# "Gender identity" is mental illness **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 23, 2013, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011 "2013-08-23T22:38:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/241 "2013-08-28T14:44:56Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I for one don’t understand the significance of what you wrote in post #96. It’s tangential, but you’d have to read my first post and **SlackerInc** ’s complaint later on. > [@](#): > > ISTM that you were distinguishing between people who have delusions (or miplaced shame) and people with other conditions. But it’s not clear why that distinction matters. What? The entire thread is about the idea that TG people are delusional. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/242 "2013-08-28T15:03:34Z")
This thread is like whack-a-mole. Asked about the difference in mannerisms and social cues and body language and how it develops, I explain about the development of female comportment, and that there are actually teachers of it, mostly for transwomen but sometimes for other women. Then the rebuttal from a different contemporary is that a teacher of that is disrespectable via their profession. Now we travel to how some women don’t want female comportment…we’re getting sort of all over the map here. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/243 "2013-08-28T15:20:14Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > My entire point was that the OP’s comments were _of a piece_ with arguments that characterize transgenders as flakes or nuts and say they don’t have a real medical condition. In the first couple of posts the OP said identifying as TG is a delusion, that the bodies of post-OP transgenders are “mutilated” and that he is “opposed” to that treatment because it’s “self-harm” and “disturbing” - in hindsight that was kind of revealing - and that “let’s face it: their sex is not changed,” as if this were something everybody really agrees about but some people won’t admit. It’s undeniable they are dysphoric, but someone with GID isn’t necessarily delusional. But I do think they can be, it would come down to the individuals thought processes. If someone accepts that they are biologically a male, but also accepts that they are deeply uncomfortable with being the male gender and suffer distress, depression and various other ills that can only be alleviated by living as a female then I wouldn’t say that the person is delusional at all. They instead appropriately recognize both their biological reality and have come to terms with their dysphoria. How they choose to proceed would be an individual choice. My opinion on that has evolved, I used to feel it was medically irresponsible to allow people to modify their bodies due to dysphorias, as there are other forms of dysphoria where we would actually step in to prevent the patient from doing this. The reason my opinion has evolved has primarily been informed by my conservative, small government beliefs. With many dysphorias where the person has extremely unhealthy body images issues and actually threaten their overall physical well being (say people that believe they are fat and starve themselves to death) I think it is medically irresponsible to respond to their dysphoria in such a way. But if someone’s desire is to receive hormone treatment so they can more effectively live their desire to present themselves as the opposite sex, or even SRS then I can’t see where we have a right to step in to stop that, as long as the person is judged to be able to make rational decisions for themselves. As a person with no dysphoria, if I wanted to take hormones or even modify my genitalia “just for the hell of it” I do not see how it’s anyone or the government’s right to have a say on that, so if someone is doing it to make themselves feel better as a result of a dysphoric disorder I have no issue with that. Now, if someone with GID also asserts they are **actually** a different biological sex, then they are in contravention to accepted science. A classical definition of a delusion is a belief held despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, a person with XY is sexually male, period. If someone cannot accept that, they are delusional. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/244 "2013-08-28T15:33:10Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > It’s tangential, but you’d have to read my first post and **SlackerInc** ’s complaint later on. > > What? The entire thread is about the idea that TG people are delusional. I think I got all that. The question is whether there is a fundamental difference between people who have delusions and people who have non-delusional gender identity issues, such that people who think the latter are really the former are calling them “nuts and flakes”. The implication of your posts has been that delusional people can be mocked as “nuts and flakes”, and it’s therefore insulting - rather than merely incorrect - to suggest that trans people are delusional. Slacker’s point has been that people who have any sort of mental issues are not to be mocked, and that there’s nothing insulting - however incorrect it might be - to suggest that trans people are delusional. And conversely that you, by mocking delusional people as nuts and flakes, were the insensitive one. Your position seems to be that delusional people really are nuts and flakes, and that he’s therefore being insensitive by suggesting that trans people might be delusional. And this is where I don’t get the significance of the distinction you’re making. