this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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Jesse what the fuck are you talking about...
Gender dysphoria is still a disorder and the diagnostic criteria and treatment are different from body dysmorphia.
Yet it was removed from the DSM-5 due to pressure from people outside the science community insisting that gender dysphoria isn't a mental illness and that it should be reinforced through gender affirming care. That gender affirming care often coming hand in hand with body dysmorphia.
My point is I can't figure out why this is the only mental illness that is reinforced and supported rather than treated. For instance we dont let anorexics make themselves skinny so their dysmorphia goes away, we use corrective therapy.
The only thing I can reason as to why the former is the way it is, is politics.
For someone who thinks they're so smart you sure have a lot of strongly held, dangerously outdated views.
We don't correct mental disorders by "forcing people to be more 'normal'", we treat them so that the person with the disorder can have the most fulfilling life they can.
The reason we don't let someone with anorexia stave to death is that they would die, which is not the most fulfilling life they can have. The reason we let someone with gender dysmorphia (after assessing that transition is the best solution for them) transition is that this lets them have, what is now statistically proven to be, the most fulfilling life they can have.
Forcing a square peg (neurodivergent individual) into a round hole (neurotypical behaviour) doesn't make anyone happy. Instead we help them round their hardest edges and find the most 'square hole' shaped lifestyle they have access to means everyone is as fulfilled as possible.
No you just don't like the terminology I use which is standard for people who mistake pretention for virtues. You know what I mean when I say 'normal' but insist on extrapolating it so you can wiggle in your bias so it fits. Never said "force people to be more 'normal'" so that's some cool quotes you pulled out of your ass, curious how you got them past your head like that.
Allowing someone with a mental disorder to undergo surgery which can be potentially irreversible isn't comparable to the self harm that often accompanies anorexics? Last I checked we don't allow anyone with body dysmorphia to change their bodies to be closer to that dysmorphic view but maybe that's an 'outdated' look on mental disorders.
When you get tired of fighting a strawman, positions I never took, feel free to reply again. I never at any point said anyone with a disorder should be forced into anything. I expressed that treatments should be sought after and not disregarded because 'reinforcing them gives a more fulfilling life' as opposed to what? Not having the disorder? I would rather us find a way to make us comfortable in our own bodies than give up looking because "well we can't force people with mental disorders to be 'normal'! They're fine just the way they are!"
What of those with the disorder who transition and regret it? Were we in the right for pushing them to 'give them the most fulfilling life they can have'? To now be forced to live with a body that's forever scarred, to live with the pain they'll never be who they were again. I'm sick of those like you who are so eager to foster a new marginalized class that they fail to see these people need fucking help. Actual assistance. They aren't just your buddies to be given flags, symbols, and marketed as your lost, victimized pets. But I guess it's way too late for that.
Oh yes, the people who had surgery and regretted it and are now forced to live with the side effects, please tell me more about how no other surgery but gender affirming care has risks and side effects. Ridiculous.
I was BARELY paraphrasing your story about how antisocial people should just be made to socialise and be more normal instead of letting them be antisocial. That's HARDLY the strawman you make it out to be. I also love how you get all up in a tizzy about barely being misquoted then do the same thing to me in your post.
Your incorrect use of the word "reinforcement" in this context has been corrected by others so at this point I can see you're simply incapable of learning and improving yourself.
As for your claim to being "sick of people... fail[ing] to see [trans] people need fucking help", if you really cared to help trans people you'd know that every reputable long term study of mental health from gender dysphoria shows the best long term outcome is from gender affirming care. Not from the neo-conversion therapy type approaches you're clamering for. THAT's why gender affirming care is now MEDICINE, and not forcing them to forget about being trans and just be normal or in your words move away from their dysmorphic view. Gender affirming care doesn't mean surgery, it means letting them live how they want, and present themselves how they feel. This would have been the natural state of society of we didn't have such rigid Christian gender norms. Certainly everyone else presents themselves how they feel. We know of several societies past and present where gender divergence was widely accepted with no issues so this isn't even a new concept, it's just letting the Christian cultural hegemony die.
Thanks for confirming my statement that you losers can't keep politics out of this and that you're more interested in keeping your protected, victimized class of people than getting sick people actual help. So much so you'd rather enable mental disorders than seek actual treatment to make them comfortable in the bodies they have rather than change their bodies to suit the disorder.
You're a fucking monster, no different from the Christians with their shock therapy.
"gender affirming care is supported by science as providing the best life outcomes for people with gender dysphoria"
"You're a monster, the real solution is clearly my idea because it matches my view of culture and reality regardless of what science and studies say"
And of course I'm the one "making this political"
I applaud your logic and reason sir.
PS shock therapy is now scientifically supported as a treatment for treatment resistant depression with excellent short and long term prognosis, so in the end you got one thing right: when used as prescribed by medical professionals gender affirming care and shock therapy are effective treatments for gender dysphoria and depression respectively. You didn't intend to be right, but I suppose that's the only way you end up on the correct side of any discussion.
