Identity vs. medical condition.

[Christopher_Marius]

I am transgender because my identity doesn't match my body. That condition is to be remedied through hormones and surgery.


The rest is just semantics.

[spacerace]

That's not what I said. In order to be trans you must suffer from body dysphoria. If you do not. You are not trans. Simple. Why would someone who does not suffer from body dysphoria want to transition?

The DSM is becoming a joke, next thing you know otherkin will be included and it'll have people transitioning into a paper bag if that's how they identify.

I agree completely that the DSM is a joke, but because it is rigid - certainly not because it may eventually recognize more IDs. Making people fit into categories never works out well.  It seemed to me like you're the one that wants people to conform to it in order to be "diagnosed" with GID as the DSM will unfortunately be the gold-standard for years to come - especially for insurance companies who need to tag everything with codes to justify expenses and treatment approvals.

The thing is you do in fact suffer from dysphoria. I am speaking about those who do not. Body dysphoria is pretty much the only real symptom of transsexualism.

I have dysphoria, yes, but I do not feel I have a birth defect or a medical condition.  I'm me, and there are steps I can take to be more comfortable being me.

Hmm... I wonder why most insurance companies don't pay for it. Oh that's right, because they already don't see transsexualism as a legitimate medical condition.

So the solution is deny people the right to identify as trans*?  Why can't you keep your medical condition without being angry at other people under the trans-umbrella?

Something to consider - If every single non-gender confirming person you feel is delegitimizing your medical condition suddenly vanished, the insurance companies that do not pay for transition will not magically expand coverage.

Gender non-conforming individuals need to not lie and claim they are transsexual when they are not. People can not like certain things about themselves and deal with it how they see fit but do not appropriate a medical condition to do it. People have already proven that gender non-conforming individuals can get the treatment they want without doing so.

Most surgeons and doctors require a letter to get hormones or have surgery.  I was very very lucky to find a doctor willing to do informed consent. This is a progressive stance that is only now gaining momentum through the efforts of the community.

Generally and historically, Gender non-conforming people who want a letter have to lie, or  they at least have to stretch out their narrative enough to meet the standards of whatever gate-keeper they have to appease.

Excuse me? Don't make an ass out of yourself by assuming things I "want".
Transsexuals can be as out as they want to. That's not my business and I don't care but at least they are in fact transsexual and not just pretending because trans is the new black.

Saying that gender non-conforming people are "pretending" and being "trendy" and only "looking for attention"  (as you said in your first post) is a reprehensible outright denial of their identities.

I don't know about those who run around waving their trans flags everywhere but once you're transitioned and seen as "just another guy" it becomes easier and you'll have other things to worry about.

Absolutely.  And I think it is great when people can reach that point.  But what about the people that feel they can never reach "just another guy" status? Should they be self-hating?  I think breaking down the rigid binary would let everyone be a lot more happy with who they are, even for people who just see it as a medical condition.

We have a medical condition and do not want it glorified.

inside said it best when he pointed out the evolution of the trans identity. It's all ready happened, people are all ready out there celebrating an infinite number of  trans* IDs.  You can't undo it.  Why not view it positively and use it to make everything better?

Transsexual people are murdered because there are ignorant people out there who hate us. Not for being themselves. For those who can't get their documents changed over that sucks and only the changing of laws will make it easier.

You know how laws get changed and ignorance can be educated? Visibility of the community.  A cooperating community can get more accomplished.  Why would you place a divide and declare ground against the very people who have the same goals as you do?

[Damian]

Because wearing men's clothing does NOT make you FTM transgender.

No, that would make you a crossdresser.
I am at the stage of I am currently unsure of 'what the hell am I?' and the most accurate thing to say is FtM. And who is to say, oh you're not in our elite group, and deny my identity, or medical condition.

[aleon515]

And just because how I view myself effects you...?
I invite you to comment on my other threads.

Actually if you feel like a boy one day (and dress like that) and a girl another (and dress that way), that's called "genderfluid". I know of a genderfluid person who goes on vacation with double the clothes, not knowing how they will feel. I think there seems like a lot of anxiety in this so it is definitely not a joke.


--Jay J

[Jamie D]

Because wearing men's clothing does NOT make you FTM transgender.

Those who say they are trans because they "feel like dressing like a boy one day and a girl the next" make this condition seem like a joke.

