Is transgender really a mental disorder like everyone says?

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I question your doctors credibility. There is a specific standard of care [Linky] for transfolk and pumping the patient full of drugs is not standard practice. Certified surgeons will not operate unless there's documentation that these standards were followed.





No one has ever said that there was a specific way to treat mental disorders. Medications and therapy are only the most common treatments because they're all we really have in our little bag of tricks for most, not all, disorders. We're simply are not technologically and medically advanced enough to do make any major changes to brain structure without any permanent, if not fatal, repercussions. Gender Dysphoria is only one of many mental disorders that do not respond to any medications and very have limited success in therapy. Since all the options for treatment do not work, the only options left is to either let the patient transition or give up on them. The point of the surgeries is not to cure but to let the patient cope easier.



I googled for the term and the only thing that comes up is a Wikipedia page with three short paragraphs and no citations. From what I read in the wiki page, it's an attempt to separate mental disorders from ones that can be tested for and ones that can't. Since there is no test for Gender Dysphoria, I can't see how it helps. Although we know it has to do with brain structure, there hasn't been enough testing and research to make a diagnostic test out of it. Thus it would not be labeled as a Physical Disorder.

That makes sense to me. Being born in the wrong body is a disorder, but the only medical treatment is to alter the body so that it matches a person's self-image. The brain cannot and should not be "fixed", so it's a disorder of the body and not of the brain.

I think a lot of people are confusing gender identity with how masculine/feminine someone is. Obviously they are generally linked, but someone can be much more masculine or feminine than their sex stereotype is supposed to be, but not identify as a different sex.

For example a woman can have a very "male brain" and still identify completely as a woman. That's not the same as a FTM (female to male) transsexual - a FTM could even be quite feminine.

As far as I'm concerned there are different things getting mixed up here:

Physical sex - whether you're born male, female, intersex

Assigned gender - whether you're raised as a boy or a girl (usually corresponds to physical sex

Gender identity - whether you FEEL male, female or both/neither

Level of masculinity/femininity - often related to physical sex, usually related to gender identity, but not always related to either (ie feminine gay men, or masculine women)

All of the above are seperate and very different things. And people can come in any combination. The only exception really is that assigned gender is almost always the same as physical sex, except in the cases where a baby is born obviously (physically) intersex

I hope that makes sense.

For the record, I am physically female (as far as I know - outwardly anyway), assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, gender identity is definitely male and I am fairly masculine I think.

But my point is that I don't identify as male BECAUSE I'm masculine. Someone can be a masculine woman or a feminine guy.