Are we completely sure Trans people don't just have a mental disorder?

by Lore 49 Replies latest jw friends

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  Chemical Emotions

  If you care about them you treat them the way they present themselves and want to be treated. It's that simple.

  Exactly.

  Although I think the general public needs to understand more about transexuality in order to avoid complicating things and sharing ignorant viewpoints, and that would mke it easier for them to remember that they, along with everyone else, should be treated as they wnt to be treated, not as if they were some strange, practically unhuman group (not to say anyone here would think that, but some people act like they do IRL). For instance, I think some JWs I know seem to understand transexuality even less than homosexuality (god forbid you mention bisexuality). The word "perverts" abound in such discussions.
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  lisaBObeesa

  exactly, MrsJones!

  Lore, there's lots of info out there about this. Look into it. There some very good documentaries on youtube on the subject of transgender and transgender children. There is no way to make a person who identifies with one gender switch to the other gender.

  The only 'fix' for gender identity disorder is to let the person be who they ARE.
• 

  I quit!

  "Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
  It's a mixed up muddled up shook up world except for Lola" The Kinks, Lola

  I reall don't know. It is a pretty complex subject. If you were a woman who was traped in a mans body or the other way around that in itself could give you mental problems. The mental problems could be a side effect of what you were going through.

  A big percentage of what we view as male or female has nothing to do with our physical bodies or any biology it is more cultural and what we have been taught is male or female. To me I really don't care about things like that. There are good people who are worth knowing and then there are the dicks. I don't care about weight, size, color, if they are gay straight if they are nice people then we should give them the respect and friend ship they deserve and we should stand up to anyone gives them a bad time.
• 

  Diest

  In addition to genetics there are many hormonial issues. Some produce too much or too little etrogen or testosterone(sp?). It has also been shown that a mother's prenatal hormones can effect the sexuality of her children.
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  jamiebowers

  I agree with LisBobeesa. Try to find the movie, "A Girl Like Me, The Gwen Araujo Story". You may be able to watch it here:

  http://www.1channel.ch/watch-4438-A-Girl-Like-Me-The-Gwen-Araujo-Story

  Transgenderism is well explained in this movie.
• 

  brizzzy
• 

  TheClarinetist

  Yes, it is a mental disorder... but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should prevent people from getting gender reassignment. For that matter, I don't see a strong argument against amputating someone's hands, except to the extent that it prevents them from living as a normal human being...

  ...actually, that's probably the important part. Transgender people can function normally in society, and aside from their gender identity, are perfectly normal individuals. Therefore there is no reason to deny them their desires, desires which only help them to function better.
• 

  Leolaia

  Lore....Interestingly, your link to the Wikipedia article on BIID/apotemnophilia discusses current ongoing scientific research by Paul McGeoch and V. S. Ramachandran that recognizes that this condition is a neurological disorder closely connected to phantom limb syndrome. Ramachanran theorizes that in both there is an underlying disconnect between the brain's expectations and the material reality of the body, a mismatch that can be inborn in the case of a problem in the parietal cortex or acquired later in life through the loss of a limb. It looks like he suspects that this plays a role in sex and gender as well: http://www.sandrablakeslee.com/articles/phantom_genitalia_apr08.php. I've seen his videos on Youtube before; he's a very interesting speaker (he starts talking about phantom limbs at about 9 and a half minutes in):

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl2LwnaUA-k

  This video btw focuses on three different examples of neurological conditions that produce responses that a psychoanalyst or psychologist might mistake as delusions. Numbers don't really have colors but they are perceived that way by someone with synesthesia because of how the brain processes sense information. A person might sense pain from a body part that doesn't exist or feel that a body part is a foreign object, and that results from a conflict between sense information and the brain's expectations of the body. Your post also implies that the way trans people perceive themselves is a matter of psychological delusion ("their insanity", "seeing black helicopters"), when it may very well be a matter of neurology pertaining to how a person's mind interfaces with the rest of their body. Some fifty years ago, autism was regarded by the experts as a psychosis much like schizophrenia, but now it understood that autistic people are not delusional but have different neurology and perceive the world a little differently; it is not a matter of having delusions and being insane.
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  Diest

  Good Ted Talk.
• 

  simon17

  Yes, it is a mental disorder... but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should prevent people from getting gender reassignment. For that matter, I don't see a strong argument against amputating someone's hands, except to the extent that it prevents them from living as a normal human being...

  ...actually, that's probably the important part. Transgender people can function normally in society, and aside from their gender identity, are perfectly normal individuals. Therefore there is no reason to deny them their desires, desires which only help them to function better.

  Agree with this. What is a mental disorder? Isn't it that which prevents people from a) living like they reasonably should expect to live (most physical & mental disorders) or b) functioning in society (most personality disorders). If someone wants to be tran and is happy with it, I don't see how it effects the rest of society. It certainly is not 'natural' in the evolutionary sense of the word, but I would just chalk it up to a more extreme example of the many differences among us in this complicated and confusing world.