News and Events => Opinions & Editorials => Topic started by: Natasha on November 21, 2010, 03:37:09 PM Return to Full Version
Title: What is “gender dysphoria”?
Post by: Natasha on November 21, 2010, 03:37:09 PM
Post by: Natasha on November 21, 2010, 03:37:09 PM
What is "gender dysphoria"?
http://tashauk.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/what-is-gender-dysphoria/ (http://tashauk.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/what-is-gender-dysphoria/)
by tashauk
11/21/10
You may not think gender dysphoria is a problematic term. If you are one of the people I came out to at UEA around 18 months ago, you may think it's an OK term not least because I used it myself as part of my coming out process. I feel very differently about the term now.
The use of the word condition still implies that there is something "wrong" with the trans person, that needs to be "corrected". The sub-text which even this reasonably helpful NHS summary can't quite get rid of is the notion of mental illness, which was how transness was originally regarded when medicine first had a go at definining it in the first half of the twentieth century.
http://tashauk.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/what-is-gender-dysphoria/ (http://tashauk.wordpress.com/2010/11/21/what-is-gender-dysphoria/)
by tashauk
11/21/10
You may not think gender dysphoria is a problematic term. If you are one of the people I came out to at UEA around 18 months ago, you may think it's an OK term not least because I used it myself as part of my coming out process. I feel very differently about the term now.
The use of the word condition still implies that there is something "wrong" with the trans person, that needs to be "corrected". The sub-text which even this reasonably helpful NHS summary can't quite get rid of is the notion of mental illness, which was how transness was originally regarded when medicine first had a go at definining it in the first half of the twentieth century.
Title: Re: What is “gender dysphoria”?
Post by: spacial on November 21, 2010, 05:05:38 PM
Post by: spacial on November 21, 2010, 05:05:38 PM
QuoteOn a positive note, the NHS don't call it an illness, but they do call it a condition, and trot out the old chestnut that "a person feels that they are trapped within a body of the wrong sex". As well as not making sense to many of us trans folk, this is language geared to defining us in a particular way, because medics feel they need to define people in order to offer them medical support.
I just don't get this writer at all.
This is complete nonsense. Seems to be looking for reasons to get offended.
If the writer wants reasons to be offnded, they should check out the experiences of the likes of our own Jeatyn.