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Now, if someone with GID also asserts they are **actually** a different biological sex, then they are in contravention to accepted science. A classical definition of a delusion is a belief held despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, a person with XY is sexually male, period. If someone cannot accept that, they are delusional. I disagree with this. It’s a dispute over semantics, not a delusion. If they insisted that their genitalia and/or chromosones were different than they actually are, then they would be delusional. But if they just insist that a personi’s gender should be determined by what’s in their head and not genitalia or chromosones, there’s nothing delusional about that. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/245 "2013-08-28T15:35:34Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > It’s undeniable they are dysphoric, but someone with GID isn’t necessarily delusional. But I do think they can be, it would come down to the individuals thought processes. If someone accepts that they are biologically a male, but also accepts that they are deeply uncomfortable with being the male gender and suffer distress, depression and various other ills that can only be alleviated by living as a female then I wouldn’t say that the person is delusional at all. They instead appropriately recognize both their biological reality and have come to terms with their dysphoria. I wouldn’t argue with this. I don’t know how many people actually fall into the second category but that sounds more like a delusion. I don’t think that’s who we’re really talking about when we talk about this condition. And I take your point about what you were saying to **Der Trihs**. There’s some support for the idea of brain differences but it hasn’t yet been backed up by larger scale studies. The bit about seeing the differences but being unable to detect them with scans did ping my radar. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/246 "2013-08-28T15:43:36Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Now, if someone with GID also asserts they are **actually** a different biological sex, then they are in contravention to accepted science. A classical definition of a delusion is a belief held despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, a person with XY is sexually male, period. If someone cannot accept that, they are delusional. No, it doesn’t mean they delusional, it means they have a different definition of “sex” than you do. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/247 "2013-08-28T15:43:41Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Can you imagine how a kid might feel if he was born into a black community to black parents, but had a skin condition that made him whiter than Phil Donoghue? Can you imagine that kid being ostracized by his parents, by his friends, by his community because he wasn’t one of them, even though inside he knew he was exactly like them? Can you imagine how he might feel every time he looked in the mirror, and how he might seek out a treatment that would give him the skin color that matches his internal view of himself so he could be accepted by the community he feels part of and be literally comfortable in his own skin for the first time in his life? [The local free weekly ran an article on such a person several years ago.](http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/9757/white-on-black) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/248 "2013-08-28T15:45:41Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > The implication of your posts has been that delusional people can be mocked as “nuts and flakes”, and it’s therefore insulting - rather than merely incorrect - to suggest that trans people are delusional. Can? It’s not a hypothetical possibility, it’s something that happens. There’s been some of it in this thread, but it was much more common in the past. > [@](#): > > Slacker’s point has been that people who have any sort of mental issues are not to be mocked And he’s right about that. Of course, that’s something he said a good deal later- long after the statements about delusion and mutilation. > [@](#): > > Your position seems to be that delusional people really are nuts and flakes I seem to have been wasting my time discussing this with you. ---
**Author:** ![AnthonyElite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/249 "2013-08-28T15:49:22Z")
> [@miss\_elizabeth](#): > > I don’t think that would happen, but I think it’s a good idea regardless. 