Wearing cross-gender clothing may very well be a coping mechanism for gender dysphoria.

You are making a value judgment which is impermissible on this site.

[Kreuzfidel]

Other people's identities don't bother me.  I'm a man with a medical condition.

[kelly_aus]

Other people's identities don't bother me.  I'm a man with a medical condition.

And on the flip side, I'm a woman with a medical condition.

I didn't wake up one day and decide 'Hey, I think it would be fun to become a woman.', I've always been one, it's just taken me some time to accept it and do something about it.

[justmeinoz]

I see it differently, but that is due to looking at the issue from the viewpoint of General Semantics and Existentialism. 

The BSTc of my hypothalamus resembles that of a cis-woman, rather than a man.  This was most likely caused by a long repeat length on the Androgen Receptor allele on my 46th chromosome, according to the latest research.

This causes me to feel that I am a woman rather than a man.  This is also known as my Gender Identity.

The Medical Profession have decided in their wisdom this is a Disorder, and therefore has to be approached as a Medical problem.  They do this because they are limited in the ways they can view things.

The observer always affects the observation.

I however see it as a variation in my anatomy I would like altered. 

I see it as a part of what I call my "facticity", which I choose to "transcend."

I accept responsibility for my own decision and actions, but do not attempt to impose my observations on this matter on others. This would be "bad faith" which should be avoided at all costs.

They can make their own choices, and hopefully accept responsibility for them.

Karen.

[Miniar]

Ye olde either or....
My answer is both.

I view it like this, based on the scientific information available at this time;
My biological makeup contains an anomaly which causes me to identify as a gender other than the sex I was born with.

Transgender is not an identity to me, it's a condition with a biological root cause. It's a condition wherein the two pieces of hardware (brain and sexual organs) involved are not entirely compatible.
My gender identity is an identity, it's how I view myself on a psychological/intellectual/emotional level. It's the software created by the system.

I understand that some have a fear that should this be treated as purely a matter of identity that this will affect their own treatment and their own ability to be taken seriously, and honestly, I share this fear to a degree.
If we choose to root for a certain team in sports then we can identify as supporters of that team, it's a purely chosen identity.
The fear is that if gender identity is viewed purely as an identity then it will be treated with the same level of seriousness as which team you root for in a sport.
That this lack of taking gender seriously will lead to transgender children being forced to behave "normally" and to transgender people in general being denied coverage for their transition related costs.
Please don't think that the USA is the only place where coverage is an issue. In the current system in Iceland, transsexuality is considered a medical condition and therefore transition is fully covered by the single payer insurance system. If transsexuality was considered a matter of a person's chosen identity then the system would in all likelihood only cover the costs of seeing a therapist so that you can either a) correct your identification or b) stop being miserable over something you can control.

There's also a fear of transsexuality being treated as a 100% medical condition, and I can understand the reasons for this, but I don't share this fear myself.
The fear is that there'll be a test devised which will determine, once and for all, whether your brain wiring is anomalous enough to warrant transition and that not everyone who experiences gender related dysphoria will pass the test.
To be perfectly honest, I don't fear this because I honestly believe that brain wiring anomalies have been observed well enough to subscribe to that theory of transsexuality and that should one be found to have a female wired brain in a female body then clearly their dysphoria is not caused by their brain wiring not matching their body and then perhaps transition wouldn't actually be what they need.
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that it's not what "you" need, I'm saying that maybe being able to accurately and conclusively diagnose transsexuality is a good thing because then people can get the treatment they actually need.
I don't necessarily think that a negative test should make it completely impossible for a person to transition, should they still have that desire.
I find the thought frightening as well. That they'll devise the test and I'll take it and come out as "female". It would uproot my life quite a bit and I would contest the results and so on, but at the same time, I also know that should I be diagnosed with any number of conditions that I would like to contest them as well.
A diagnosis isn't a label do define us, it's a way for us to get the help we need.
I didn't want to be diagnosed with anxiety, but the diagnosis has helped me, it's made the right solutions available to me for a problem I didn't even want to admit to having.

It's a complicated issue, and a very sensitive subject, so I'm trying to word my thoughts well.

[sneakersjay]

I have always been male, since my earliest memories, yet always wondered why the H my body was F?