PPS I missed the best irony in your comment. Christians used shock therapy as a dubious scientifically unsound treatment to stop gays from being who they are and go back to accepting their "normal" sexuality. And you're trying to advocate for dubious scientifically unsound treatments to stop trans people from being who they are and go back to accepting their "normal" gender identity. Truly a gift of a comment!!
First you have to define what you mean when you say "reinforcement" and then differentiate it from "treatment". Are you "reinforcing" Autism when you avoid situations where you're likely to encounter loud sounds and bright lights, or when you avoid large groups of people, etc.? Are you "reinforcing" ADHD when you choose to work a non-traditional schedule and job because that's what allows you to work with the disorder? Why is presenting as something other than your assigned gender suddenly "reinforcement of a mental illness" and not "treatment"? Where do you draw the line between "reinforcing it" and "accepting your condition changes who you are and requires you to live differently from others, and utilizing effective strategies and medications that may improve quality of life and reduce suffering in the long term"?
You give eating disorders the treatment they get because, without it, the disorder will severely harm the person. You give gender dysphoria the treatment it gets because proper treatment for the specific person's case, whether it's transitioning via using appropriate pronouns or being more open with their non-traditional behaviours or making efforts to outwardly appear non-traditionally or going through HRT etc., is effective at reducing harm related to the dysphoria. What you call "reinforcing" eating disorders is not comparable to gender affirming care because it does not have the same effects.
I didn't think I had to define basic words but if I have to, sure. I define reinforcement as supporting behaviors that are symptoms of the disorder. If someone who has autism becomes extremely antisocial for instance, reinforcement would be allow them to continue that behavior as well as support it by giving them blackout curtains, better locks, whatever would make that antisocial behavior stronger or more frequent. I define treatment as attempting to correct the behaviors the disorder spurs on. Using the same example, rather than pushing the person with autism to become more antisocial (even if it's comfortable) to instead gradually move away from that by introducing them to people (or whatever would be appropriate for their current needs).
Because the vast majority of people do not feel the need to present as something other than their assigned gender. Most people, nearly all of them, are comfortable in their own body with the gender they are and the thought of changing that never crosses their mind. Those who don't or can't feel comfortable within themselves should receive treatment either through therapy or with a solution we will one day find.
The reason this frustrates me is because the attitude is now to not look for a solution, to not look for a treatment, but to instead normalize the disorder because the effect is generally harmless. Ideally, I'd like everyone to feel comfortable in their body from the day they're born to the day they die and I think it's worth looking for a way to do that.
Then you have a completely different definition of "reinforcement" from a majority of other people. Reinforcement is manipulating a being using conditioning methods like emotional reward/punishment in order to get them to do a specific behaviour. You can also use "reinforcement" to mean "supporting a person", but clearly that's not what you want.
What is "correcting" gender dysphoria to you? Forcing them to feel uncomfortable in their bodies and tell them they're wrong for feeling that way, despite that not working and there being actual treatment that improves wellbeing available? It is erroneous to label gender-denying ""correcting"" as "treatment", and then deny gender-affirming care being treatment, your take is an insult to real science.
Buddy I hate to tell you this but that's literally what disorders and treatments for those disorders are in this society. "Most people" don't need to take bipolar meds or conscioisly think about the tone inflection of others in every conversation they have. You finding it "abnormal" does not affect the validity of the disorders and treatments, because they are inherently abnormal. That's why they're CALLED disorders, because their presence does not align well with a neurotypical society.
Which is what gender affirming care is, and it WORKS.
Yeah it's pretty easy for a privileged person to say "don't use the effective treatment we currently have because I personally don't like it, and hope humanity finds something I do like in the future"
We have solutions. And we use them.
We have treatments. And we use them.
What in god's name are you talking about? You sound like those people who said "stop normalizing the gays, homosexuality is a mental illness and letting people be homosexual is bad and disgusting and we should just correct them and tell them to be straight". Because that IS what they said. That is also what they said about women who "defied" men and refused to be controlled by men a long time ago.
Ok but there is no way to do that. And the ideal is a fantasy. We have real science supported by the real fields of psychology and psychiatry by real medical professionals. We are being realistic, doing what is shown by science to be the most effective form of treatment, and doing what gives the best outcome for everyone.
Thinking you can (or should attempt to) invalidate people with gender dysphoria rather than affirm them is a fundamental (and likely intentional in this case) misunderstanding of what gender dysphoria actually is. You are disparaging the credibility of the scientific community, and doing that as someone who doesn't know anything about pyschology, because you don't like reality. You don't care if people with gender dysphoria suffer from your proposed anti-treatment because you don't care about them, you care about society appearing how you want it to appear.
Also this, lol:
When people use "antisocial" against Autistic people, they generally mean it as "I don't like how you act, I think you lack empathy, and you need to be normal". ASD does not make you antisocial. It makes your socializing tendencies appear VERY different from neurotypicals', and makes it far easier to connect with other neurodivergent people, but the only people who assert it actually makes you against socializing are clowns who know nothing about having Autism.
