Susan's Place Transgender Resources

This poll is asking your opinion, whether GID is a mental disorder or GID is not a mental disorder and it is not asking you whether GID should remain or be removed from the DSM V as is being discussed in this thread (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,81855.0.html), which was started by Julie Marie.

If you like, you can mention which way you voted.  I voted of course, "it is not a mental disorder".

Kind regards
Sarah B

I voted of course...

I vaguely recall from statistics that it is bad to tell people right off how to vote when doing a poll.

It is not a mental disorder, but we do need support.

GID is a mental disorder!

All the evidence points to GID being the expression of a medical condition involving brain development, so it in itself cannot be regarded as a mental disorder.

The term "disorder" is loaded in our culture.  We tend to think that it means there is something inherently wrong with us (we are bad), but I believe it just means that something is out of whack.  And something is out of whack - we have an anatomy and social position that isn't consistent with who we are inside.

I think that it is a disorder in that it interferes with being able to live a full life.  It is a mental condition - having a female brain in a male body or vice-versa.  The cure for the disorder is transition.

Quote from: justmeinoz on August 15, 2010, 07:43:13 AM
All the evidence points to GID being the expression of a medical condition involving brain development, so it in itself cannot be regarded as a mental disorder.

Perhaps this is a semantic argument.  I see the fact of "GID being the expression of a medical condition involving brain development" as a mental disorder.  But I can see your point.  Perhaps it is more of a body disorder. ???

- Kate

I voted it is not a mental disorder.  As Kate said it is more of a body disorder.  It should be treated as a medical disorder, but how does the medical profession diagnose it?  And that is why it is in the DSM.

GID is a self diagnose disorder.   You can't go to your doctor and say I have lung cancer, please remove my left lung.  The medical profession has tests to prove their diagnosis.  Therefore there has to be some thing that professionals can point to it has a reason for treatment.

But it is a medical disorder and can be treated with medical procedures, HRT, SRS, FFS and/or BA.

While it can be argued that GID is related to a genetic or physical issue, it has to be considered that due to the overall importance of Gender Identity in society, the issue comes with an excessive amount of emotional baggage.

If Gender didn't matter in society, we wouldn't be here right now.  We could live how we wanted with no social stigma or strife.    But because our culture puts so much of an importance on the masculine and feminine, we become an enigma to society and become an outcast.   This causes the mental strife that we deal with growing up and the varying degrees of oppression we have to learn to overcome.

So ... in short, is GID a mental disorder?   Yes, because society forces the mental anguish we have to learn to cope with.   Is the root cause of GID caused by a mental instability?   I don't think so. 

Quote from: justmeinoz on August 15, 2010, 07:43:13 AM
All the evidence points to GID being the expression of a medical condition involving brain development, so it in itself cannot be regarded as a mental disorder.

I agree with this, the key being "in itself". I don't think you can say it is strictly physical or strictly mental. It isn't an either/or question. I do believe the mental consequences arise from the physical condition in the first place, but it is a physical condition that can have very serious mental effects. Attempts at "curing" transsexualism by psychological intervention, so called "reparative therapies", have been proven ineffective. We can be cured by physical treatment (hormones, surgeries) which would suggest it is a physical disorder, but to be most effective these cures also have to take into account the very real psychological aspects of gender incongruence.

I voted it was not a mental disorder, but the psychological consequences of the physical condition can be considered a type of "mental disorder" as long as the fact that the underlying condition is a physical one is not ignored. The "disorder" is NOT that we think we have female or male brains in male or female bodies, but that we ARE females or males born into the wrong bodies. I think that's a very important distinction.

I'd like to have the options:

[   ] I don't know
[   ] I don't care at all

So I did not vote.

Mental disorder by definition of mental disorder - unless there is some other kind of GID that doesn't involve pervasive, life altering, distress that isn't considered typical of their culture.

Quote from: interalia on August 15, 2010, 01:44:08 PM
Mental disorder by definition of mental disorder - unless there is some other kind of GID that doesn't involve pervasive, life altering, distress that isn't considered typical of their culture.

Agree - by definition.

