Agree or disagree: Transgender should be a medical condition

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True that when going by the rules very few people who aren't really transgender end up transitioning, but it does happen. Also many transgender activists are fighting against the standards of care and want to make it easier to transition. I honestly believe regret and detransition is going to increase in the next few years.

I would only say that this wouldn't be a true indicator if the person was being extremely harassed during the "real-life" test. In my case, I have an underlying mental condition that is triggered by an intense amount of stress. The stress of not being able to transition alongside being harassed during the real life test was triggering it.

If I didn't find an understanding therapist, I would have never transitioned and had my mental health vastly improve as a result.



Still, 90% still seems very low satisfaction rate. I would love it to be as high as 95%-98%. It would shut the transphobic people up who say it is a phase or a mental illness.



Transgender activists are fighting for people who will actually benefit for the surgery. Many believe that these standards of care are just a discriminatory barrier for them. They don't seem to realize that the standards of care aren't meant for transgender people.

The WPATH is to help people who are not transgender; to make sure they don't make a big mistake they'll regret. Unfortunately, the interests of the transgender community are opposite to the interests of those who are only temporarily confused and need further guidance.

Believe me, I hate WPATH. I hate I had to go through the process, because I knew all along. I hated waiting for almost four years to be able to get hormones and top surgery. Even when I had documented evidence since I was four years old saying I was a boy. I believe the standards are horrible for transgendered people who don't have insurance, are poor, or don't have passing privilege.

At the same time, it will hurt the transgender cause to have really, truly temporarily ill or delusionanal people be able to cause life changing properties so suddenly. It will only let the general public sneer at transgender people and the transition process itself when the satisfaction rate dips.

However, I can really see how these standards of care would have helped me if I wasn't so certain.

I guess this thread can double as diagnosis category/debate on terms of care.

I think a lot of it has to do with age. I was one of the "different since a child" trans folk. I was seeing a therapist about it in my teenage years and started HRT at 18. I transitioned before I had any real established adult life, and therefor have lost nothing.
People who have more to lose, are going to have a higher chance of regret after transition.

Honestly, starting HRT was one of the best things I've ever done for my own mental health. However if I would have had to do a year of "real life experience" (Living fulltime as your preferred gender, whatever that means...) I probably would have killed myself.

Expecting "real life experience" is cruel.


EDIT: What exactly are these statistics of regret for. Is this the entire process of transition, or just surgery?

I disagree.
But Gender Dysphoria should be one.

Like the new DSM V is planing it.

I myself am not a Transsexual but when I was younger I really wanted to be the opposite gender and even saved money in piggy banks.

But just like homosexuality and Autism it will soon come to light that it is NOT an illness.

1.People should not be ashamed of mental conditions. In my opinion at-least.

2.In the case of people with XX chromosomes, born with male genitals (and vise versa), maybe, there should be a condition, for being born with the wrong genitals, but I'm not sure.

3.I don't know about other transgender people.

4.80-90% of male children (when I say male, what I mean is, they have male genitals), who identify themselves as female, identify themselves as male, after puberty (and vise versa).

I quite agree. But that's not always a huge help to those who have to live with them--particularly when their particular disorder interferes with perception or self-awareness.

2.In the case of people with XX chromosomes, born with male genitals (and vise versa), maybe, there should be a condition, for being born with the wrong genitals, but I'm not sure. [/quote]

There are a variety of diagnostic labels, depending upon the pathology of the inconsistent genitals. Most of these fall within the larger rubric of "intersex conditions." However, not all intersexed people are transgendered.



Where are you deriving this number from? Admittedly I've only read a small amount of journal literature on gender dysphoria, but I've never seen a study that has purported to identify self-identification in relation to puberty.

2.I have heard about intersex conditions, but I feel like these people might need a, more specific diagnosis. I don't know why I feel this way, I just do.

4.I saw it on a morning show. They were doing a topic on transgender children, and this percentage was mentioned.

One of the problems with the real life test is that it can be hard to pass for some if they don't have hormones or legal documents changed yet.

Also, a lot of trans people already live as their gender, and it's kind of redundant. The media likes stories of people presenting as one extreme and then transitioning into another (the trans woman who was once a registered male Marine, the trans man who used to be a bouncy cheerleader), but a lot of people bind, tuck, etc. in their daily lives and go about their business, just to relieve dysphoria and be seen correctly as what they are.

