Professor of Psychiatry: Transgender is a mental disorder that merits treatment

a reply to: Asmodeus3

And yet the good doctor does not source any of the new neuroscience studies using multivariate classifers which may shed more light on this.

The current study was designed to shed further light on the question of whether the brains of transgender people resemble their birth sex or their gender identity. For this purpose, we employed a recently developed multivariate classifier [34] that yields a continuous (rather than a binary) estimate for being male or female, in accordance with current biological models [39,40,41,42,43,44,45]. Our study sample consisted of 24 cisgender men, 24 cisgender women, and 24 transgender women before hormone therapy in order to rule out any modifying effects of circulating sex steroids [13,15,35,36,37,46,47,48,49,50,51,52]. We hypothesized that the estimated brain sex in transgender women is shifted away from their biological sex (male) towards their gender identity (female), but still significantly different from both.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

In any event, even if it is still within the realm of a mental illness, and it could very well be with all the harassment these people have to endure, then they should be treated as any other mentally ill person and that is with dignity and empathy.

a reply to: Quadrivium

We know that a man can think he is a female. A man can never think like a female

You do not know this. Thought is subjective. You've never heard another persons thoughts , only your own.

When I was growing up a was told that I couldn't be a real man unless I had certain personality attributes. But how can that be? I have a penis. Am I not a man based solely on that? I realized that being a "man" had nothing to do with my genitals.

Biological gender and gender identity are two very different things. One is an unchangeable fact the other is a state of mind.
A lot of people, including some trans people, are getting those two things confused.

a reply to: Asmodeus3

I don't even believe in souls.

My question is a hypothetical for those that do believe in a soul.

More often than not those who fear or hate transpersons are also religious.

a reply to: Nevercompromise

If there are such things as souls and those souls have no bodies than couldn't they feel/identify as anything at all?

a reply to: igloo

The people addicted to cosmetic surgery are examples of this. When is enough enough? At some point they have to call it quits and accept themselves which should have been done back before they mutilated themselves.

I'd like to see the medical system go back to "do no harm" and offer up decent mental health advice rather than the usual quick fix... here's a wonder surgery/drug first.

On the same page here. cosmetic surgeries should be illegal except in certain cases. Being badly burned comes to mind.
The reason I even asked that hypothetical about souls is to guide these kinds of conversations more toward the philosophical ramifications of individual unique thoughts and feelings. And away from the fear and hate.

Just think about what we could learn about the true nature of the human being. I truly believe you when you say you have a female body but you feel manly and masculine in your mind. And that is an amazing thing to me.
Humans are amazing creatures.

a reply to: CoyoteAngels

It's , of course , only meant for those that do believe in a soul.

What I usually get when I ask this is a shift in the conversation from "those weird trans people" to wow I never even thought about what i personally believe a soul actually is.

a reply to: quintessentone

In any event, even if it is still within the realm of a mental illness, and it could very well be with all the harassment these people have to endure, then they should be treated as any other mentally ill person and that is with dignity and empathy.

For the sake of argument, it's not common practice to entertain or encourage mental illness, we don't tell schizophrenics the voices in their head are real. Dignity and empathy is fine, but in mental health, you don't feed the delusion..really though, who cares, just don't demand my compliance or use of special language.

On harassment, most I see is the trans activists browbeating and harassing normal people, to validate them. An example, If you don't want to date a guy in a dress who still has his junk, you are "transphobic" lets get f'ing real here. Trans people where at a point where no one really cared, but that just wasn't enough, they push too much, too far, now, the backlash.

JM2C

a reply to: scraedtosleep

I also mean the question to be seriously posed to a transperson. And Im curious for the response.

originally posted by: vonclod
a reply to: quintessentone

In any event, even if it is still within the realm of a mental illness, and it could very well be with all the harassment these people have to endure, then they should be treated as any other mentally ill person and that is with dignity and empathy.

For the sake of argument, it's not common practice to entertain or encourage mental illness, we don't tell schizophrenics the voices in their head are real. Dignity and empathy is fine, but in mental health, you don't feed the delusion..really though, who cares, just don't demand my compliance or use of special language.

On harassment, most I see is the trans activists browbeating and harassing normal people, to validate them. An example, If you don't want to date a guy in a dress who still has his junk, you are "transphobic" lets get f'ing real here. Trans people where at a point where no one really cared, but that just wasn't enough, they push too much, too far, now, the backlash.

JM2C

I agree with you in part. Yes the voices in their heads are real to them and so are the feelings, hormones?, brain rewiring? real in trans' reality. You see it works both ways. My point is that without neurological CT scans and hormonal testing how are we here at ATS to make heads or tails of which people are truly experiencing something physical compared to just something in their heads?

And what is it with the title of this thread where the doctor is leading us to believe gender dysphoria sufferers don't get treatment. With or without hormonal therapy these kids and adults do get treatment right along side the drugs, so don't be misled.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: Quadrivium

We know that a man can think he is a female. A man can never think like a female

You do not know this. Thought is subjective. You've never heard another persons thoughts , only your own.

When I was growing up a was told that I couldn't be a real man unless I had certain personality attributes. But how can that be? I have a penis. Am I not a man based solely on that? I realized that being a "man" had nothing to do with my genitals.

