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SHARE YOUR OPINION ON: Gender Dysphoria (Transgenderism) - Mental Illness or No?

Is Gender Dysphoria (Transgenderism) a Mental Illness?

  • Yes, it is a mental illness

    Votes: 24 53.3%

  • No, it is NOT a mental illness

    Votes: 21 46.7%
  • Total voters
    45
AJay_Willms said:
Well that's what I thought as well at first but you may not understand how high that number really is. As far as I know this is the highest recorded suicide rate within any group of people (that I've found). For example in the Jewish people's suicide rate in Lodtz ghetto was 85 per 100,000 in 1942 compaired to today's transgender rates of around 40,000 per 100,000. So with that being said it's a little silly to think that modern day society is worse to trans people than 1942 Nazi Germany was to the Jewish people.

Link to the Nazi Suicide rate numbers:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880554/
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First off of you are responding to a specific post, quote it. It at least gives context to your argument. Secondly, posting the Nizi camp suicide rate means nothing without a comparison, and showing how that second study of suicide rate is an accurate one towards suicide because of being trans or having GID instead of other causes.
 
AJay_Willms said:
I'm not sure where you're getting the idea it is not a mental disorder. According to the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which was made by the American Psychiatric Association claims that it is. :shrug:

Link to DSM V on Gender Dysphoria:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...37y_PdJNP--lQQ
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Try again they (THE APA) deemed it not a mental disorder. Thats where I'm getting it from.
I know you are new here and probably new to any place but links proving its not have been posted over and over and over again. I have no reason to ignore them. Read the info on it better and try to understand it better.

Answers to Your Questions About Transgender People, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression
Is being transgender a mental disorder?

A psychological state is considered a mental disorder only if it causes significant distress or disability. Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing or disabling, which implies that identifying as transgender does not constitute a mental disorder. For these individuals, the significant problem is finding affordable resources, such as counseling, hormone therapy, medical procedures and the social support necessary to freely express their gender identity and minimize discrimination. Many other obstacles may lead to distress, including a lack of acceptance within society, direct or indirect experiences with discrimination, or assault. These experiences may lead many transgender people to suffer with anxiety, depression or related disorders at higher rates than nontransgender persons.
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In general its not :shrug:
 
AJay_Willms said:
It appears they actually go up based on UCLA's research. I'll post a link below.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gglMAA&usg=AFQjCNGKdHTlHkgpeVuDXrMqNvLMu0WTPw

If you look on the left hand side of page 8 you'll see the stats for the suicide rate with no transition, for male and female in the first category and the third category you'll see the suicide rate with transitions.
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So you're a college student and you're writing a paper. Your introduction of the Nazis into the thread leads me to believe you're not quite what you say you are. I don't believe your topic is transsexual mental illness or Nazis for that matter so what is your paper really about? I'm guessing it's either about social triggers or virtue signalling.
 
blueliner7 said:
So you're a college student and you're writing a paper. Your introduction of the Nazis into the thread leads me to believe you're not quite what you say you are. I don't believe your topic is transsexual mental illness or Nazis for that matter so what is your paper really about? I'm guessing it's either about social triggers or virtue signalling.
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I will explain the Nazi thing:
I said the suicide rates were extremely high (40%)
Someone replied that it's high becuase of the way society treats transgender people
However suicide was significantly lower within Jewish communities during Hitler empowerment
This leads me to believe that either we are much worse to the transgender community than Nazis were to the Jewish people, or there is some type of Mental illness in the transgender community which causes them to have an extraordinarly high suicide rate.

And no I'm not written a paper for school, I get all my work done before the weekend starts like a responsible student ;)
 
AJay_Willms said:
It appears they actually go up based on UCLA's research. I'll post a link below.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gglMAA&usg=AFQjCNGKdHTlHkgpeVuDXrMqNvLMu0WTPw

If you look on the left hand side of page 8 you'll see the stats for the suicide rate with no transition, for male and female in the first category and the third category you'll see the suicide rate with transitions.
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Er... I don't think you're reading this right.

It says the suicide rate is fairly consistent across all trans people currently receiving ANY form of treatment, which falls in line with what I said that some of the trans suicide rate is due to other things besides GID.

What it says is that suicide rate is higher for trans people who say they DON'T WANT hormonal and surgical procedures, specifically. Why, I have no idea -- but those are trans people who AREN'T currently getting any treatment.

As far as why the rate is still high after transition, obviously if you're in the closet as a trans person, you won't be abused for being trans because no one knows you are, so those people don't commit suicide for reasons of being personally attacked. Also keep in mind this makes the pre-transition trans suicide rate look artificially low -- some of these people never spoke to someone like UCLA before they killed themselves, so they're not counted. They commit suicide either due to GID directly, or due to being closeted and feeling unsafe to come out.