Steph

K8 and I seem top be on the same page.
There is a huge stigma surrounding mental illness. People who have them will often not seek help because they don't want to think that something is seriously wrong with them. People don't like the idea of something being wrong with them. With any other mental illness (depression, schizophrenia, etc.) there are things biologically and chemically effecting the way the brain is working, and it affects emotional and physical well-being. With any mental illness, there are physical symptoms as well. When you have depression, the person can become fatigued, lose their appetite, and gain lots of weight. Those are physical symptoms.
With GID, the physical symptom just happens to be HUGE. The body is the wrong gender. There are also emotional symptoms like dysphoria, anxiety, and depression. GID is a conflict between brain/body identity.
With most other mental illness, the treatment involves therapy and medicine. Most trans people go to therapy and are medicated with hormones, and the final treatment is a full-body transformation. I understand that some people are uncomfortable with thinking that being transgendered is a disorder, but if the treatment involves actually getting the desired body, I don't personally see the problem.

My views on this, likes Julie's, are already well known so I won't explicitly repeat them - but I did find a most apt parallel in an article about AIS which I also seem to have suffered from. In a magazine article they were taken to task for calling this a disorder when it is a SYNDROME. I think GID probably would be better renamed GIS. In my view it would be a lot more acceptable if it were described as a mental syndrome.

GID is not a mental disorder, but, left untreated, I think it can cause mental disorder/s.

Tali

I don't think we have enough data to class it as either. It probably classes as a mental disorder and perhaps other things as well (degrees of intersexuality in some cases?)

Quote from: perlita85 on August 15, 2010, 04:53:52 PMI fully expect that GII (GID) would be removed from the next revision of the DSM.

Okay, I give up. What does GII mean? Neither google nor a site search did the job.

gender identity incongruence I think

Having a masters in Psych, I got a few opinions here.   Psychology is not based on science.    Disorders are classified upon simple observations of the norms and deviations from that norm.  Biologically it may be perfectly normal for 10% of the population to be in no traditional sexual roles.  Because 10% (Just made the number up) does not fall into the norm does not mean there is something wrong with them.  If DSM says Transsexualism implies there is something wrong then there must be testable hypothesizes of what is wrong or it's junk science.   

Basically, the inclusion of Transsexuals as a disorder is purely based upon opinions and deserves no more consideration than those of a Bigot's opinions.

Quote from: mjr on August 16, 2010, 07:46:37 PM
Having a masters in Psych, I got a few opinions here.   Psychology is not based on science.    Disorders are classified upon simple observations of the norms and deviations from that norm.  Biologically it may be perfectly normal for 10% of the population to be in no traditional sexual roles.  Because 10% (Just made the number up) does not fall into the norm does not mean there is something wrong with them.  If DSM says Transsexualism implies there is something wrong then there must be testable hypothesizes of what is wrong or it's junk science.   

Basically, the inclusion of Transsexuals as a disorder is purely based upon opinions and deserves no more consideration than those of a Bigot's opinions.

You have less than 15 posts so you couldn't receive or respond to IM's.  I apologize for asking this publicly in advance:

Masters in Psych?!?!  Seriously?  You pulled rank, so I doubt anyone who wants to believe you will believe anyone else whose opinion differs from you, but seriously, you are saying you have a master's in psych and don't know how to classify a simple mental disorder?!?  I feel forgiving of the people here who through some combination of ignorance, justification, and/or wishful thinking believe it isn't a mental disorder but to have someone who has a masters say so makes me incredulous. 

By your statements you could throw out the whole DSM as purely based on some bigot's 'simple observations of the norm'.  Anything else you care to remove from the DSM?  How about major depression!  If people feel depressed for a significant duration they don't have a mental disorder, they don't need psychological treatment, they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps right?!?!

Transsexuals feel significant DISTRESS from their mind body conflict.  Argue all day the semantics of the chicken or the egg with regard to what started it, but it still is easy to 'observe' that they feel distress.  That distress is PERVASIVE, or in other words it doesn't easily go away, it sticks around - usually until treated in some way.  Finally it isn't explained as a variation of CULTURE - at least not yet in the cultures that write the DSM.  What about that isn't, by its very definition, a mental disorder? 