They can be "helped" but not cured.

It seems weird that this "friend" wants so bad for you to date a guy. Self-hating lesbian or (as you said) a bi woman who hates being seen as gay?

Even if, hypothetically, there was some one-in-a-million a guy for you, you still get to choose who you want to date. It seems obnoxious for someone to tell someone else who they should date. "Dude, you should, like, only date asian women." WTF?

There was one guy I had a crush on in my 40 years of life -- I so rarely find guys attractive that I have no inclination to go looking for the vanishingly rare ones that might exist.

I see my transgenderism as part of an intersex condition and therefore a medical thing. I understand that some people are offended by that, but I think that says more about their perception of what a medical condition or a disability is.

Intersex refers strictly to physical conditions and birth defects. Transgender is more of a mental thing.

Some intersex people can be trans, however.

I think it is, and the treatment is sex change therapy and the counselling that precedes it.
If it was seen as a condition like that I think it would be respected more as legitimite. So many people don't take trans people seriously and call the by their birth pronoun.

Unfortunately there is no satisfactory answer to this question (and believe me, it is a question which has been debated in trans spaces for years). It's true that gender identity is "just" something that is part of someone, like homosexuality is just something that is part of someone. However, gender dysphoria also happens to be a thing which causes a massive amount of distress to the people experiencing it, which puts it in a very different category than being gay, as being gay - homophobes and social attitudes aside - does not cause distress in and of itself. Because of the distress associated with it, it has to be treated as a medical condition, because if it wasn't, there would be no treatment for it.

Given the nature of this forum, I think it is most appropriate to draw a comparison between gender dysphoria and autism. Both are mental disorders, i.e. problems occuring within the brain, but both appear to be caused by physical brain differences, unlike things like depression or anxiety, which are caused by emotional and thought patterns developing in unhealthy ways. This of course means that the kind of treatment which works for other mental disorders has no effect on conditions like autism and transgenderism. If you are struggling to explain to someone with limited knowledge why transgenderism is a mental disorder which cannot be treated by therapy, this is what you need to explain. It can help to bring intersexed people into the discussion: an intersexed person is a transgendered person whose physical difference shows on the outside in addition to, or instead of, on the inside. There are also interesting comparisons to be drawn between the difficulty an autistic person has trying to behave like a neurotypical person, and the difficulty a transgender person has behaving in a way that is correct for their gender role.

Essentially, we are forced to classify transgenderism as a mental disorder because, like autism, nothing untoward is visible physically even though we know it is probably a physical phenomenon. We are also forced to classify it as a medical condition because those with a severe case require treatment. There is no other option which would work.

I'm a little surprised by this statement. You say you know a lot of trans people, so I can't believe you don't know any who have gone on to have a happy life despite being transgendered! I transitioned in my early 20s and am now in my early 30s, and can report that for me gender is now entirely a non-issue (I happen to be working through autism-related difficulties, but I am otherwise perfectly happy with the way I am). The vast majority of trans people are far happier after transition.

There are also some misunderstandings about statistics on the previous page - I am familiar with the studies giving the success rating (measured by an improvement in quality of life) for people who transition as 90%, and that is correct. However, that does not mean the remaining 10% regretted transitioning or wanted to transition back. Most of that remaining 10% found that it didn't measurably improve their quality of life, usually because those people struggled to "pass" as their target gender and experienced social rejection. The number of trans people who regret transition or decide to de-transition is well below 1% by all accounts from different sources I have ever come across. As has been well explained in previous posts, the screening process for allowing people to transition is very thorough - it has to be, because medical professionals can get into big trouble if a patient is damaged instead of helped by the process. This is one reason it's difficult to persuade the medical establishment to relax the rules.

That a good question I personally met one or two transsexual people. In my times. Is it medical maybe? Is it genetic possible. Is it a mental problem I do think so! Why because they try to be something there not! There is something we don't understand fully. What it is that they not that sex. They are born with. I known it sounds simple! But it not.



If your talking about transgender or transvestite. It's something different. If your ask the question. Either you don't know. Or your wonder why men want to wear dress. Or look like woman.



If your talking about androgynous men. The simple statement. That man can look like a woman. Or feminine male. That some men choice to wear feminine clothes. And still be males too!



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