Trans=mental disorder

[Vance2335]

People label people with anxiety or depression as having a mental disorder, why is not the same for someone who is transgendered? Here is an article on what is being called "transabled" which is nothing short of a mental disorder. Maybe a closer look should be done with transgendered to see if this is more a mental disorder than anything else.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/becoming-disabled-by-choice-not-chance-transabled-people-feel-like-impostors-in-their-fully-working-bodies

OTTAWA — When he cut off his right arm with a “very sharp power tool,” a man who now calls himself One Hand Jason let everyone believe it was an accident.

But he had for months tried different means of cutting and crushing the limb that never quite felt like his own, training himself on first aid so he wouldn’t bleed to death, even practicing on animal parts sourced from a butcher.

“My goal was to get the job done with no hope of reconstruction or re-attachment, and I wanted some method that I could actually bring myself to do,” he told the body modification website ModBlog.

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His goal was to become disabled.

People like Jason have been classified as ‘‘transabled’’ — feeling like imposters in their bodies, their arms and legs in full working order.

[specialmom]

Hm.  Vance.  I don't agree with this.  This to me is like parents who took their kids to therapists to help them not be gay anymore.  Being Gay and transgendered is not a mental health disorder.  We really need to come together and support people as they bravely accept who they are, make peace with it finally and live an authentic life.  

[orphanedhawk]

Amen !

[brice1967]

I think this is a great topic for discussion.  Thanks for putting it out there.

Personally, I think something like Bruce Jenner and "One Armed Jason" are incomparable.  I've never heard of anyone wanting to lop off a limb because it "never felt like his own".  I've heard a lot of stories about people who've felt like they are living in someone else's body through.

I was adopted.  The woman who adopted me was the most loving, most caring, most giving mom that I know of.  But for the life of me, well before I knew I was adopted, I knew something was amiss.  I never felt complete.  I've had a lot of people (none of which were adopted, by the way) tell me, "What difference does it make?"  

It doesn't make a difference to them.  They have no idea how I feel.  Does that give them the right to discredit how I feel?  Is there no validity to how I feel?  I wouldn't expect you or someone who is not in the same shoes to know or try to understand how I feel.  You can't.

I do know that there are hundreds of thousands of people like me who just feel as if something is missing.  We don't know our birth parents.  We don't know a thing about our family history and I think it is a giant disservice to say "but you were adopted and you have THIS family now".  It's true, I do have THIS family now and I wouldn't trade them for anything.  But that doesn't mean that I don't have a right to feel how I feel.  

Me being adopted probably isn't real comparable to Bruce Jenner or "One Armed Jason", but its the closest thing I've got to compare either of them too.  Do I have a mental disorder because I want to know more about who I am?  Is it logical to feel as if something is amiss in my situation?  A lot of people say no because I ended up having all I really needed... at least in their opinion.  

[Vance2335]

We don't know if this might be a mental disorder because we just assume that this is something that is normal and natural. What if this is a mental disorder are we not hurting these people? I think it is a question worth asking and maybe need to be studied some.
I remember growing up as a kid my grandmother was very afraid of thunderstorms and would hide in a hallway when one happened and I was always told that when she got scared it was a "nervous stomach". Well as I got older I have realized that it was anxiety but her growing up there was no mental health service and no real study of it.

I am not saying if someone is transgendered then they have a mental disorder but I think we have become too PC to even explore the possibility that it might be.

Brice I see what you are saying that something is amiss like what trans people say and does that mean you might have a mental disorder about it, well of course not because it really does not affect your life and you are not having a drastic change.
The only comparison between Jenner and Lefty would be the drastic change in lifestyle. Have to do something so crazy that it well looks crazy.

[brice1967]

I know there have been some people going through a similar battle as Bruce Jenner who ended up killing themselves.  The battle was too much, depression set in and they felt like there was no where else to go.  I think that's tragic, but with depression, we can't force help upon those folks.  They have to want help, just like an addict has to want help.  They have to commit to their getting better and whatever program they are put on.  So maybe there is some mental illness out there regarding the situation.  I'm certainly not the guy to answer that question.

