The DSM-5, which is the bible for the psychiatric world recognizes gender dysphoria as a legitimate medical condition.
I found the same thing earlier and have been thinking about it since.
DSM-5 recognizes gender dysphoria as a
mental disorder.
That's a medical condition, sure enough, and as I've said, so long as it's a legitimate medical condition I'm comfortable with government subsidizing gender reassignment surgery to the same degree that they'd subsidize any other medical treatment.
But thinking about this in conjunction with the Bruce Jenner thing, is necessary treatment for a mental disorder something that should really be celebrated?
Is a mental disorder something that should be considered "normal"?
Understand that I bear no ill will toward Jenner or anyone else suffering from gender dysphoria, whether that condition has been treated by full blown gender reassignment surgery or whether it's simply being treated as best as possible through transvestism.
But we don't "celebrate" Anorexia, or Sexual Masochism, or Alcoholism (or other Substance Use Disorders), or really any other mental disorders as defined by the DSM. And we certainly don't tell our children that these things are "okay", or "normal" or that "those people are just like you and me".
I'm wondering if maybe we should be showing transvestites the same pity and providing them with the same care that we would a heroine addict, while not necessarily considering their condition anything more than a very serious mental disorder that we're really glad we don't have.
Live next to them, work with them, share a pew in church with them, same as we would anyone else, but let's maybe not make a form a mental illness the current
cause célèbre.