Biological gender and gender identity are two very different things. One is an unchangeable fact the other is a state of mind.
A lot of people, including some trans people, are getting those two things confused.

A man can think he is a woman. A man can not think like a woman because it goes way beyond having a penis.

It is the way the brain is developed from our time in the womb until we reach adulthood.
Even the way we see and process what we see is different.

A woman (girl) is slightly more advanced at a younger age, and it's not only vision.
It's memory, touch, hearing and even smell.

Men are more likely to have certain neurodevelopmental conditions, while women are more likely to have certain mental health conditions, like depression.

If you do not experience the natural world in the same way, how can you think the same way?

A man can think he is a woman (subjective). A man can not think like a woman (objective).

a reply to: Asmodeus3

I'm of mixed mind on this one. Intuitively I tend to agree with what the doctor wrote, and feel that the explosion of transgender persons is a fad to some degree; however, I am not going to gainsay the experience of persons suffering from dysphoria or the medical and scientific studies that has been done on the subject.

I do want to point out two items, though, having to do with the editorial. First, it the editorial was originally published on 6/12/24. A lot more studies have been done since then. Also it is not clear that this doctor stands by his words from 9 years ago. It used to be that American psychiatric organizations considered homosexuality to be a mental illness as well. I don't believe any enlightened people think that is the case any more.

Second, the statistic provided about suicides is mixing apples and oranges. It compares the suicide rate of persons having had gender re-assignment surgery with non-transgender persons. A more apt comparison would be persons who have had gender re-assignment surgery with persons who identify as transgender, but haven't gone through the medical procedures. Transgender persons face issues that non-transgender persons don't have, so I can well imagine their suicide rates are higher. For whatever reason(s) they are not satisfied with the state of their biological physiology, and may well have problems navigating their lives after gender re-assignment.

No doubt, though, this editorial will be satisfying red meat for the transphobic crowd. And it should be remembered that this is indeed an opinion piece, not the result of a peer-reviewed study.

6.15.2023

Here's an interesting study: www.foxnews.com...

If Mothers of Transgendered Boys have a "Personality Disorder", did that disorder develop before her son was transgendered, or did the transgendering of her son cause Mom to go batty?

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: Quadrivium

We know that a man can think he is a female. A man can never think like a female

You do not know this. Thought is subjective. You've never heard another persons thoughts , only your own.

When I was growing up a was told that I couldn't be a real man unless I had certain personality attributes. But how can that be? I have a penis. Am I not a man based solely on that? I realized that being a "man" had nothing to do with my genitals.

Biological gender and gender identity are two very different things. One is an unchangeable fact the other is a state of mind.
A lot of people, including some trans people, are getting those two things confused.

Gender and sex were always synonymous until recently. There are no 57 varieties of gender, just the one you were dealt. Having said that, playing dress up or make believe is not illegal, for any age. Variety is the spice of life, even if cringeworthy. Kind people have always had a soft spot for the tomboy and the “odd fellow”.
I too played silly word games to get over on other people and various things. Then one day I turned 10.

a reply to: stevieray

Happy birthday 🎈🎈!

originally posted by: carewemust
6.15.2023

Here's an interesting study: www.foxnews.com...

If Mothers of Transgendered Boys have a "Personality Disorder", did that disorder develop before her son was transgendered, or did the transgendering of her son cause Mom to go batty?

Munchausen’s by proxy ?
Megan Fox seems to be the big poster child for this anymore.

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: stevieray

Happy birthday 🎈🎈!

Oh you clever lad !
Multiply by 6.5 and you’ll be correct.
It seems like you’re my elder …..

a reply to: stevieray

61, me. Apologies, couldn't resist.

On topic, a few years ago I represented a transgender chap.

My boss told me "she" was incredible. I'd never guess, sooo convincing.

So I saw "her".....hmmmm, six foot five, size 12 feet, stubble.....errr, no.

It's a bloke.

originally posted by: stevieray

originally posted by: carewemust
6.15.2023

Here's an interesting study: www.foxnews.com...

If Mothers of Transgendered Boys have a "Personality Disorder", did that disorder develop before her son was transgendered, or did the transgendering of her son cause Mom to go batty?

Munchausen’s by proxy ?
Megan Fox seems to be the big poster child for this anymore.

A few minutes in the spotlight, then back to obscurity.

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: stevieray

61, me. Apologies, couldn't resist.

On topic, a few years ago I represented a transgender chap.

My boss told me "she" was incredible. I'd never guess, sooo convincing.

So I saw "her".....hmmmm, six foot five, size 12 feet, stubble.....errr, no.

It's a bloke.

Yeah, most of them just exude “all wrong” at first glance.
It must be just as much sickness in the viewer, as in the presenter.
How can a person look at a Levine or a Brinson and feel anything besides revulsion with a sprinkling of pity ?
And let me not be a “book by its cover” kind of guy.
Their ugliness is greater from the inside than the outside. Nasty, arrogant, dismissive, hateful when they don’t get their way.
I’ll take Grinell any day. Professional, excellence, no playing dress up on the job and no sh!tty attitude.

a reply to: Moon68

Geraldo Rivera made his name getting an asylum in NY shut down, and after that the game was on.

States don't mind removing big budget items like mental hospitals! So it seems it happened almost over night, and Reagan gets the blame.