There’s a massive difference between “believing you are the wrong gender is mental illness” and “being born/sorted into a gender that doesn’t represent you causes mental illness.” This is the latter.
It’s not perfectly correct indeed, gender dysphoria isn’t classified as mental disorder anymore with the DSM-V and ICD-11 as it doesn’t fit the bill (according to decades of science). It’s more of an in-congruence between brain structure and hormone chemistry (as well as the whole rest of the body), and this mismatch causing very subtle but sometimes intense suffering (which in turn CAN cause mental illness, obviously). This mismatch most likely is due to some hormone control mechanism during pregnancy not doing its thing as intended.
Given he gets the important points I wouldn’t try to correct him too much on that. He even demands something that’s basically part of the normal process: before receiving treatment that causes irreversible changes (hormones) there’s ALWAYS therapy and analysis involved. The only exception to this may be temporary hormone blockers, as those do not cause irreversible harm but give both the person and their therapist time to sort things out and find the correct answer.
(In case anyone wonders: No, we do not have a comprehensive way to tell anything conclusive from an MRI scan… yet)
I thought trans people weren’t supposed to be mentally ill? But he says gender dysphoria is a mental disorder? Is this doublethink?
There’s a massive difference between “believing you are the wrong gender is mental illness” and “being born/sorted into a gender that doesn’t represent you causes mental illness.” This is the latter.
It’s not perfectly correct indeed, gender dysphoria isn’t classified as mental disorder anymore with the DSM-V and ICD-11 as it doesn’t fit the bill (according to decades of science). It’s more of an in-congruence between brain structure and hormone chemistry (as well as the whole rest of the body), and this mismatch causing very subtle but sometimes intense suffering (which in turn CAN cause mental illness, obviously). This mismatch most likely is due to some hormone control mechanism during pregnancy not doing its thing as intended.
Given he gets the important points I wouldn’t try to correct him too much on that. He even demands something that’s basically part of the normal process: before receiving treatment that causes irreversible changes (hormones) there’s ALWAYS therapy and analysis involved. The only exception to this may be temporary hormone blockers, as those do not cause irreversible harm but give both the person and their therapist time to sort things out and find the correct answer.
(In case anyone wonders: No, we do not have a comprehensive way to tell anything conclusive from an MRI scan… yet)