Masters in Psych?!?!  Seriously?  You pulled rank

Not really, or mjr would have picked a popular degree, in a field that people like and approve of.  Want to know why insurance tends not to cover visits to such people?  Start with... Psychology is not based on science... and work it out from there.

I'd say it is a disorder. Simply put: There's something wrong with me! It's physical, yes, but so is clinical depression. And that's also classed as a mental disorder, right?

Arguments like 'There's nothing wrong with us..' Sorry, but there is! If there weren't, then why would be be so dead-set on fixing it?

Quote from: Dryad on August 17, 2010, 02:34:06 AM
I'd say it is a disorder. Simply put: There's something wrong with me! It's physical, yes, but so is clinical depression. And that's also classed as a mental disorder, right?

Arguments like 'There's nothing wrong with us..' Sorry, but there is! If there weren't, then why would be be so dead-set on fixing it?

Yeah but the point is we fix the body not the mind, and for me, at least that is the ONLY way it would have been done.

Ok consider this. If there was a way to fix the mind, and as a result SRS and HRT was not allowed, how many of us would take the fix?

I certainly wouldn't. In that situation I would have done the best job I could to live with the condition untreated. Sure it would have involved suffering, but I don't want someone changing any aspect of who I am mentally. That's the same logic I apply to not taking drugs, or indeed antidepressants, or indeed anything which might seriously alter my personality. (I hardly drink either).

I like who I am. Maybe if I did not then I might be willing to concede some form of a mental disorder, but because I genuinely like myself the way I am I do not accept that definition. I simply chose to modify my appearance and some bodily functions. That is all.

i have no idea

Two young girls have a large strawberry birthmark on their cheeks.

One accepts it, does her best to conceil it and basically lives with it. She takes the attitude that inside there is a girl with passion who can give a load of love.

The other is incredably depressed, isolates herself, thinks she's ugly and no-one wants to know her. Anyone who approaches her is either given the brush off or over powered with too much all at once.

These are hypothetical situations but valid in as much as they are based upon concievable reality.

Is the strawberry birthmark the problem, or the way the second girl deal with it?

To take this annalogy to transgendered feelings. If feeling transgendered causes someone to become clinically depressed, then they need support. The cure is to deal with the gender issue.

addition, after a bit of thought. The preferred cure.

An ambitious therapist or such might think it possible to teach the second girl to be more accepting of her disfigurement. But the preferred option would, I suggest, be to find ways to help her to conceil it.

I'm going to apologise here. This analogy and the comparison is weak not to mention, emotive and even a bit leading. I kinda wish I hadn't written it now.  :)

The dysphoria is mental, no matter if gender and sex are both biological in origin.

:police: Let's be careful here to discuss the topic and the issues, not the posters.  From my view we are skirting the edges of rule 15.

Rule 15. Items under discussion shall be confined to the subject matter at hand, members shall avoid taking the other users posts personally, and/or posting anything that can reasonably be construed as a personal attack.

Let's just stay on topic, OK?  Have a nice day.

- Kate

Actually, in order for something to be considered a disorder it's not enough for it to be a deviation from the "norm", it has to be something that affects "function".
In other words, for it to be a disorder, it has to impair your ability to function in society.

Changes in what is or isn't considered a disorder come with changes to what we consider a part of functioning in society, and with changes to our understanding of how we work as human beings.

Psychology "is" a science based system. It relies on gathering information and then making a conclusion based off of the available information, something that all science does. As information changes, conclusions change, as it does with all science.
The reason why psychology doesn't do "experiments" is because it's not ethical to "create" mental/psychological/emotional disorders in human beings. This doesn't make it "less" scientific, it only means it's gathering of information is slower and/or more erratic and situational than that of other sciences.

Today's accepted psychological theories are different from the ones ten years ago, twenty, thirty, etc. because of this.

