03-07-2012, 03:24 PM
(03-07-2012, 02:24 AM)flamesabers Wrote: I think the issue of determining mental health is complex due to individual variances.Agreed!
Quote:...
My primary concern with labeling sexuality, gender identity or anything else as mentally ill is the danger intolerant individuals will use this as leverage to exert socio-political control over those they consider to be deviant.
That may have been a danger in the past, but I think we're way past that stage and into the other side, where we have the mirror image problem... almost like anorexics refusing to acknowledge they are underweight "I look just fine... in fact I'm too fat".
I don't know about you, but my GID has caused me to experience:
Anxiety Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Dysthymia (which Wikipedia says is "also known as neurotic depression, is a mood disorder consisting of chronic depression, with less severe but longer lasting symptoms than major depressive disorder")
Admittedly I have never seen a therapist for a diagnosis, but I wouldn't need to be officially diagnosed for a compound fracture either!
Given that Estrogen removed all of these symptoms, it is safe to say that these mental disorders were symptomatic of GID which I think we can thus deduce is a form of mental disorder, which can only be corrected in my case by adjusting my hormonal balance so that it does not match my genetic gender.
Now. My point is this. To me it seems clear that my condition exists in a spectrum, ranging from an inconvenient "wish I'd been born a girl, but I can live with it... but if I can grow boobs I'll feel a bit better", (with very little interest in boys except as friends and a desire to have a sexual relationship with a girl) to an extreme "mummy I'm in the wrong body" from the age of five, (no interest in girls except as friends, crushes on boys and an intense desire to be female in every sense of the word.)
People like me, at the less extreme end of the spectrum, are discontented most of their life, but when full strength testosterone kicks in, raging male desires, ambition, agression, lust, parenthood all take first place, with a niggling desire to cross-dress in the background.
Towards late middle age, when testosterone diminishes, retirement happens, kids leave home, the old niggles come back in full flood (this is documented on Anne Vitale's website) and, very often, such individuals start to transition.
The key point is that they do this because they think it is the only way and the alternative is suicide or at best a life of severe depression.
This is where my unease about the new orthodoxy of political correctness causing as much harm as good comes in; because I think there is now more pressure for such individuals to transition than to seek an accommodation through hormone treatment, and that this has been caused by a desire to see transition as a guilt-free alternative lifestyle as valid as any other (which I don't necessarily dispute) and that using hormones to be able to cope with continuing to present as male will one day become as much an anathema as the idea of enabling homosexuals to function in a heterosexual relationship (which I don't really want to progress except possibly as another interesting discussion).
The reason I see this as harmful is only in the case of sufferers who are married, maybe with children, who have been quite happy, hitherto, to use their male function in an otherwise happy relationship.
These poor souls risk and very often lose their families, and their wives certainly lose the husbands they married. A lesbian relationship with a new "wife" was not, in most cases, what they signed up for.
Combine this with the possibility that a regular dosage of estrogen takes away from some sufferers every desire and satisfaction that caused them to transition in the first place and these people are left with nothing: the kind of situation that can provoke suicide.
I am so very, very lucky to have discovered PM. A relatively safe solution, that allows me to cope with my situation. I cannot get it out of my head that there could be many, many people less lucky than me, being advised from a medical orthodoxy / politically correct viewpoint, to move forward with transitioning when they may not need to.
Quote:I think this is a separate issue of whether homosexuals, transgender, etc, consider themselves as mentally ill. I think when the behavior or emotion (i.e.) gender dysphoria, becomes problematic to the point it continually interferes or impairs the quality of daily life is when it can be regarded as a mental disorder. This isn't a black and white definition you're asking for, but I think it's a good standard to assess whether someone really needs help or not.
The problem with that is you are passing over self-diagnosis to individuals, many of whom may not have the ability or level of self analysis to be able to do it. I'll address this further later on.
Quote:If homosexuality is a mental illness because gay people are unable to reproduce, would the same standard apply to those who voluntarily choose to be celibate or heterosexual couples who can have children but decide not to?
My point was that, being animals first and foremost, anything which prevents you breeding means that your genes will not be passed down, which is against evolution, survival of the fittest etc. and must by definition be deemed a disorder (rather than "illness"). Infertility is a disorder; choosing not to, in an overpopulated world? Probably not, though the conditions that govern that choice may well be due to a disorder. As a loving parent, I am predisposed to think that losing the experience of parenthood would make me less of a person, and I would hate to grow old without seeing a young family thriving - circle of life sort of thing.
Just to set the record straight, (pardon the pun) as an adolescent at an all-boys school my first sexual "gropings" were with other boys, so I'm not anything ending in -phobe.
Quote:Yes, pm has made changes with my mental state but not in the area of personal judgment.
I don't see how you can be categorical about that, unless your dysphoria was much milder than what I experienced. If you are significantly younger, then it may well be so. I only started on my steep downhill slide after the age of 50 or so.
If you were suffering from a lack of judgement, how would be able to judge it?
Quote:I don't think anyone who has gender dysphoria should feel that full transition is the only solution. I don't think you're a fantasist because you don't want to fully transition. I think individuals have all sorts of reasons for choosing or not choosing to fully transition. In my opinion it's a very personal decision.Yes - as long as it only affects the person taking the decision. But decisions have consequences!
The decisions to marry with the promises made, to have children whose lives depend on you, to create a family who love the husband/father image - It isn't sufficient to say "I made a mistake, I shouldn't have done it" while there are other options.
If an unattached person had GID, and feel that they can pass, then I'm all for it. If situations in my day had been different, I would very likely have done it. But one of the many things that prove love is sacrifice. I personally could never do anything to harm my loved ones. The main reason that I take PM is to make myself a better person for them.
Quote:I'm not offended by you sharing your thoughts Bryony.
Well, you have your thoughts, and I have mine. Hopefully we both gain by sharing them, and I welcome the opportunity to bounce ideas
I do feel that I am a modern-day heretic, but if it puts me in the company of people like Galileo and the victims of Lysenko, I'm proud to be one.
Anyway, I thank you for being a willing participant in this discourse. I'm happy to continue it, but I'd understand if you've had enough by now
Don't feel the need to be polite!
B.