After coming out and transition is when stuff like social abuse comes into play.
 
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AJay_Willms said:
I will explain the Nazi thing:
I said the suicide rates were extremely high (40%)
Someone replied that it's high becuase of the way society treats transgender people
However suicide was significantly lower within Jewish communities during Hitler empowerment
This leads me to believe that either we are much worse to the transgender community than Nazis were to the Jewish people, or there is some type of Mental illness in the transgender community which causes them to have an extraordinarly high suicide rate.

And no I'm not written a paper for school, I get all my work done before the weekend starts like a responsible student ;)
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Let's assume they are mentally ill. As a psychologist what should be done about it. Should they be forced into treatment which we do now at times for other mental health issues. Should they be refused surgery or hormones? These are the real questions. The rest is semantics
 
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AJay_Willms said:
I will explain the Nazi thing:
I said the suicide rates were extremely high (40%)
Someone replied that it's high becuase of the way society treats transgender people
However suicide was significantly lower within Jewish communities during Hitler empowerment
This leads me to believe that either we are much worse to the transgender community than Nazis were to the Jewish people, or there is some type of Mental illness in the transgender community which causes them to have an extraordinarly high suicide rate.

And no I'm not written a paper for school, I get all my work done before the weekend starts like a responsible student ;)
Click to expand...

You're a psych student who came to a political forum and Godwinned your own thread. I think you're exactly what you appear to be.
 
AJay_Willms said:
I will explain the Nazi thing:
I said the suicide rates were extremely high (40%)
Someone replied that it's high becuase of the way society treats transgender people
However suicide was significantly lower within Jewish communities during Hitler empowerment
This leads me to believe that either we are much worse to the transgender community than Nazis were to the Jewish people, or there is some type of Mental illness in the transgender community which causes them to have an extraordinarly high suicide rate.

And no I'm not written a paper for school, I get all my work done before the weekend starts like a responsible student ;)
Click to expand...

There's a much simpler, explanation, actually.

Firstly, much less accurate counting. A lot of people back then tended their own dead. There was no state involvement a lot of the time, like there is now.

Secondly, things were bad for Jews in Europe even before Hitler. And, weirdly, we see lower suicide rates in people who never had a good life to start with, and never had any expectation that they ever would.

This is why people in third world countries in the middle of sectarian crisis sometimes have lower suicide rates than people in developed nations. Everyone's in the same **** they are. They think this is just how life is.

But when a decent life is all around you, and yet always out of reach to you personally for whatever reason, suicide is a more common thought.

That combined with all the cases that never got counted, or were intentionally hidden (often by the family themselves, if they saw suicide as shameful) more than fills that gap.
 
AJay_Willms said:
Trying to get some different opinions and arguments on whether or not people think Gender Dysphoria (transgenderism) is a mental illness or not. I'd love to hear what everyone has to think!
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Mental illness? No.
A deviation from the norm, or in other words, a defect.
 
blueliner7 said:
You're a psych student who came to a political forum and Godwinned your own thread. I think you're exactly what you appear to be.
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I agree, I've read the thread and it doesn't smell right does it.
 
AJay_Willms said:
Trying to get some different opinions and arguments on whether or not people think Gender Dysphoria (transgenderism) is a mental illness or not. I'd love to hear what everyone has to think!
Click to expand...

As a transwoman, I would say it's not a mental disorder. The science says it's not, the experts say it's not. I'm a happy, well adjusted person who happens to be trans.
 