My dysphoria does limit what I can and can not do on a given day. It is possibly if not probably a large factor in my depression, which sometimes gets to utterly devastating levels.
I have days where I want to take a kitchen knife to my chest because it's wrong, and there are days when I don't want to get out of bed and acknowledge that I'm alive, and there are days where I sincerely wish I wouldn't wake up in the morning.
This means that my current situation does negatively affect my ability to live a functional life and be an active member of society.
Thus, I do not think it's "incorrect" to say that I have a "disorder", and since it's my mind-body mismatch that I consider to likely be the primary cause of this problem, I don't think it's wrong to say that my dysphoria "is" the disorder.

Quote from: interalia on August 16, 2010, 09:59:00 PM
You have less than 15 posts so you couldn't receive or respond to IM's.  I apologize for asking this publicly in advance:

Masters in Psych?!?!  Seriously?  You pulled rank, so I doubt anyone who wants to believe you will believe anyone else whose opinion differs from you, but seriously, you are saying you have a master's in psych and don't know how to classify a simple mental disorder?!?  I feel forgiving of the people here who through some combination of ignorance, justification, and/or wishful thinking believe it isn't a mental disorder but to have someone who has a masters say so makes me incredulous. 

By your statements you could throw out the whole DSM as purely based on some bigot's 'simple observations of the norm'.  Anything else you care to remove from the DSM?  How about major depression!  If people feel depressed for a significant duration they don't have a mental disorder, they don't need psychological treatment, they should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps right?!?!

Transsexuals feel significant DISTRESS from their mind body conflict.  Argue all day the semantics of the chicken or the egg with regard to what started it, but it still is easy to 'observe' that they feel distress.  That distress is PERVASIVE, or in other words it doesn't easily go away, it sticks around - usually until treated in some way.  Finally it isn't explained as a variation of CULTURE - at least not yet in the cultures that write the DSM.  What about that isn't, by its very definition, a mental disorder?

Opps sorry for pulling rank.  Must be the new girl syndrome.  I don't have any rank though.  I left Psychology a long time ago, but I still express my opinions that were seared into my soul.  Psychologist are excellent listeners.  But the science don't exist and because of that I don't think it is right for them to classify people.  Autism is my current rub.  Too many children are being misdiagnosed as autistic, because the definition is so broad.  I had the opportunity to work with autistic children back in the 70s and what was considered autism then is not what I see now in the diagnosis my friends children get.   I can go on quite a bit about the psych community and how they have gone overboard eliminating diversity.

I'm no expert of DSM.  The last version I read was DSM III many years ago.  I remember how most of the disorders could describe anyone.  If I remember right to be classified as an alcoholic, you had to have at least 3 heavy drinking episodes in one year.   All of us have to some degree the disorders listed in DSM.

As for distress, neurosis was eliminated from classifications back in the 70s.  Did they bring them back.   I would say that distress is something that we all have as part of life and if it affects your ability to function then help is needed.  But distress is no longer a disorder.  Unless of course they changes things on me.

Again I'm sincerely sorry for being so opinionated. 

Quote from: tekla on August 16, 2010, 11:49:03 PM
Masters in Psych?!?!  Seriously?  You pulled rank

Not really, or mjr would have picked a popular degree, in a field that people like and approve of.  Want to know why insurance tends not to cover visits to such people?  Start with... Psychology is not based on science... and work it out from there.

Actually I did pick a popular degree and got a second masters in computer science.  The one thing I did get from those 6 years of schooling was an over abundance of speak my mind.

Opps! Back on Topic.  Gender identity issues don't deserve to be treated as a disorder anymore than other forms of self expression.  The distress felt at least by me are induced by society expectations of the roles we must play in life.  I like all that comes with the feminine role and want to be all the is embodied in that role.  The problem is with society not me.

Quote from: perlita85 on August 17, 2010, 05:34:51 PM
If psycology is not based on science, then -my dear Lady- what is based on? metaphysics? religion? vuduu? BS?
What is the scientific method? Briefy you make and hypthesis, design an experiment to test the hypothesis, analyze the data, then polish the ypothesis, and with soem luck come up with a theory. I think your parents should demand  a refund from whatever school you went

Ouch!  My mom and dad?   Scientific method goes like this.  First we create a theory which is just a conjecture about something.  Then we create a set of hypothesis to support the theory.  Now we test for the null hypothesis.  If we can disprove the null hypothesis then we add support to our theory.  The reason we use the null hypothesis to test is that most non-finite systems can not be proven.  Proof of a theory requires every possible instance of that theory to be consistent.  Disproof only requires one instance to fail to support the theory.

