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, 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?