I am a man with a corrected medical condition. Transitioning is part of my medical history.  I identify as male, period.

How you identify is your business.


Jay

[Ave]

I can't see being trans as anything other than a medical condition, calling it an identity does imply that it can be taken up loosely and discarded, although I don't know if that very idea is something that sprung up with social justice warriors and identity politics.

I'll just say that when people get surprised that they offend trans people when they take up their identity but clearly make up a whole bunch of rules that anyone can get be trans....that's when I get why everyone gets pissed off.

[Sia]

I won't bother with the whole label policing and "my identity is more valid than yours" thing, but I just wanted to chime in on one point :

but if GID were no longer a "thing" wouldn't that effectively kill insurance payments for hormones and SRS? These things then become elective, and if they are elective they will no longer be covered by any reputable insurance company.

Not necessarily. Here in France, transsexualism isn't considered a mental illness anymore since 2010, yet HRT and surgeries are still covered by both the public healthcare system and most private insurances as they are seen as necessary for a trans person's well-being and ability to "function" in society. It's like, say, if someone is suicidal for whatever reason, they can be put on anti-depressants and have them paid by healthcare even if they haven't been diagnosed as suffering from clinical depression.

I'm not very familiar with the US healthcare system (though from what I know of it it seems to suck), but it sets a precedent that it is possible to have it both ways - getting access to the medical care you need without having to be considered sick or dysfunctional for it.

[GentlemanRDP]

I certainly don't see it as a medical condition, but I understand how other people could classify it as that, especially considering that most (If not all of us) have to be diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder before we can receive hormones. It's only natural for some people to think about it that way. Unfortunately, I don't like thinking about it as a 'condition,' no one ever thinks about Cisgender as being a condition, so why should being trans fit into that. Either way, for me, it's an identity and one that I've worked damned hard to make the rest of the world see. I use medical means to change my outward identity to match the one that I see inside, and for me, that's all there is to it.

[AdamMLP]

I personally don't care what it is, I just know that I'm male and this body isn't.  If you want to call it an identity, fine, if you want to call it a medical condition, also fine by me.  However if you want to tell me that it doesn't exist, that is not fine.  (Just to clarify so I don't cause an outburst on this potentially volatile subject, this isn't aimed at anyone here, just at the world in general.  I do that sometimes.)

If I had to pick between calling it an identity or a medical condition then in my case I feel that it's a medical condition.  I don't identify as male, I am male and there's a fault in my body.  Depression is a medical condition and no one questions that, but it can't be tested for, just like transsexualism.  Also like transsexualism it is very real, yet some people have been given the power to 'gatekeep' over who gets treated and in what way, and similarly people choose to treat it in different ways.  Some people medicate it, some look for other ways, and each way is just as valid as the next, because no one option is perfect and everyone is an individual.

That's not saying at all that it's okay for 'gatekeeping' to happen.  It's really not.  And it doesn't work.  It's not that difficult to lie to a therapist/councilor/doctor/whoever and tell them what they want to hear to get a certain end result.  I lied my way out of counselling for depression numerous times although if I had been honest I would have gotten help off them, but the end result I wanted was to get out of there because he was a twisted sadist.  I knew people who had been affected less than me and they were being taken seriously, and even put on anti-depressants, but my goal was just to never see him again and I got that.  I could go to a doctor and tell them that I was 100% cisgendered if I wanted to, it would mess me up but it would be possible, so clearly a cisgender person could be allowed through by the gatekeepers if they so desired, rendering it pointless and overall more damaging than good.  Also not saying that therapy isn't helpful for some people, but just saying that they shouldn't be given the right to say yes or no.

Overall though, I don't think it matters.  We are what we are, and we'll probably never find out why.  Does it matter that we don't know why?  Not really, it's not going to give some spectacular cure, the best case scenario is if they discover a way to tell for sure in the early stages of a kids life so they don't have to go through the puberty from hell, or to prevent it happening in the first place.  I'm not sure where the latter would leave non-binary people though so maybe that wouldn't be so good.  I don't see why people get wound up about it, maybe calling it a medical condition will make it easier for people to believe that it's real, but it's not going to make all our problems go away.

