I can understand there will be some difference of opinion between those of use who are old and wearing out and the younger ones who can still climb the stairs without hearing their knees crack.
In my time, working in psychiatry, one of the saddest things I saw was a lot of old women, in their 60s 70s and 80s, shuffeling around in carpet slippers, clutching their hand bags, stairing into space and often muttering to themselves.
A quick check of their case notes showed many had been admitted with social deviency. In other words, as young women, they had become pregnant. In those days, the only way to get an abortion was to be admitted into a mental hospital.
I don't trust psychiatrists, people who work in psychaitry, psychiatric social workers and especially charlitans who call themseves therapists. I am very disturbed at the idea of accepting a mental health disgnosis simply to get free, or partly free treatment.
I really think you are playing with fire here.
You may find insurance companies are prepared to pay $100k a pop for SRS. Equally, you may find that some preferr the cheaper option of a dose of ECT and a pocket full of chloropromazine.
Many of you have experiences hostility from family, especially parents. How long will it be before some well connected parent has their GID off spring admitted to a mental hospital as a rather more respectable alternative to admitting to the neighbours that their precious can't cut it with the opposite sex?
American mental hospitals are very backward compared to most of the world. Their insistance of using diagnostic lables rather than symptoms as criteria is dark ages stuff. Some of their practices were abandoned here in Europe and many other parts of the world 50 or 60 years ago.
If there were a single cause of GID, such as brain development or indeed anything else, then there may be some case. But the reality is that there is no single cause. GID is not a condition that can be described in terms of a single category. GID is a syndrome. Identified by symptoms. More importantly, its treatment is dependant upon the needs and wishes of the individual.
I apologise for being rather blunt here. But these are the real issues.
Edit, I've just re-read this post and realised that, by forgetting an important figure, the post doesn't make a lot of sense.
The line: was a lot of old women, in their 60s 70s and 80s, Should read was a lot of old women, in their 60s 70s and 80s, admitted 40, 50 years earlier......