AJay_Willms said:
I personally think that it is a mental illness. It seems to me that society is pretending that it is not an issue and saying "If they want to change, let them change!" I personally don't care if a man tries to become a women (or vise versa), be it by hormone adjustments, wearing different clothes, or getting surgery. However I find it deeply troubling that most people don't see that the suicide rate is over 40% for transgender individuals whether the individual makes the change or not. I think this in and of itself proves that people with gender dysphoria need to have psychological help as opposed to just telling them if they change they'll be okay- because, as statistics show, the transition does not help the rate of suicide which should be our society's biggest concern.
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Allow me to introduce myself. I am CaptainCourtesy. As you can see, I am one of the Mods here, Been Modding DP for over a decade. Now, when I am not at DP, I am a licensed psychotherapist who IS qualified to diagnose mental illness. One of my specialty areas is working with transsexuals, treating their GDD and helping them, if appropriate, to transition. I can tell you without a single doubt that transsexuality is NOT a mental illness. When reading your posts in this thread, I find them to be extremely uninformed. Firstly, statistics clearly show that transitioning lowers the rate of suicide. You completely misread the Williams Report, by the way. In no way did it indicate that suicidality of transsexual went up or stayed the same after transition. As a college student, I would hope that you would read statistics and tables more carefully. Each table in that report was titled "LIFETIME suicide attempts". Notice the word I placed in caps? That means that when counting suicide attempts of someone who transitioning, it counted any attempt from BEFORE they transitioning, too. So, you misinterpreted the results. That means that your conclusion was flawed and wrong.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Oh, and if you make some incorrect statements, I will correct you, as I have done.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Allow me to introduce myself. I am CaptainCourtesy. As you can see, I am one of the Mods here, Been Modding DP for over a decade. Now, when I am not at DP, I am a licensed psychotherapist who IS qualified to diagnose mental illness. One of my specialty areas is working with transsexuals, treating their GDD and helping them, if appropriate, to transition. I can tell you without a single doubt that transsexuality is NOT a mental illness. When reading your posts in this thread, I find them to be extremely uninformed. Firstly, statistics clearly show that transitioning lowers the rate of suicide. You completely misread the Williams Report, by the way. In no way did it indicate that suicidality of transsexual went up or stayed the same after transition. As a college student, I would hope that you would read statistics and tables more carefully. Each table in that report was titled "LIFETIME suicide attempts". Notice the word I placed in caps? That means that when counting suicide attempts of someone who transitioning, it counted any attempt from BEFORE they transitioning, too. So, you misinterpreted the results. That means that your conclusion was flawed and wrong.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Oh, and if you make some incorrect statements, I will correct you, as I have done.
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Actually I must disagree. I am also a therapist with almost 30 years experience though I do not specialize in trans issues. The diagnosis Gender Dysphoria DSM-5 302.85 (F64.9) is a mental disorder. (I will not quibble with the word illness). But we should be clear it is about the DISTRESS felt by the patient about their gender incongruity. No one is suggesting treatment should be to get the patient to feel comfortable with the gender assigned at birth but simply to help them with the distress they currently feel and aid them with transition if they so choose. I also understand the politics of requiring making this a disorder so that insurance will pay for counseling during trainsition. But it is a disorder. I don't mean to imply that it should come with any stigma.....it should not. But we need to be accurate about the terms we use.
 
vegas giants said:
Actually I must disagree. I am also a therapist with almost 30 years experience though I do not specialize in trans issues. The diagnosis Gender Dysphoria DSM-5 302.85 (F64.9) is a mental disorder. (I will not quibble with the word illness). But we should be clear it is about the DISTRESS felt by the patient about their gender incongruity. No one is suggesting treatment should be to get the patient to feel comfortable with the gender assigned at birth but simply to help them with the distress they currently feel and aid them with transition if they so choose. I also understand the politics of requiring making this a disorder so that insurance will pay for counseling during trainsition. But it is a disorder. I don't mean to imply that it should come with any stigma.....it should not. But we need to be accurate about the terms we use.
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When talking "mental disorder", doesn't almost everybody have something in their heads that's a classifiable "mental disorder"?

Anxiety
Phobia (long list of those)
OCD
Addiction

Those kinds of things?


What's the difference between a disorder and an illness?
 
Dragonfly said:
When talking "mental disorder", doesn't almost everybody have something in their heads that's a classifiable "mental disorder"?

Anxiety
Phobia (long list of those)
OCD
Addiction

Those kinds of things?


What's the difference between a disorder and an illness?
Click to expand...

No. There are specific criteria that must be met to qualify for a mental disorder. We almost all feel EVERY mental illness symptom at some point in our lives (even hallucinations and delusions) but that does not qualify us for the disorder. They must be of a certain intensity and duration to qualify for the disorder. Disorder is the clinical term. Illness follows the medical model and is really just a term for laymen.

It really sucks that people have so much stigma about having a mental health disorder. This does not happen for physical health.
 
vegas giants said:
No. There are specific criteria that must be met to qualify for a mental disorder. We almost all feel EVERY mental illness symptom at some point in our lives (even hallucinations and delusions) but that does not qualify us for the disorder. They must be of a certain intensity and duration to qualify for the disorder. Disorder is the clinical term. Illness follows the medical model and is really just a term for laymen.

It really sucks that people have so much stigma about having a mental health disorder. This does not happen for physical health.
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"Disorder" and "illness" both suggest that something is wrong, and it can be fixed. Correct?

When it's mental, the fix is what? Drugs? Counseling? Therapy? Combinations?

Question is, is Transgenderism a mental "problem", or a physical "problem"? Or neither? Or both?
 
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