As well, I know there are people who've gone as far as Bruce Jenner has and it has opened their lives up.  For the first time ever, they feel free.  

As far as I am concerned, to each his own.  I've got no business in his business and I don't want him toying around in mine, unless he wants to fight with me rather than against me.

I do understand what you are talking about with the PC issue.  It seems as if everything is too delicate these days to actually sit down and discuss.  A couple of my adult nieces just had a knock down, drag out cat fight over education.  both were completely offended that the other had an opinion.

[Vance2335]

Without civilized discussion how can we get anywhere in this world. People are/have gotten too sensitive. If you disagree with something then you are labeled a ______phobic. Was this country not founded on debate, discussion and questoning things?

I am sure if I posted this idea of looking deeper into the trans issue as a possible mental disorder I would be attacked. Because my thought does not fit in with the agenda of the day.

[specialmom]

I'm not sure it is being 'too PC' to accept someone wanting to change genders.  People really are entitled to live an authentic life without judgment.  And it is not politically correct to accept people as they are.  If you've ever known someone who has had a life long struggle to feel okay about themselves, you would know what I mean.  

For the sake of your argument though . . .

People who are transgendered are seeking the ability to feel 'normal' within themselves.  Therefore, under your theory, changing sex would actually be their drug for a mental disorder.  It is what HEALS them.  

I personally feel that we really need to offer more support to people in this situation so that they can be comfortable doing what they need to do in life.

[specialmom]

No one here attacked you for your thoughts by the way Vance.  You are entitled to your opinion as we all are.  

[Vance2335]

Wrote that sentence wrong, should have read "posted elsewhere".

But my point of the whole thought is how do we know that wanting to change genders is not a mental disorder? I don;t think God screwed up and said I want to challenge this person by making him a man but he will always feel as if he is a woman.

I doubt that it is a mental disorder but without the study of it, how do we know?

People like the guy above feels like he should not have that arm...well is that not a mental disorder? I know as brice said can't compare the 2 but who knows what you find if you dig deeper.

[specialmom]

Well, not everyone believes in the same God as you Vance.  That's really important to remember.  Now, I do believe in God but may interpret things different than you do.  But again, to go with your line of reasoning, if you believe God creates every situation, then much of what God does is to teach others lessons.  Perhaps we are to learn a lesson from those transgendered individuals of acceptance, non judgment, etc.  Compassion.  For every difficult situation in my life, I don't think God's grand plan was for me to suffer but rather for me to learn wisdom of some sort.  

In terms of mental health disorders, if they look at the brains of those who suffer various disorders, there are abnormalities Vance that can be seen.  There are symptoms and diagnostic criteria and treatment plans.  I think you would be hard pressed to find a psychiatrist or neurologist that would approach transgendered individuals from a illness point of view. They may treat the depression and anxiety that someone who has never felt right in their body may feel for sure.  Well, I take that back.  

I mean, really, we could call anything that is different a mental disorder.  :>)  But the cure for these people is to change sexes if it is.  

[brice1967]

Respectfully I'll say that you have to take God out of the equation.  This just isn't a religious issue for the people facing this situation.

[Vance2335]

No one would touch doing a study to see if there was anything abnormal with the brain because they would be told they are not tolorant, anti-gay...etc.. So we don't know if there is any kid of issue. That was the point I was trying to make. All we know is we have people saying they don't feel right and want to be a different gender. Why can't we ask questions about it and not get blow back from the agenda that we have to be tolorant? That we have to accept it? Someone at my church has decided to be a woman (his DNA says he is a man), he was in a bible study with me. Do I care that he is a woman or a man or whatever, No.

Is the decline of belief in God a direct correlation to a lot of immoral behaivor we see today?

[Vance2335]

Brought up God because Bruce Jenner did in his interview.

[specialmom]

Actually, I disagree.  We study brains all the time.  If anyone in science believed that mental health was involved with 'making' someone transgendered, they'd begin these studies.  Frankly, many would probably sign up to be a part of them.  Don't you get the impression that being transgendered comes with an awful lot of inner turmoil?  