ASD treatment does not involve "correcting" who and how you tend to socialize with.
You're not aware of this, but this is what people with Autism ACTUALLY OFTEN DO and is generally something that IMPROVES QUALITY OF LIFE. Fucking insane you act like this is "crazy" or harmful behaviour.
Again, you clearly don't know what Autism is or how it's treated.
I like how you're using being "pushed" as a way to pretend that people with gender dysphoria are being "pushed" into wanting gender affirming care. Unbelievable.
And "being pushed to be antisocial" is not at all what people with Autism find comfortable. Your beliefs on ASD and the treatment for it are inherently extremely wrong.
The people with ASD who are socially hindered by their atypical mechanisms for social interaction and emotions, who want to do programs to "introduce" themselves to others, may. But this isn't a "right" or "wrong" thing to do, this isn't central to ASD treatment and doesn't address the issues of ASD, and this is only something someone does if they want to do it or if they're pressured/forced into doing it by others (usually family). Most people with Autism don't do this as part of treatment.
You are acting like ASD is some anti-social disorder that makes you socialize wrong which needs to be corrected. This is not at all true – people with ASD are very different from neurotypicals, which causes problems, but the approach isn't to "correct the Autism" or to try to make them be "normal". It's quite literally to do what makes them the most comfortable with their life, that is the point of the treatment, if they find they don't want to mask their ASD just because our society is extremely ableist and restrict the functioning of someone with ASD, then they won't mask their ASD.
I like your response. You responded politely, you took apart every portion of their frankly ridiculous comment and highlighted how it diverges from sound health care practices and ideas. You responded with what the current, science backed approaches are and why they work. If they were trying to learn and make themselves a better person they would have thanked you for the information and updated their views.
So of course they're not going to respond anymore because they're just a right wing conservative troll looking for a fight over "wokeness in medicine".
Good job anyways, very informative and respectful!
I don't think they are right wing. The same account referred to Trump as Defunded Donald. Ignorance exists all over the political spectrum.
Left vs Right, to me at least, is the way we look at people who aren't the same as us. Left wing ideology is basically that each person should be viewed as an individual and, to the extent possible, be allowed to live their best life and pursue happiness. Right wing ideology is that society is a hierarchy and there are better people, who deserve the freedom to pursue their goals at great social cost (proportional to their position) because their innate greatness will improve society far more than the cost. Then there are worse people who should be restrained (proportional to their position) from pursuing their goals because their "degenerate" goals can only harm social progress.
If you listen to what he thinks about trans people I think it's easy to see he thinks they should be restricted while people like him should be free to impose "treatments" not backed by medicine to make the world "right".
Gender dysphoria is to my knowledge still in the DSM
edit: I looked it up and the only possibly related change I could find is that the wording of "disorder" was removed from the definition, it is still however in the DSM.
[citation needed]
Because gender affirming care is a successful treatment and works for reducing the distress, as opposed to stuff like conversion therapy, which does not.
BDD and gender dysphoria are different disorders and so they have different diagnostic criteria and different treatments. Affirming eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorders does not help treat them.
The one doing the politics here is you, ironically.
There was a brief period it was removed from a revision, then reapplied in the next with added stipulations such as "A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and natal gender of at least 6 months in duration" which didn't exist previously.
Do you not understand the basis for gender affirming care? When someone changes their sex through surgery, takes hormone blockers, or makes some other physical alteration to their body it stands to reason it's because they're dissatisfied with how their body currently is. So much so it becomes an overwhelming preoccupation out of a perceived flaw that needs to be corrected. Otherwise why do it at all? Why undergo surgery if you're satisfied and comfortable with how you are presently?
Affirming a mental illness, while it can successfully reduce stress, usually isn't permitted because of what you say right after this.
All other types of body dysmorphic disorders are treated as illnesses which should be corrected and cured, not reinforced and supported. So either gender dysphoria (which can be accompanied by body dysmorphia) is just very very special or we've taken this approach because feeding into the illness is easier than curing it. Slap on a layer of politics about how they're a marginalized group that should be protected and now any level of critique is hate or a phobia.
I'm not interested in placating mental disorders. Your political talking points are worn out.
I should probably also make it crystal clear I don't support conversion 'therapy' in the slightest - just want us to actually look for a cure or treatment rather than just shrug our shoulders and say 'yeah reinforce it, it's not a big deal.' and move on.
But Gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia are different. Affirming a persons gender and more importantly transition does successfully treat it, while affirming BDD does not do so, that's why the treatments are different.
We don't treat cancer with chemo because "that's what you do with cancer," we do so because it's an effective treatment.
You are just dogmatically rejecting a form of effective treatment for an issue for some reasons. (Gee, I wonder what kind of skeletons are in that closet.).
TL;DR you're a silly little guy