I know all this because psychology is one of the most rigorous followers of scientific method in academia.  This only refers to experimental psychologist.  Clinicians, base there finding on anecdotal evidence, conjecture, opinion and hear say.    There is no science behind why a person has GID, just opinion. If you think otherwise show me the science.

I'm with K8 here. Children, if you cannot play nicely, then I will lock this thread. There are ways to disagree without becoming strident and personal.

Quote from: mjr on August 18, 2010, 08:20:08 PM
...

Opps! Back on Topic.  Gender identity issues don't deserve to be treated as a disorder anymore than other forms of self expression.  The distress felt at least by me are induced by society expectations of the roles we must play in life.  I like all that comes with the feminine role and want to be all the is embodied in that role.  The problem is with society not me.

Are you implying that GID is a form of self expression?  Could you explain?

Steph

Quote from: mjr on August 18, 2010, 08:20:08 PM
Gender identity issues don't deserve to be treated as a disorder anymore than other forms of self expression.  The distress felt at least by me are induced by society expectations of the roles we must play in life.  I like all that comes with the feminine role and want to be all the is embodied in that role.  The problem is with society not me.

If it's societal expectations alone that cause you stress, would being accepted as who you are without any requests to conform to any sex or gender mean that you would no longer feel a need to physically transition?

Cause, I'm changing my body cause my body causes me stress. That's what my dysphoria is about.
Not about what some stranger on the street expects of me.

I've got acceptance and support of those that are my nearest and dearest, and Iceland's pretty equal (though still not 100%) when it comes to gender equality, and more than that even, so... reading about the societal reactions other trans-folk experience abroad causes me to be more nervous than anything that happens "here".

If a four leaf clover is mentally disordered, than so am I.

Now, let me ask this...

A group of people firmly believe that "allowing" transgender people to walk around, interact, work and exist on the same level in society as them will cause the destruction of that society.  So great is their fear they wage anti-trans campaigns filled with hate mongering, lies and deception. 

Are they mentally disordered?

Quote from: Julie Marie on August 22, 2010, 09:09:48 AM
A group of people firmly believe that "allowing" transgender people to walk around, interact, work and exist on the same level in society as them will cause the destruction of that society.  So great is their fear they wage anti-trans campaigns filled with hate mongering, lies and deception. 

Are they mentally disordered?

If it negatively affects their ability to function in society, then yes.

Some of this conversation is very weird and some of the personal attacks are weird in that they have very obvious answers.

Why WOULD someone pick an unpopular degree to lord over us in a conversation? Perhaps because that degree applies to what is being discussed. Would the argument carry any weight if it was made by someone who went to college to be a dietitian or a lawyer? I think not. As a note this argument is not intended to be an attack, just an attempt at pointing out some logical reasoning in what is becoming a hot debate. It doesn't matter if we feel it is unpopular, what matters is that it applies to the current conversation.

Quote from: Mary on August 18, 2010, 08:20:08 PM
Gender identity issues don't deserve to be treated as a disorder anymore than other forms of self expression.  The distress felt at least by me are induced by society expectations of the roles we must play in life.  I like all that comes with the feminine role and want to be all the is embodied in that role.  The problem is with society not me.

I think at this point in the debate we are getting on unsteady ground. One of the issues, imo, is that mental disorder is so loosely defined in the first place. It is so easy for someone to take different meanings from it.

In some circles (both socially and in science) mental disorder is intended to mean the exact same thing as mental illness or mental disease, in fact if you look up the definitions a lot of books use one of these terms in the definition of another of the terms or will add in comments like "also known as..." and then follow up with one of the other descriptive terms (mental illness/disease/disorder/etc). I think that creates a lot of confusion and is going to be the basis for many of the opposing view points in topics like this one.