I in no way shape of form think it is a mental disorder to be transgendered. Glad to see that you felt that way too and were just pondering here to start a discussion.  

[Vance2335]

I don't believe it is but you never know. The article I posted made me think about it because the guy said he believed he didn't think he should have his arm and trannies say they should be someone else.

But I doubt any health care professional would dare do a study and label transgendered a mental disorder. Think of the death threats they would get.

[Barb135]

I'm not saying I agree with this, but here's an article I ran across:

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/johns-hopkins-psychiatrist-transgender-mental-disorder-sex-change

By Michael W. Chapman | June 2, 2015 | 1:34 PM EDT

(CNSNews.com) --  Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.

He also reported on a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people. Dr. McHugh further noted studies from Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic of children who had expressed transgender feelings but for whom, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost those feelings.”

While the Obama administration, Hollywood, and major media such as Time magazine promote transgenderism as normal, said Dr. McHugh, these “policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention.”

“This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”

The transgendered person’s disorder, said Dr. McHugh, is in the person’s “assumption” that they are different than the physical reality of their body, their maleness or femaleness, as assigned by nature. It is a disorder similar to a “dangerously thin” person suffering anorexia who looks in the mirror and thinks they are “overweight,” said McHugh.

This assumption, that one’s gender is only in the mind regardless of anatomical reality, has led some transgendered people to push for social acceptance and affirmation of their own subjective “personal truth,” said Dr. McHugh. As a result, some states – California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts – have passed laws barring psychiatrists, “even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor,” he said.

The pro-transgender advocates do not want to know, said McHugh, that studies show between 70% and 80% of children who express transgender feelings “spontaneously lose those feelings” over time. Also, for those who had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were “satisfied” with the operation “but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn’t have the surgery.”

“And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs,” said Dr. McHugh.

The former Johns Hopkins chief of psychiatry also warned against enabling or encouraging certain subgroups of the transgendered, such as young people “susceptible to suggestion from ‘everything is normal’ sex education,” and the schools’ “diversity counselors” who, like “cult leaders,” may “encourage these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery.”

Dr. McHugh also reported that there are “misguided doctors” who, working with very young children who seem to imitate the opposite sex, will administer “puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex-change surgeries less onerous – even though the drugs stunt the children’s growth and risk causing sterility.”

Such action comes “close to child abuse,” said Dr. McHugh, given that close to 80% of those kids will “abandon their confusion and grow naturally into adult life if untreated ….”

“’Sex change’ is biologically impossible,” said McHugh. “People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.”

[mikesimon]

"No one would touch doing a study to see if there was anything abnormal with the brain because they would be told they are not tolorant, anti-gay...etc.. So we don't know if there is any kid of issue. ..."

Actually there has been research into the brains of transgendered individuals.

Gender dysphoria

[Gender dysphoria (sometimes but not preferably gender identity disorder[1]) is felt by individuals who experience significant discontent from their gender assigned at birth. It is also a formal psychological and psychiatric diagnosis. Not all authorities classify this as a mental illness; the National Health Service in the United Kingdom describes it as "a condition for which medical treatment is appropriate in some cases."[2]

Recent research has indicated that transgender people tend to have the same or similar brain structures as their identified gender, even before hormone replacement.[3][4] Possible causes of gender dysphoria include genetic reasons and prenatal exposure to particular hormones, among others.

As a minor concession to the trans community, in response to complaints that "gender identity disorder" was a stigmatizing term, the American Psychiatric Association changed the "Gender Identity Disorder" diagnostic category in the DSM-5 to "Gender Dysphoria" in 2013.[5] The APA, as well as the larger Western healthcare structures, remains highly conservative on the issue, to the point that there are thriving black and grey markets for prescription hormones and some cosmetic treatments. Some clinics have sought to move past this issue by offering "informed consent" prescriptions, for which a psychiatric diagnosis is not required. ...]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gender_dysphoria

Structural Connectivity Networks of Transgender People
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/12/cercor.bhu194.full

Networks of the brain reflect the individual gender identity
January 7, 2015

[While the biological gender is usually manifested in the physical appearance, the individual gender identity is not immediately discernible and primarily established in the psyche of a human being. As the brain is responsible for our thoughts, feelings and actions, several research institutions worldwide are searching for the neural representation of gender identity.

