"Gender identity" is mental illness

[Martin_Hyde]

@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.