As for if there was a medical 'test' discovered for then unless it was severely flawed the only people it should weed out are those for whom transitioning was never what they should be doing in the first place.  And they do exist, some because they're pricks who think it's 'cool' -- hopefully they get stopped before they can do irreversible damage to their bodies -- but also people who have underlying mental health problems and they interpret these wrongly.  I think the feeling of 'I'm not trans enough' is what scares people most about such a test being discovered, and that seems to be a fairly common, but illogical, thought.  I know I've thought it before (but I think I scrapped that a couple of days ago when I cared more about the fact they immediately called me 'young lady' after a motorbike crash than the fact that I'd been hit by a van.  I doubt anyone who wasn't really trans would think that a midst so much panic, shock and pain.)

I just have to back and reiterate my overwhelming feeling of, frankly, what difference does it make as long as we get treated how we need to be?  Words change all the time, what's 'politically correct' changes all the time (do we call someone who goes to school a pupil, student or learner for example?) and we should just run with whatever the medical professionals prefer that the time to get ourselves the help that we need.  As long as it doesn't invalidate us then it's just a term.

[Ave]

I won't bother with the whole label policing and "my identity is more valid than yours" thing, but I just wanted to chime in on one point :

Not necessarily. Here in France, transsexualism isn't considered a mental illness anymore since 2010, yet HRT and surgeries are still covered by both the public healthcare system and most private insurances as they are seen as necessary for a trans person's well-being and ability to "function" in society. It's like, say, if someone is suicidal for whatever reason, they can be put on anti-depressants and have them paid by healthcare even if they haven't been diagnosed as suffering from clinical depression.

I'm not very familiar with the US healthcare system (though from what I know of it it seems to suck), but it sets a precedent that it is possible to have it both ways - getting access to the medical care you need without having to be considered sick or dysfunctional for it.

I was just going to ask abuot the French model, since I know transsexuality is no longer considered a mental illness. I really doubt the US would have many insurance companies cover this

because, you know, we're NUMBER ONE! NUMBER ONE!!

[Darrin Scott]

I did not post this to start a fight on the internet or anything, I just wanted to know people's opinions about the subject.

My personal opinion is, I don't care. I don't care what "special snowflakes" or whatever are doing on the internet. I'm too old to be worried about kids online. I did get hormones. No ones transition stopped me. I'm also not stopping anyone else by transitioning, either. And neither is the "special snowflake" that people speak of. I feel if you really are bothered by someone else's reasons for transitioning, then you might have the problem, not them. Do I think you need dysphoria to transition? For me, yes, I did not transition for attention as a lot of people in my life have no idea I'm trans* and I "pass" well AND guess what, I do deal with dysphoria. But on the flip side, it's not life threatening. And I'll be damned if someone tries to tell me I'm not trans. Some of insurance companies do cover transition expenses. Not only that, many people don't frequent tumblr or youtube, so they have NO IDEA what a "special snowflake" even is. How is a small portion of the internet going to effect how to WORLD views transfolk? I know I'll get surgery and I'm already on hormones. That's all I'm concerned about. I'm not into policing other people or generally giving a care about what internet "special snowflakes" are doing. End of story.

[Devlyn]

We're all special snowflakes. Every persons identity is sacred. Protecting that is what this site is all about. Hugs, Devlyn

[RagingShadow]

I certainly don't identify as trans, I identify as male. but if you id as trans, I respect that too. I enjoy being an activist (well, as much as a stealth guy can) in the trans community, but I prefer to be seen as a guy then a trans guy.
i dont know if that made any sense...

[Sly]

I sympathize with people who feel that being trans is a medical condition and are irritated by kids on Tumblr.  But it isn't my place to tell someone that they're not trans or 'not trans enough.'

I kinda see it both ways.  Identity aside (within the binary or not) not everyone wants to fully transition.  I know that my body will never be exactly like a cis male, even if I get every surgery available and stay on T for the rest of my life.  This used to get me down, but it really doesn't anymore.  I'm totally cool with being a transdude instead of just a dude.  Doesn't mean I'm going to go up to random people and tell them "Hi, I'm trans," but you get what I'm saying?  I have a medical condition, but I still identify as trans.

[Ave]

to the OP, yes there is an equivalent MTF "truscum" blogger on tumblr, transcultist is her URL I think. She makes excellent points (sometimes).

She can get a little radfemmy though, so if that bothers you...