(no subject)

[novapsyche]

There's always some idiot. Usually they're not stomping around psychology making stupid statements about transsexuality, though.

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Maybe once or twice a year someone proclaims that he is going to say something that isn't "PC" and goes on to say something that doesn't echo from having his head up his ass...OK, maybe not that often.

Grr.

[shadowriderhope.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. I just posted about this guy.

Yeah. I had to stop reading after a while, because I knew otherwise I'd be up all night and chewing him a new asshole.

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

where is he wrong? I'm seeing some agreement in the comments, and most dissent to this transphobic opinion is not well worded and very emotionally loaded.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

First of all, as someone in the comments expressed, the desire to augment oneself with surgery does not indicate the presence of mental illness. Otherwise, we'd be securing a lot of people who've had cosmetic surgery in tight jackets.

Secondly, where is it stated that people who enjoy "non-normative" views of themselves in the world are mentally ill? Normal is a statistical term. Everyone deviates in some form or another.

Thirdly, the person presenting the "argument" (it's really just an assertion not backed up by any sources whatsoever) didn't differentiate how other gender deviations do not indicate mental illness. So it's somehow okay to identify as transgender, as long as you don't desire surgery? That's... an interesting stance.

In short, hir description of transsexuality is merely intolerance dressed up in academic language. It'd be sad, if it weren't so sick.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

(1) His claim is not predicated on the simple presence of desire, but rather on a degree of feeling- with associated complications- that would be called a disorder if it focussed on anything else

(2) He never makes the claim that non-normative people in any general sense are mentally ill.

(3) The basic differentiation implied was the standard differentiation of comfort and function. If you're comfortable and you're functioning well, there's a strong argument to be made that your "non-normalcy" is idiosyncrasy rather than disorder or illness.

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

I didn't hear that when I read it.
I also see a difference between cosmetic augmentation and srs. And I don't see a diagnosis by a psychiatrist to be grounds for straight jackets and all the divesting of civil rights that restraints imply.
I read that people who are suicidally miserable at the sex they were born into (not the gender they present) might be classified as mentally ill. If I were suicidally depressed about being hoplessly short, I'd classify myself as mentally ill and seek help to come to terms with myself the way I am or bone-breaking surgery if I could not accept it.
Almost everybody is non-normative and transgender in some way, yes. I actually identify as a femme, but I am in a male-career and wear pants. Those things violate gender norms, but I am not convinced that I should have been a man.
I wasn't hearing that non-normative views of one's self was mentally ill. I heard that people convinced that their brain was sexed oppositely from their genitals (and needed-by their own insistence- something to be done about it) might have the 'wrong' genitals OR the 'wrong' brain, and that the genitals would be easier and more ethical to fix. Personally, I find the idea of sexed brains difficult to accept, despite the evidence.
Presumably I am transphobic and classist, because I think that gender is fluid and can be expressed differently day by day, but that sex is defined by the configuration of sex organs. I am still struggling to understand all of this and place the people I know into my understanding where they want to be placed.
the OP was advocating financil assistance for srs for those who need it, and claiming (dubiously) that a diagnosis of mental illness would facilitate that. If transexuality is a mental illness, and the treatment is srs and hormones (if wanted) wouldn't that be a good thing?
It isn't a dangerous mental illness, nobody should be forced to undergo treatment. Like depression, if I want medication I have to ask for it and seek it out, and social programs exist that can get it to me free if I need that too.

[johanna-hypatia.livejournal.com]

That jerk is astoundingly ignorant about the subject and gets everything wrong. Everything.

The objections raised against trans people are the same handful of tired old ignorant prejudices repeated over and over every place I look. Can't they at least come up with some novel expression of prejudice?

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

what is the correct everything about the subject? I really didn't read any objections raised against trans people.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

(S)he may (or may not) be prejudiced- I don't know- but (s)he raises valid points that are not well treated with. Further, he at least raised them in the right place, instead of spamming a safe-space with triggers.

{Shrug}

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

See my response to blackwinterbyrd above. See also dionysus1999's response below.

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

this person answered the points you made in response to my comment, better than I did. I agree with dionysus about everything except the 'my tax dollars' part. I'd like to see my tax dollars go to srs for someone who needs it.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

There's nothing there in the main post that I haven't wondered, though mental illness is a loaded term to use for someone with gender dysphoria. While feeling you're stuck in the wrong body can be so anguishing as to be incapacitating, most folks who feel this way seem to make their way through life unassisted.

My main viewpoint is this: what other people do with their own bodies is their business. If getting boobs, hair removal and hormone therapy makes you happy, go for it. I'd prefer not to have to pay for it with my taxes, though.

I see the transgendered as pioneers exploring the borderlands of gender and sexuality. Obviously you have to feel pretty strongly about your gender to go through the expensive and painful process of transforming your body.

The future holds cheap and easy elective surgeries to change many aspects of our bodies. The radical changes I see coming will make the simple process of resculpting a body from male to female (or vice versa) tame by comparison.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely.

I think that the accusations of bigotry that have flown so copiously are not well substantiated by the main post or in his further comments that I have read.

There are certainly problems with his conception of gender dysphoria as a mental disorder; but those problems are problems with standard psychiatric/psychological conceptions of wellness and unwellness, and don't seem to be specific to his claims.