Your statement that your distress is induced by social expectations of gender roles points to (once again imo since the definitions are very loose) what I would consider a psychosocial problem. For those who don't know a very common definition of psychosocial would be as follows : A term referring to the mind's ability to, consciously or unconsciously, adjust and relate the body to its social environment. If your desire is to fill and enjoy a female role based upon society's definition of female then aren't you really adjusting your body to fit the social environment of our times?

There are many definitions of mental disorder/illness/disease (once again nearly impossible to pick one because of similar and ambiguous definitions) that say they can be caused by either physiological or psychosocial factors. With physiological covering the idea that there is a physical difference and psychosocial covering social stigma it could logically be followed that regardless of the reason you feel the need to transition or live as the opposite gender of what you were anatomically born that this means you have a mental disorder.


It is a fine line to walk, mostly because of the reason I keep repeating in this post, the words have such similar meaning and can be used differently by any person due to how we personally apply the definition. It is a hot topic debate because it is filled with lots of different views that all can seem to be backed with science or fact, rather or not those views are based on actual logic and not just emotional desire can't really be known except for by the person who the view belongs to (which is also complicated because sometimes even we can't see rather or not we are acting with emotion or logic).

If it makes anyone else feel better I will pull some rank too, while I have not been in a specific degree field I followed my general studies to set me up for a degree in psychology as well. I took every class I had access to without actually enrolling in the program, I stopped the year before I would have had to finally choose to apply for the program to continue with the higher level courses. Many of the classes I did take involved gender therapy and psychology specifically as my intent was to pursue a career as a gender therapist working with transsexuals and GLB youth. So my middle ground view point is coming from both personal opinion and a background of being educated (even if just partially educated) in this specific field of study.

Maybe now the debate will be about rather or not my experience outweighs yours Mary lol! ;)  Which I will say in advance it does not, taking SOME classes obviously does not push me ahead of someone who has an actual degree in the field.

Quote from: Sarah B on August 15, 2010, 06:05:19 AM
This poll is asking your opinion, whether GID is a mental disorder or GID is not a mental disorder and it is not asking you whether GID should remain or be removed from the DSM V as is being discussed in this thread (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,81855.0.html), which was started by Julie Marie.

If you like, you can mention which way you voted.  I voted of course, "it is not a mental disorder".

Kind regards
Sarah B

To respond to the original topic (as opposed to responding to the debate lol) here is my opinion, which is of course not any more valid than any other shared here.

I voted that it is a mental disorder. The reason I did so is because the definition I personally have of mental disorder is this one, "Any of various psychiatric conditions, usually characterized by impairment of an individual's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by physiological or psychosocial factors."

Since physiological can be defined as anything pertaining to the functioning of an organ, as governed by the interactions between its physical and chemical conditions and psychosocial factors can be defined as a term referring to the mind's ability to, consciously or unconsciously, adjust and relate the body to its social environment I feel that both of these things cover any of the root causes of gender identity that we speculate in society today. Rather or not your drive to transition from one gender to the other is based upon the social aspects of how you see gender and how you fit those social aspects or if it is based on pure physical/mental drive and belief that you ARE the opposite gender because of unknown medical or genetic reasons both arguments fall under this category/definition of mental disorder.

As a side note all of the definitions I listed are borrowed word for word from online dictionaries and can easily be googled to see exactly what it is I'm looking at when I chose which side of the debate to fall on.

I did not vote, because I think the question is framed in too limited terms for me. Nevertheless, I think the original question is a good post to stimulate thinking, and I have enjoyed the differing opinions and experiences.

My own thoughts are contradictory, like this debate - I agree and disagree with everybody. (Old Jewish story: a man comes to a Rabbi and complains about his neighbor. The Rabbi says "you're right." The neighbors counters with his side of events. The Rabbi says, "you're right." The Rabbi's wife, hearing this says, "But, they cannot both be right!" To which the Rabbi says, "You're right.") But everyone's experience has validity and is worthwhile.

I think part of the problem is a language issue; what we experience cannot be so easily put into the box of labeling. Or, to put it another way - to name our experience GID or GII is to (over)simplify it in order to talk about it. But it is important to remember that the label is not the phenomenon, it is an abstraction. (I like GII better).

