psychiatrists) into what they may conclude. I have limited regard for the biomedical scientists in that their conclusions should not be used to discredit the insights of social activists and social critics. > [@](#): > > Primarily I am referring to the demand that transgender people be declared not mentally ill because the social scientists think its mean. No one anywhere should ever need to be declared “not mentally ill”. Mental illness is not a default — you don’t get to assume it. Everyone, everywhere, is owed the courtesy of not having their thought patterns disparaged by conflating atypical content with “meaningless brain static caused by the fact that your brain isn’t working correctly”. The only meaningful exceptions are where people identify _themselves_ as people with thinking/feelng/behaving problems. (They may do so in concurrence with a trained psychiatrist to whom they’ve gone for a diagnosis. The key point is that they themselves consider that a mental problem exists). Social scientists aren’t declaring transgender people to have been misdiagnosed as “mentally ill” beause it is mean. They are declaring it to have been a misdiagnosis because it is factually incorrect. They are saying that the mental processes of the people in question make rational and coherent sense and that there is not a problem with the behavior of their brains. > [@](#): > > I don’t see how insisting transgendered people aren’t mentally ill helps them If they aren’t asking you for “help”, you don’t get to “help” them. > [@](#): > > If you need a team of psychiatrists, lawyers, surgeons and anaesthetists to help you cut your nuts off then there is probably something wrong with you. I’ve listened to people who wish to receive sex reassignment surgery and to people who have had it done, and their reasons for doing so are coherent sensible and appropriate to their situation. Just because someone wants to do something that you can’t imagine wanting to have done, yourself, doesn’t make them “sick”, “wrong”, or dismissable as folks suffering from brain disease. I do not happen to be a person who opted for the surgery (or hormones or any other physiological modification geared towards allowing me to present as female-bodied). But I gave it consideration. I understood what it could do for me. There were advantages and disadvantages. In my case the advantages did not outweigh the disadvantages. There wasn’t a goddam thing wrong with my brain at the time that I thought about it. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/635 "2017-12-05T11:51:33Z")
> [@CrazyTiger](#): > > lol. I’m a fan of both disciplines however I think describing either as a branch of science is being a little over generous, and that is being kind. Then there is no such thing in science as a “mental disorder”, because there is no scientific discipline, at least according to you, that deals with the issue. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I would say that we use age as a proxy for maturity because it is convenient. And in cases where it is critically important, we allow the courts to declare otherwise. > > So, minors can sue to be emancipated from their parents, or can ask the courts (themselves or via proxies) for permission for medical care their parents don’t approve. In many states, minors can marry with their parents consent. > > On the flip side, some people are legally recognized as incompetent despite their biological age. > > For less critical matters, like drinking, the proxy is good enough. This is a fair critique. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@CrazyTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyTiger)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/636 "2017-12-05T12:17:25Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Cite? No citation necessary in this regard. > [@AHunter3](#): > > So in alleging that transgender people are “mentally ill” you’re embracing them as people akin to yourself, people with the same ailments that you consider yourself to have. I would say I see dramatic similarities yes. From personal experience I regard them as manifestations of a wildly different problem (not the same ailments) but via what I regard as the similar mental stupidity. > [@AHunter3](#): > > The difference is, you’re armchair-diagnosing people who aren’t complaining about their own mental status. I am making a pretty obvious observation. To group all transgender people as not complaining about their mental status is something that I would never do. You have no right to make such an assertion. > [@AHunter3](#): > > You are observing a cognitive and behavioral pattern that _you_ (not them)\*\* find provocatively disturbing and concluding from that that there is something wrong with their brains\*\*. Couldn’t be any other explanation. That is a statistically ludicrous assertion. > > You flat-out do not know that. I don’t find it provocatively disturbingly. At the risk of sounding sociopathic, it isn’t me who is profoundly unhappy and has to mutilate my body to appease an errant mind. I find it astonishingly that I am mentally ill, but if I decided I was a woman and wanted to cut my nuts off my psychiatrist would supposedly say, “thats entirely normal, so is anything else troubling you.” It is patently absurd. > [@AHunter3](#): > > Not really, no. The entire world in which psychiatry operates as a profession uses “mental illness” in roughly the same way. The world exists outside of the US. > [@AHunter3](#): > > I have limited regard for the biomedical scientists in that their conclusions should not be used to discredit the insights of social activists and social critics. I have the highest regard for biomedical scientists since they make me a functional human being. Social activists and social critics should keep their uneducated bibs out of science. > [@AHunter3](#): > > No one anywhere should ever need to be declared “not mentally ill”. Mental illness is not a default — you don’t get to assume it. **Everyone, everywhere, is owed the courtesy of not having their thought patterns disparaged by conflating atypical content with “meaningless brain static caused by the fact that your brain isn’t working correctly”**. The only meaningful exceptions are where people identify _themselves_ as people with thinking/feelng/behaving problems. (They may do so in concurrence with a trained psychiatrist to whom they’ve gone for a diagnosis. The key point is that they themselves consider that a mental problem exists). So unless a schizophrenic agrees he is is schizophrenic it aint so? > [@AHunter3](#): > > Social scientists aren’t declaring transgender people to have been misdiagnosed as “mentally ill” beause it is mean. **They are declaring it to have been a misdiagnosis because it is factually incorrect.