You may be right about that, and perhaps the person in the article at the top of the thread was an unwitting customer? I don’t know.I don’t think that is how gender transitioning is being sold at all–and it is being sold.
As early as I can remember, I thought that I was a boy. I wanted to play with boys’ toys, play with my brother and my brother’s friends, not my sister. I was always being given girls’ toys, like Barbie…I wanted to be in the Cub Scouts so bad, and Boy Scouts. Instead I was in the Brownies, and I hated that. We were baking cookies, and I wanted to go camping…I was remembering just the other day…the Girl Scout leader yelling at me, saying, “Why do you always have to be so different, Barbara?”
I don’t think that an intense dislike of the trappings that are associated with women makes someone a man. You don’t like flowery dresses and dolls, so you must be a boy? Really? A lot of women don’t like dolls and flowery dresses. It doesn’t make them men.I had this feeling of just being in the wrong body. I just started to feel very uncomfortable and in fact became uncomfortable for the rest of my life, because you have to wear dresses. If you are a doctor, you have to wear a dress to go to the clinic. You have to wear a dress of funerals and wedding. Having to go to my sister’s wedding and wear this flowery dress. These are amongst the big traumatic experiences of my life!
Barres is describing a girl and then a woman who intensely disliked the trappings expected of women. Getting secondary sexual characteristics didn’t feel like the wrong body. It is described as feeling like a one-way ticket to the detested side of the clothing store! What that means is that Barres didn’t fit the stereotypes expected of women. Women who don’t fit stereotypes are not men. Heaven forbid! If we sent 21st century women back to 1860, you probably couldn’t get 1 in 5 to submit to the clothing expected of women. You couldn’t get us to submit to the educational expectations of what women can and cannot do. That wouldn’t make us all men! That would make us women who were not coping well with society’s boundaries!
He wasn’t even 21 and he was lead to believe that in irreversible surgery would lead him to his true self. Honestly, I think those who advocate for the availability of this surgery are so desperate to give it widespread acceptance as “the only life-saving treatment available” that they actually are trying to silence alternative voices who point out that the side-effects or the event of an incorrect diagnosis are every bit as serious and perhaps more so. (And that is just from a perspective that accepts the premise that one can even be born with “the wrong sex”, which is an extreme premise all on its own!)You may be right about that, and perhaps the person in the article at the top of the thread was an unwitting customer? I don’t know.
Maybe @OraLabora can elaborate on the situation of the sufferer and why it may justify surgeries.
What I can say is that WPATH, the gold-standard for transgender care, does not fast-track people to surgery. It proposes a spectrum of possible treatments ranging from psychological support only, through part-time presentation in the desired gender, full-time presentation, hormone therapy, and lastly surgery. It will not recommend surgery if a lesser treatment allows the patient to find harmony.Maybe @OraLabora can elaborate on the situation of the sufferer and why it may justify surgeries.
I do. We want to move the goalposts to keep the argument from being logically looked at.do not see a single reason to single out gender as being an exception to treatment options for body dysmorphia, excepting the political one: that is, gender dysmorphia has become a political issue and other forms of body dysmorphia have not.
Is it your belief that no person experiencing dysphoria suffers?Remember, this is about emotion, not actually treating a sickness.
If you met a transgendered woman, how then would you address her? He? Him? His? Sir? Mr?It is not OK to be mean to people who believe they have changed their sex. In spite of the need to be kind, however, this complication remains: there is no kindness that doesn’t also stick within the truth.
Well, I’d probably address the person as “you.” If I know the person as a child, when he was named “John,” but now this person goes as “Janet,” I’d probably go with Janet.If you met a transgendered woman, how then would you address her? He? Him? His? Sir? Mr?
You were answering my “do not see a single reason to single out gender …et cetera.”I do. We want to move the goalposts to keep the argument from being logically looked at.
Remember, this is about emotion, not actually treating a sickness.
That is not what I said.Is it your belief that no person experiencing dysphoria suffers?
What do you mean to say it’s not about “sickness”?That is not what I said.
I thought I was clear.What is your reason
I think you may need to read my post again.What do you mean to say it’s not about “sickness”?
Agreed.have an ethical problem with constructing a persona and propping it up with cosmetic surgery and hormone treatments
I only quoted a part of what Barres says and there’s more to his story than a simple dislike of the trappings expected of women. No need to trivialize the issue.I don’t think that an intense dislike of the trappings that are associated with women makes someone a man. You don’t like flowery dresses and dolls, so you must be a boy? Really? A lot of women don’t like dolls and flowery dresses. It doesn’t make them men.
Barres is describing a girl and then a woman who intensely disliked the trappings expected of women. Getting secondary sexual characteristics didn’t feel like the wrong body. It is described as feeling like a one-way ticket to the detested side of the clothing store! What that means is that Barres didn’t fit the stereotypes expected of women. Women who don’t fit stereotypes are not men. Heaven forbid! If we sent 21st century women back to 1860, you probably couldn’t get 1 in 5 to submit to the clothing expected of women. You couldn’t get us to submit to the educational expectations of what women can and cannot do. That wouldn’t make us all men! That would make us women who were not coping well with society’s boundaries!
On what grounds that you say transgenderism is a falsehood?I do not believe anything can be properly treated by embracing a falsehood.
Exactly. A brain that is wired differently, is not a “falsehood”, it is a concrete reality. That reality causes a disconnect between their perceived gender, and that of their body.I also notice that you tend to contrast a person’s outwardly visible anatomy which you describe as concrete and physical and real with what is in their head which is a “fantasy” or something psychological which has to do with their “feelings” and is false. But what is in a person’s head, their brain, is just as physical, concrete and real as the rest of their body. You haven’t really addressed the possibility that a person’s concrete, physical brain might have concrete, physical characteristics in the way that it’s wired that make it identify as one gender whereas the rest of their body has concrete, physical characteristics associated with the other sex.
I’m sure you are right. Your post reads: “Remember, this is about emotion, not actually treating a sickness.”I think you may need to read my post again.
You do not seem to have the meaning.
I don’t think people are scared. They balk at the notion that the problem could warrant the steps some take. They expect that such treatment (surgery) could only arise as appropriate if the circumstances of the individual are desperate. But stories of “desperation” are not so often being told. Look at the text quoted by @Thorolfr. Where is the desperation and misery that surely must have driven that person to surgery.I’m not sure I understand why this scares people so much.
I wonder though, why they should feel the need to interfere with others’ medical treatment? I can understand abortion, as it kills another human being. But what possible impact could gender surgery by a stranger have on people here?They balk at the notion that the problem could warrant the steps some take.
Why do people challenge quackery? I don’t suggest these treatments are that, but until the patient’s situation & the rational basis for such treatment is established, there is more than a passing resemblance to quackery.I wonder though, why they should feel the need to interfere with others’ medical treatment?
They should. The debate is whether it is actually sound.Why wouldn’t the transgendered base their treatment on sound medical advice
I also dislike describing many psychological conditions as a “sickness” or an “illness.” For example, ADHD is often referred to as a “mental illness” like all the other disorders in the DSM. But it’s more properly described I think as a “neurodevelopmental disorder.” It’s not something that someone contracts like the flu and is probably partially genetic in origin since it tends to run in families. Up until DSM-IV, symptoms had to be present before the age of seven for a diagnosis. In DSM-5, they must have been present since the age of 12. Either way, it’s something which first manifests itself in childhood.A second relevant question might be: “what is a sickness”. I’d suggest “sickness” suggests something you “contract” - maybe the better wording would be: “Is dysphoria a medical condition”?