🙂 > Let’s do this! > Posting hate speech made him my enemy. If he was interested in rationally discussing facts, he could have posted an OP that wasn’t dehumanizing and transphobic. > > Uh oh, the tone police arrived! > > Yeah… no. He’s wrong, and tiptoeing around that is a disservice to all the smarter, kinder people who bother to do a little research before they come on here and insult valued board members. I don’t have an obligation to hold someone’s hand and gently lead them down the path to righteousness. > > You wanna call my friends crazy? Then you’re asking for what you get, buddy. > > Hilarious. > > (you are, in fact, wrong. but thanks for playing!!) Good input! Really strides the movement forward I think. Perhaps I should take up for the opposition just for the blanket hostility. I’m not the tone police, and I didn’t intend to be. I was simply telling you then when you start foaming at the mouth I don’t take you seriously. As for the second part, snark aside…how am I wrong? Where in the consensus? Don’t avoid the question because you don’t like the answer - that there isn’t. He actually didn’t post any hate speech either. He posted all of this in great debates, not GQ. In other words he sees it as up for debate. I might think everything he said was awful and wrong…but possibly legitimately and honestly ignorant. He has some bad ideas, but at least he is questioning them. I understand the need for transgendered people to be accepted. But, as a straight male, I personally feel the need to understand my own feelings in relation to transgendered issues. Unfortunately between the wear and tear of day-to-day life, and needing to stay current on so many other issues it can be difficult to do so. I just wish I saw more of the Martin Luther King Jr approach to the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/250 "2013-08-28T15:51:06Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I seem to have been wasting my time discussing this with you. Very possible. Whatever. Truth is that I wouldn’t have commented on this, had you not made an implication from silence that everyone agrees with you. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/251 "2013-08-28T15:56:16Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > There have also been occasions when people who have known me for years have, upon coming up behind me, addressed me as “sir” having _mistaken me for a small man_. This is not something I do intentionally, and it usually involves something like winter clothing, but the point is that despite being raised a girl and identifying as a girl I apparently sometimes have body language, a walk, and other “male” signals. My SO gets this in similar situtations from strangers. We were at a diner once in the middle of winter, the size of her bust obscured by her clothes. I still think the watiress assumed we were a gay couple. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/252 "2013-08-28T15:58:20Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > And this is where I don’t get the significance of the distinction you’re making. The distinction is that “flakes and nuts” was not **Marley** ’s characterization the mentally ill, it was how **Marley** thought **SlackerInc** would characterize the mentally ill. Turns out, assuming he would treat the mentally ill with the same level of disdain and lack of compassion he exhibits towards the transgendered was incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/253 "2013-08-28T16:07:44Z")
A false belief isn’t the same as a clinical delusion. I don’t think it adds a bit to our understanding to say that transgendered people are delusional or mentally ill; it’s just a way to insult them. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/254 "2013-08-28T16:13:16Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > The distinction is that “flakes and nuts” was not **Marley** ’s characterization the mentally ill, it was how **Marley** thought **SlackerInc** would characterize the mentally ill. No, it’s about how the transgendered were characterized in GD threads in years past. > [@Marley23](#): > > The consensus on this board now is that this is a real medical condition and not just something that afflicts flakes or nuts. That was not always the case. That consensus now exists because people who knew what they were talking about spent years making solid logical arguments and sharing their experiences. You are welcome to read some of the links **tomndebb** posted if you want to see some of those. I assure you you are not going to say anything on this subject that lots of other people haven’t already said. You’re even falling back on the nasty habit of referring to gender reassignment surgery as “mutilation” just to make a (phony) rhetorical point. Try reading some previous discussions. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/255 "2013-08-28T16:27:50Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Ok. Do you accept the explanation I gave in post #96, or would you insist that doesn’t count? > > My entire point was that the OP’s comments were _of a piece_ with arguments that characterize transgenders as flakes or nuts and say they don’t have a real medical condition. … I accept the explanation. I also accept the intent of the op as stated, - is GID a dysfunction of the mind best treated by aiming at that, the mind, as the target of intervention? The answer seems pretty incontrovertibly to be no, (again it is a dysfunction resultant of a mismatch, a discordance, and changing the status of the brain’s gender identity seems to be not possible while changing external appearance gender identity is more malleable) but despite the past threads, _many_ of us (by which I mean me :)) entered this discussion ignorant of the facts that establish that answer. > [@Una\_Persson](#): > > This thread is like whack-a-mole. … Well the subject _does_ involve a whole mess of intersecting areas that have unclear definitions. Little asides here have been the subjects for many whole series of GD