Add to that that the "box" of "mental disorder" means different things to each person, and I doubt we will ever have total agreement.

To some people "mental disorder" does not fit their experience. To others it does.

One problem is that society seems to increasingly insist that you can only ask for help if there is something "wrong" with YOU. There has to be a flaw in you, but to get the best help, it cannot be your "fault."

An off-topic example of this is that in Los Angeles, California, to get help from Child Protective Services, a parent has to be labeled "bad". It did not used to be that way. In the 70's, an overwhelmed single parent could ask for help, without being blamed or labeled, and get help.

I wish we could get appropriate help without feeling blamed or made"wrong."

We cannot yet dispense with labels, most medical insurance demands there be an accepted labeled something wrong before you can get help.

But we have to get beyond believing the labels are more than convenient boxes, which are not real in themselves.

For me, it helps that there is a label, a box, that at least validates my confusing experience. I like GII better than GID. It helped me feel some less self-doubt to read the DSM and see parts of my experience in print. But I do not take the DSM too seriously - it is put together by committee vote, and it has major flaws.

I worry that people will use whatever label exists to justify negative actions against me and others whose experience is similar.

Is it a mental disorder? What is a mental disorder? An abstract concept. Not a concrete reality.

Does it help us understand our lives better? Does it help us grow and move forward? Explain ourselves to possible allies?

Being transgender is a lot of different things to different people.

I believe it is real, not imagined for most people. It causes most of us to feel out of sync with our bodies and with our surroundings, and that causes problems, which cause emotional distress - for most of us. But not uniformly.

I do not know if calling our experience a mental disorder helps or hurts. Probably some of both, depending.

But comparing experiences helps me, so thank you all.

Kendall

Kendall, you are my new favorite person.

It is really an issue of language and how each person sees themselves and defines the words being used. Everyone's experience is different and we will never get the same answer from everyone when it comes to issues like this (normally we won't even have a majority of people agree on one answer).

My view point is different from some people because I am not just transsexual, I am a transsexual who also happens to be bipolar, suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and has an unknown/unidentified anxiety disorder. I see and feel differently about mental illness and mental disorder than people who don't have the "extra baggage" (for lack of a better term) that I have. Mental disorder is not such a stigma to me as it may be to people who literally have nothing wrong with them outside of happening to be trans. I see it differently and understand it differently, I spend WAY to much of my time seeing doctors and discussing medical issues with them and see a lot of mental issues differently than people who don't have that experience. I even see it differently than other people who do have that experience based upon my doctors, the things I have been taught by them, my personal feelings about my illnesses, my family's belief system that I was raised with regarding mental illness, etc.

It's something that we will never really have one answer to because there are so many factors each person takes into consideration and most of those are based on personal experience.

Quote from: Cowboi on September 10, 2010, 10:31:00 AM
To respond to the original topic (as opposed to responding to the debate lol) here is my opinion, which is of course not any more valid than any other shared here.

I voted that it is a mental disorder. The reason I did so is because the definition I personally have of mental disorder is this one, "Any of various psychiatric conditions, usually characterized by impairment of an individual's normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by physiological or psychosocial factors."

Since physiological can be defined as anything pertaining to the functioning of an organ, as governed by the interactions between its physical and chemical conditions and psychosocial factors can be defined as a term referring to the mind's ability to, consciously or unconsciously, adjust and relate the body to its social environment I feel that both of these things cover any of the root causes of gender identity that we speculate in society today. Rather or not your drive to transition from one gender to the other is based upon the social aspects of how you see gender and how you fit those social aspects or if it is based on pure physical/mental drive and belief that you ARE the opposite gender because of unknown medical or genetic reasons both arguments fall under this category/definition of mental disorder.

As a side note all of the definitions I listed are borrowed word for word from online dictionaries and can easily be googled to see exactly what it is I'm looking at when I chose which side of the debate to fall on.

I voted the same thing for the same reasons so I really don't have anything to add.  I would like to add that I feel a like you do because I also have Social Anxiety Disorder and just because I took various psychology classes and I don't attach a negative stigma to "disorder/illness/disease" because of what I was taught and how my teacher taught me.