In a study under the guidance of Rupert Lanzenbergerof the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the MedUni Vienna published in  the Journal of Neuroscience it was now possible to demonstrate neural correlates (analogies) of the identity perception in the network of the brain.

Trans-gender persons as well as female and male control subjects were examined by way of diffusion-based magnetic resonance tomography (MRT). The examination revealed significant differences in the microstructure of the brain connections between male and female control subjects. Transgender persons took up a middle position between both genders.

It was furthermore possible to detect a strong relationship between the microstructure connections among these networks and the testosterone level measured in the blood. Lanzenberger: "These results suggest that the gender identity is reflected in the structure of brain networks which form under the modulating influence of sex hormones in the course of the development of the nervous system."

The study subsidised by the science fund FWF was conducted by the Dutch Institute for Neurosciences in Amsterdam in the context of a cooperation project between various clinics and centres of the MedUni Vienna and the brain researcher **** F. Swaab. Researchers of the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (Management: Siegfried Kasper), the Exzellenzzentrum für Hochfeldmagnetresonanz (Excellence centre for high field magnetic resonance) (Cooperation partner: Christian Windischberger, Management: Siegfried Trattnig and Ewald Moser), as well as the Universitätsklinik für Frauenheilkunde (University clinic for gynaecology) (Cooperation partner: Ulrike Kaufmann, Management: Peter Wolf Husslein) were involved.]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150107082133.htm

[Vance2335]

Thank you both for the posts to enlighten me.

[specialmom]

I think it can be heartbreaking for transgendered individuals and I hope that we can all be supportive.  In the end, allowing people to be who they are is what matters.  

[Vance2335]

But if you say be who they are, does the DNA not say who we are?

[R Glass]

It’s good to see a controversial conversation such as this without personal attacks because of disagreement (something we are all sometimes guilty of at times)

I’ll be the first to say I don’t believe all Gays, Lesbians, Transgender, etc, are born that way. Some are, Some not. Just one example- I have a friend 40ish that has been a lesbian (not bi-sexual) as long as I have known her. She is now pregnant.
Some are born Gay, some were molested, etc. but some people choose to be Gay or transgender. I don’t have to understand, I just have to accept it.

SM- “Well, not everyone believes in the same God as you Vance.  That's really important to remember” That couldn’t have come at a better time. Being a professed Agnostic, My biggest argument has been how can there be so many Religions claiming their doctrine to be the true doctrine but they all use the same book that is full of fairy tails and contradictions? Maybe he planned it that way so we would get toknow him ourselves instead depending on a book or a man to yell us about him.

Brice-I think it should be law that if a baby is adopted, all information should be available to the adopted once he/she is of legal age. No one knows what the mother is going through at that time and how much regret she may have, At least the adopted will have the option of making contact. I see almost 1 week trying to find their child or parent on Face book.

As far as Bruce Jenner goes ,because of rhe Kardashians, It’s hard for me not to be skeptical.

[brice1967]

Thanks Ricky.  I've done a couple cursory searches and apparently I can get "non-identifying" information.  I guess that might solve half of my issue.  I'd never trade my mother for anything.  I had a great life all because of her.  She is responsible for me having manners, being a gentleman (when that actually happens).  Without her, who knows what I'd have turned out like.

As for my birthparents.  I don't want any more of a relationship other than being able to find some things out.  No way would I judge them.  I've got no clue what they were going through at the time and I'm grateful for the life they gave me.  Just want a few answers, you know?

[specialmom]

I think their past (DNA) will always impact a transgendered individual.  It is a process to fully change your sex and those who proceed are sure that it is the right choice.  Who they are is much more than DNA.  

The only thing that is hard for me is exactly what makes you skeptical glass when it comes to Jenner.  That tv thing.  I guess Caitlin will have a tv show soon as well.  Perhaps the awareness is good (and needed) but hope they don't make a mockery of being transgendered.  

[R Glass]

I think the, the whole thing reeks of exploitation.