threads and philosophical debates over the years, many of which have no clear answers: What is mental illness vs a difference? Is my distinction calling it difference if it does not cause pain and dysfunction and an illness if it does fair? What if the cause of the pain is due exclusively to the reactions of majority society? Being gay in a conservative society results in a painful existance, yet it is the society that has the dysfunction, the disease, the disorder, and which needs to the target of intervention, not the gay individual, for example. What _is_ gender identity especially in comparison to gender roles and gender related behaviors? How much of each is innate versus the result of cultural socialization? What defines one as being a man or being a woman? Is a woman less of a woman if she prefers to hang with men as friends, prefers traditionally male activities, does not like make-up or girly clothings, and is competitive and aggressive? Is a man less of a man if he prefers to hang with female friends, prefers traditionally female activities, cares deeply about fashion, does the household cooking and a majority of the childcare, and prefers to collaborate than compete? Are female and male minds innately different in how they function? In what ways? Is the answer yes when discussing gender identity only but off-limits if discussing anything else? How do we know that others’ experiences of qualia is the same as ours? Or different? I am not looking for answers to all those questions but with so many fuzzy and contentious subjects all occupying the same discussion space a bit of whack-a-mole has to be expected, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/256 "2013-08-28T16:27:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > No, it’s about how the transgendered were characterized in GD threads in years past. Context. You were addressing Slacker and explaining why he had to read the prior posts. So the implication was that his position amounted to that characterization, such that he could learn from the prior threads how his position was vanquished through years of solid logical arguments and shared experiences. I suppose you might argue that leaving aside the “nuts and flakes” aspect, Slacker’s position was otherwise similar to the arguments which were vanquished. But in that case you shouldn’t have introduced that extraneous aspect at all. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/257 "2013-08-28T16:44:05Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I disagree with this. It’s a dispute over semantics, not a delusion. > > If they insisted that their genitalia and/or chromosones were different than they actually are, then they would be delusional. But if they just insist that a personi’s gender should be determined by what’s in their head and not genitalia or chromosones, there’s nothing delusional about that. Gender isn’t the same as biological sex. It isn’t a semantic difference, gender and sex are very different words and there is no real scientific basis for asserting that mammalian sex is determined by anything other than chromosomes. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/258 "2013-08-28T16:46:17Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > No, it doesn’t mean they delusional, it means they have a different definition of “sex” than you do. An incorrect definition. This isn’t the difference between my definition of “free market capitalism” and Rush Limbaugh’s definition of same, it’s like the difference between my definition of “evolution” and a Young Earth Creationist’s definition of intelligent design. Mammalian sex is well established by biology, it isn’t based on perceptions or individual feelings on the matter. Not all animals have chromosomally defined sex, but mammals do. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/259 "2013-08-28T16:48:35Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Gender isn’t the same as biological sex. It isn’t a semantic difference, gender and sex are very different words and there is no real scientific basis for asserting that mammalian sex is determined by anything other than chromosomes. We’ve been defining “man” and “woman” for millennia before we even knew what a chromosome was. A strictly chromosomal definition of sex is useful in certain very narrow circumstances, but there’s no particular reason we have to adopt it as the lay definition of the term. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011/260 "2013-08-28T16:50:06Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > An incorrect definition. This isn’t the difference between my definition of “free market capitalism” and Rush Limbaugh’s definition of same, it’s like the difference between my definition of “evolution” and a Young Earth Creationist’s definition of intelligent design. Mammalian sex is well established by biology, it isn’t based on perceptions or individual feelings on the matter. > > Not all animals have chromosomally defined sex, but mammals do. What about women who have [androgen insensitivity syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome)? They are born looking like girls, with female genitalia. They grow up as women, and are raised as women. They have XY chromosomes. Obviously human sex is more than chromosomes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gender-identity-is-mental-illness/667011.md?page=14)