** They are saying that the mental processes of the people in question make rational and coherent sense and that there is not a problem with the behavior of their brains. Appearing rational and coherent does not necessarily mean someone doesn’t have a problem with their brain. > [@AHunter3](#): > > I’ve listened to people who wish to receive sex reassignment surgery and to people who have had it done, and their reasons for doing so are coherent sensible and appropriate to their situation. Just because someone wants to do something that you can’t imagine wanting to have done, yourself, doesn’t make them “sick”, “wrong”, or dismissable as folks suffering from brain disease. > > I do not happen to be a person who opted for the surgery (or hormones or any other physiological modification geared towards allowing me to present as female-bodied). But I gave it consideration. I understood what it could do for me. There were advantages and disadvantages. In my case the advantages did not outweigh the disadvantages. There wasn’t a goddam thing wrong with my brain at the time that I thought about it. You take being mentally ill as a person insult. It probably is in the US judging from the political state of your country. However, it really isn’t. Your body and mind will eventually fail and you will die like everyone else. You aren’t special, there is something wrong with your brain. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/637 "2017-12-05T12:34:27Z")
> [@CrazyTiger](#): > > lol. I’m a fan of both disciplines however I think describing either as a branch of science is being a little over generous, and that is being kind. Both disciplines do employ scientific method and are supported by science, i.e. physics, chemistry, biology and so forth. > > The true sciences though are by their very nature unimpeachable. Take psychiatry in the US: Psychiatrists in the US are bystanders, cuckolded by their own deluded self importance and financial interests as a lunatic threatens life on earth. If psychiatry was really a science, the entire discipline would not be cowed to silence. Since they are so easily cowed by the social sciences on transgender issues it is hardly a surprise though. > > Feel free to share a collection of concise articles detailing your revelation that being transgender is not a mental illness though. I expect a broad consensus of psychiatrists and the majority of neuroscientists as well. So to sum up, you want scientific evidence but will reject any scientific evidence provided by the scientists most relevant to the research area in question, for a reason that is incoherent nonsense. Unless you have some scientific evidence for the following, of course? > [@](#): > > Psychiatrists in the US are bystanders, cuckolded by their own deluded self importance and financial interests as a lunatic threatens life on earth. If psychiatry was really a science, the entire discipline would not be cowed to silence. Since they are so easily cowed by the social sciences on transgender issues it is hardly a surprise though. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2017, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/638 "2017-12-05T12:57:19Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > In his “Philosophy of Antifa” [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ) I’ve been meaning to make a thread about, Oliver SomeLastNameIDK makes a point about fascist speech I think applies well here too. > Link to specific section, but the whole video is good: > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS\_FMZ3nQ&feature=youtu.be&t=43m53s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwS_FMZ3nQ&feature=youtu.be&t=43m53s) > (Note that he’s using “Liberal” in the classical sense here, as in the philosophy of Liberalism, not left wing). > > I’m not implicating any specific person, but the drive-by newbies and Youtube commenters and other assorted randos, when they make these claims they’re not necessarily saying that it’s _true_, they’re merely spreading a message to onlookers of the thread or video. It’s a message that doesn’t mean “children are mutilating their bodies because they’re a little confused and then regret it” or “men are pretending to be women to rape little girls in the women’s room”, it means “I want to persecute transgender people” and a signal for others to join in or look further into that message underlying the words they’re actually saying. What you are suggesting is a quick road to a liberal bubble. First you have to identify these statements as the equivalent of “it’s Wednesday” That requires a bit of debate. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2017, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/639 "2017-12-05T13:08:46Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Then the people who really care would find some other way to find potential partners. I’ve learned from this thread that okcupid asks both whether you are trans and whether you are okay dating someone who is trans. Maybe, if you have need for a dating site, that would be a good one for you. I don’t think that the vast majority of the population should regulate their behavior to avoid something that is so rare, rather I think the burden is on the person with the rare condition or rare requirement to make this known. So if you want to date trans, you should say so. If you are trans, you should say so. They also ask if you’re woman and if you believe as Miller does that transwomen are women. Full Stop. Then why not just answer that you are a woman, full stop? ---
**Author:** ![CrazyTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8dc957/32.png) [@CrazyTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyTiger)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/640 "2017-12-05T13:15:40Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > So to sum up, you want scientific evidence but will reject any scientific evidence provided by the scientists most relevant to the research area in question, for a reason that is incoherent nonsense. Unless you have some scientific evidence for the following, of course? No. I am merely pointing out that neither psychiatry or psychology are sciences in the true sense. This is not in dispute. Please direct me to any reputable source that claims either discipline is actually one of the sciences. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2017, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378/641 "2017-12-05T13:19:00Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > …it shifts the focus from “how do we need to change our collective behavior to better accommodate them as they’ve requested” to “how do we change or treat them with or without their consent since if they’re mentally ill they can’t decide that for themselves and it would just be for their own good anyhow”. When if ever was our focus “how do we need to change our collective behavior to better accommodate them as they’ve requested” Some requests are reasonable: Hey, I have lady parts and I look and dress like a woman, I’d like to use the ladies room. Some requests are not reasonable: Anyone that doesn’t want to date a transwoman should explicitly say so on their dating profile because I don’t want to disclose that I’m a transwoman on my dating profile so I can go out with guys that probably don’t want to date me but maybe they will change their minds after they get to know me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-all-transgendered-people-mentally-ill/800378.md?page=33)