Am I Just Crazy? Is Being Transgender Real?

[Leki]

Hey guys,

I have been really worried the last few days. Is being transsexual a real thing or are we just mentally ill?

Does transitioning really help with our problems?

Found at - journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885

This study shows that post-ops have higher suicide risk and stuff compared to a control group, but then again, the control group appeared to just be random cis people. They should have compared it to people who were trans but didn't treat it.

What does everyone think?

I am in a scary place and everytime I look up trans stuff I get loads of stuff saying we are mentally ill.

I don't want to delusion myself.

Also all the post-ops I have met still have depression and stuff so surely this is just gender dysphoria that didn't really go away?


Mod edit: Link removed, not permitted with out prior approval; ToS 1

[Dena]

I am not going to look at the study because I know better. There is some fact to problems after surgery but it can be explained. Somebody like me may be more stable that a CIS because unlike most people I cleaned up all my problems before surgery and I understand how to handle any new one that pop up before they infect my mind.

Sadly many transexuals are driven so hard to get the surgery that they fear telling their therapist about the issues they have fearing the issues will delay surgery. The results are someone with emotional issues before surgery will still have them after. My roommate was such a person and she managed to get her surgery in 6 months of cross living. She had meltdowns after surgery and my being there  for a while kept her from taking the wrong path. She did after several years reach the point where she no longer need my support .

It comes down to your decision. Are you going to work with the therapist to make your mind as beautiful as your body or are you going to skip the hard work and need to deal with it after surgery.

[Leki]

I am not going to look at the study because I know better. There is some fact to problems after surgery but it can be explained. Somebody like me may be more stable that a CIS because unlike most people I cleaned up all my problems before surgery and I understand how to handle any new one that pop up before they infect my mind.

Sadly many transexuals are driven so hard to get the surgery that they fear telling their therapist about the issues they have fearing the issues will delay surgery. The results are someone with emotional issues before surgery will still have them after. My roommate was such a person and she managed to get her surgery in 6 months of cross living. She had meltdowns after surgery and my being there  for a while kept her from taking the wrong path. She did after several years reach the point where she no longer need my support .

It comes down to your decision. Are you going to work with the therapist to make your mind as beautiful as your body or are you going to skip the hard work and need to deal with it after surgery.

Surgery ain't even my aim Dena, my aim is to deal with the emotional issues. That is what I need help with. That is why I am suffering.

[Sharon Anne McC]

*

There is a bogus 'study' claiming to 'prove' that post-op transsexuals have a high rate of suicide.

Liz ('Liz - Day by Day') debunked those suicide 'studies' as false, misleading, and fraudulent - the backers are pushing their anti-transsexual agenda, not science.

I know of that agenda personally.  A cousin in a right-wing Christian Conservative sect sent her church's anti-LGBT brochures to me.  She had no idea of my inter-sex circumstance; she was, herself, mixed up about what she was trying to push on me.

Further, realise that transsexuals face bigotry and discrimination by segments of society that hate us.  This antipathy is what drives many transsexuals to mental strain - it is not our transsexualism.  Good counselling will overcome that bigotry.

Transsexualism, transgender, and gender dysphoria are not mental illness, but merely a treatable medical condition.

Allow me to post that I had serious thoughts of suicide throughout my life due to my feminine protesting - my serious thoughts and efforts were repeated failures.  I wanted to live more than I wanted to die.

I also had suicidal feelings following my surgery (1983); they, too, were transitory.  I had no family support and I thought suicide would teach them - they'd come for my body expecting to find a male corpse, not a female corpse.

Ah, I decided once and for all that I liked living more than dying.  Not to mention that my living was more of a thorn in the side of my family who rejected me.  My living well is my revenge against a family that would rather see me dead.

Work with your counsellor.  You will decide what is correct for yourself.  Find the inner strength to live your life as yourself, not as someone else's self.

*

[suzifrommd]

That's a question that

I have been really worried the last few days. Is being transsexual a real thing or are we just mentally ill?

Decades of doctors, psychologists, and counselors of all sorts have tried to answer this question. During that time, no one, not one single one, has come up with any way to take a trans person and make them cis.

In other words, this appears "built" into us rather than something we picked up along the way.

Transitioning actually has one of the HIGHEST rate of success of any treatment for any psychological condition, though that's not saying much - psych success rates are embarrassingly low.

Speaking for myself, I feeling a billion times more comfortable with my life as a woman.

Does any of this help?

[Mariah]

As others have said these studies are not backed by science. At the same time you can't compare us to CIS people because were never going to be CIS people so in that sense yes are odds may still be higher than theirs for suicide. As others have stated being open and honest about all our issues with the therapists is extremely important along with realistic expectations to what to expect after SRS. I was also another one that was born intersexed and as much as I spent years trying to run from this the fact is almost succeed at killing me once and if I hadn't taken action the next time around I'm sure it would have occurred. It's something is engrained in us and studies like that one that are geared to be antri trans are not worth reading. I would just make sure that you see at therapist and that your open and honest about everything and see where that leads you in the end. Hugs
Mariah

[Serenation]

The documentation that came with my surgery said it is difficult times right after surgery so make sure you have emotional and physical support and a bunch of suicide hotlines, I also have to go in for a psych eval 3 months after srs.

That said I no longer have dysphoria and I am thankful to every person that helped me.

[Serverlan]

The documentation that came with my surgery said it is difficult times right after surgery so make sure you have emotional and physical support...

Which is essentially what the study in the OP recommends.

[leacobb]

I myself and so many others are prove that Transexuality is real and i am not mentally ill.. there has been loads of info related to transgenderisum, some scientific and some religious.. the scientific studys have been tested and tried since i think it was the 1950s (i might be wrong) and it has shown that within our chemistry  it is how we have developed or you can look at the religious studys which are very one sided.. by a group of religious people who speak "Gods Word" i know which one i would believe... (im sorry but this comparison irritates me )

I would just follow your heart and see how you truely feel. And if you have got any worries or conserns see a therapist  but a neutral one.. to get your answers..
Good luck xx

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