Anti science democrat party and Sarah McBride!
- Thread starter Wolverine
- Start date
Encouraging them to do what they do and pretend it isn't a mental illness isn't working based on the results.
A 10x greater suicide rate.
Who said they encouraged them to make that decision?
StoneByStone
It's OK to Be White
I said trans people aren't a problem, as in they don't harm society. But I never said gender dysphoria isn't a condition that causes people who have it to suffer. And that's why I support the science that helps people deal with it.
A lot of them do get the help they need, which is sometimes sexual reassignment surgery.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
That was deep ... like a cool glass of water.
StoneByStone
It's OK to Be White
Because I care about data, I don't consider it to be a mental illness. But I do consider it to be a condition that causes people pain, so I'm glad that doctors have ways to help trans people deal with it safely.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acps.13164
During 2016, when there was an uptick in trans suicides, the scientific community began to stop treating gender dysphoria like a disease. In 2019, the WHO formally removed it from the International Classification of Diseases. As you can see, the number of suicides has been dropping since 2016.
Now that being said, trans people are still much more likely to commit suicide than cis people. However, all the data shows that sex reassignment surgery helps.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
I genuinely appreciate your concern for people on this matter. I tend to think mostly along your lines of reasoning. Where you and I seem to differ is in your seeming unwillingness to acknowledge that there is something abnormal about the mental condition of the gender-confused.
I totally understand the aversion to loaded terms. When discussing a topic such as this I want to avoid all stigma and judgementalism. At the same time, we can't have any sort of productive discussion if we are required to ignore the elephant in the room.
Those who are gender-confused commit suicide far more frequently simply because believing one is of the wrong biological gender understandably puts one in an insufferable position. The situation is not helped by wearing different clothes or even by undergoing a medical procedure. The suicide rate doesn't decrease after sex-change operations; they simply denote that one was desperate enough to try having a procedure to see if it might help. Many who have such operations discover that not only has it not helped but they see the irreparable damage they have inflicted upon their own bodies.
I claim that if one truly cares about the gender-confused that a trained psychologist should be recommended/made available immediately upon discovery of said condition to address the mental health. We don't need to use terms like "mentally ill" or "freaks" or even "unnatural." Gender-confusion is a 100% natural occurrence. It is not synthetic and it is not artificial. It is, however, abnormal. I don't see how this topic can be rationally addressed without acknowledging the abnormality or the seriousness of gender-confusion.
"Abnormal" is a statistical term. In that sense, you're correct. And what does "gender-confused" means? They know their own biological sexes.
Those who think it's a mental illness are the ones who is ignoring the elephant in the room.
That's a different topic. It appears that suicide has more to do with drug abuse, depression and others.
Also, most transgender people don't want surgery.
That is why gender dysphoria is in DSM. When a transgender person suffers from it, they treat it.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
Correct. That is the semantic being used, i.e. statisitcal. No stigma, no judgement, just the acknowledgement that it is not normal.
Nope. They are specifically confused about their gender, believing that they are of a gender that differs from what their biology indicates.
I totally share your desire to remove all loaded terms from the discussion. In that effort I claim that if we remove even the terms necessary to have a productive discussion that we cannot therefore have a productive discussion.
We need: "Abnormal" and "Gender-confused"
If you take those terms away then you won't make any progress. You will be trying to make people feel better in a way that won't make them feel better and won't help them.
Nope. It is directly linked. Denial of this will totally undermine any progress you might try to make in reducing the suicide rate of the gender-confused. The drugs and alcohol are incidental to the gender-confusion.
Yes, this is what I meant when I wrote that a sex-change operation simply denotes how far someone is willing to go to try to find some sort of relief.
That word "treat" implies success. Better wording is that they address it by attempting to treat it.
No debate on that one.
Again, they are not confused about their biological sexes. Ever wonder why the terms "sex" and "gender" are related and yet different? And why "transgender" has the term "gender" in it?
As I have stated, "abnormal" is not in dispute. We do not need "Gender-confused".
Suicide is not being discussed.
Plenty of people are willing to have cosmetic surgery. Also have tattoos.
Gender dysphoria treatment has been a success.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
Correct. They are confused about their gender.
I respect your opinion; I simply do not share it. I claim you will admirably continue projecting great compassion for your fellow man ... but you won't move the line of scrimmage any.
I was certainly discussing it.
It is interesting that you refer to a sex-change operation and to hormone therapy as "cosmetic."
What is your measure of "success"? Thus far we have not had any gender-confusion treatment that has had any effect on removing gender-confusion. The only success has been in the completely natural process of allowing children to grow out of phases that might have indicated gender-confusion.
What does that mean? You have not explained.
In order for anyone to accept the term, "gender-confused", you'd have to explain in detail what it means.
That's fine. As I have stated, there are other factors at play.
I didn't mention hormone therapy. Tell me, what is cosmetic surgery for?
See my comment above.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
One of the problems we face is the limitation on language. We are trying to apply an appropriately descriptive label to something very complex and intangible.
What I mean by "gender-confusion" is that sense of confusion when someone in question perceives his/her gender not matching his/her obvious biological gender and having that feeling "this isn't right," i.e. gender confusion.
It's included in said medical procedures.
Superficial appearance only, not anything substantive affecting health. Doctors take the Hippocratic oath to do no harm. They aren't supposed to remove a penis if it is healthy. They aren't supposed to remove a healthy appendix, even as a preventative measure so that you never get appendicitis. Putting aside the ethics issues, this can nonetheless serve as a delinieation of what type of procedure is purely superficial and what bears substance on someone's health.
Good question, btw.
"perceives his/her gender not matching his/her obvious biological gender"
There it is. You said biological gender, not biological sex.
"This isn't right" is the brain structure that is of different gender.
No it doesn't. Hormones therapy is simply taking pills.
Actually they are required to have counseling sessions before getting cosmetic surgery. It's not whimsical.
That's a progress.
