How sure are you of your beliefs?

submitted by nausicaa from self.GCdebatesQT

It's not clear to me whether gender dysphoria is 1) a medical condition; 2) a mental illness; 3) a natural consequence of certain types of gender expression; or 4) a social construct. As a result, I don't have answers on how to treat GD, whether MtFs should be allowed into women's spaces, or whether appearance-based gatekeeping of medical transition should be practiced. I simply don't have enough information to form opinions.

How strongly do you believe your perspective? Why?

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[–]levoyageur718293 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't think any of that matters. For the sake of argument, I'd be prepared to concede that there is such a thing as a "proprioceptive blueprint:"

  • a mental sense that a person has about how their body is "supposed to" look and be shaped,
  • which does have a physical presence in the brain and could be discerned in unconscious people or even corpses with sufficient instruments,
  • and that some people have a proprioceptive blueprint that is wildly different from how their body actually developed,
  • EDIT: and one example of this mismatch might be in the realm of the body's sex differentiation,
  • and that this mis-match causes them acute anxiety,
  • and that we might consider medical intervention to make their body match their proprioceptic blueprint.

None of this means that males who suffer from a mismatch based on sex organs should be allowed into the female preserve. That's an entirely separate question, it is a sociological question, and it has nothing to do with medicine.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I believe that despite whatever suffering GD causes, one persons mental anguish will never give them the right to soothe that anguish by denying others rights to safety, privacy, and respect for the other sex. There is nothing out there that convinced me that males of any sort have the right to decide for women whether or not they will share their space. I cannot imagine a scenario that makes that morally acceptable.

Nothing can shake that belief. Suffering is never an excuse or license to make another suffer.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Oh wow, it’s a complicated question!! My belief currently is that gender dysphoria is a mental illness, but there a multiple causes for it and not all gender dysphoria is the same. It could be a medical condition too, but we don’t know that it is currently even though being a transsexual is a medical condition. My beliefs are strong just because of being a transsexual and being aware and involved with this issue for so long, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t change if we learned more. Some thing I’ve experienced personally I probably couldn’t be convinced on though. Like, no one can convince me gender/sex dysphoria isn’t real or that transwomen don’t commit sexual assault.

Does what gender dysphoria is matter for whether male bodied people should be in women’s spaces though? Even if a transwomen was 100% proven to be a “female” brain in a male body, women could still have issues with male bodied people in women’s spaces. I use some women’s spaces just in the world and I’m very much not comfortable with a visibly male person or person with intact male genitals being in space where I am vulnerable.

[–]cars 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Why do you think transsexuality is a medical condition?

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I feel like I probably worded this badly, sorry! Being a transsexual is medical condition because of what happens our bodies, not like pre-transition. Like, I don't produce sex hormones naturally and, even though I am male, I've had high levels of estrogen and some progesterone for most of my life. My genitals were also surgically changed to be more like the sex I felt like I was. How bodies are different is different for different transsexuals, but we aren't like regular people of our sex any more. Maybe at first things are reversable, but it doesn't take long before they aren't. That's why I say it is a medical condition. It doesn't make sense to treat transsexual bodies medically the same way as a normal person their age of either sex.

[–]cars 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I believe gender dysphoria is both a mental illness and a social construct. Most of the time, gender dysphoria arises from people not wanting to perform the stereotypes associated with their sexes. For example, a woman who, for one reason or another, doesn't want to be expected to perform her sex's stereotypes will identify as a "trans man" or a "non-binary person". Gender dysphoria can also result from trauma, internalized homophobia, a mental illness such as BPD/ASD that causes identity issues, or fetishism, and those are either mental illnesses or social constructs. I don't think that brain sex is a good argument because of neuroplasticity and the fact that brain scans are more indicative of sexual orientation rather than gender.

[–]Lizzythelezzo 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't mind what people choose to do with their bodies, as long as they are over eighteen years old... my primary concerns are the erosion of women's sex based rights. I also don't think anyone should be coerced into using certain pronouns etc.

Based on my interactions with trans people, there's a whole range of reasons for people identifying as trans - and I'd say it's usually a combination of ASD/ADHD, structural dissociation/BPD, and cultural stereotypes about gender. There is definitely a subset who are highly influenced by porn and autogynephilia too, though I don't think this fully explains all cases.

[–]theory_of_thisan actual straight crossdresser 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Regarding the facts around what is going on rather what ought to be done I'm pretty confident social aspects of gender are not all a social construct.

All societies have social forms of gender. Masculinity and femininity. Men are masculine and attracted to feminine women and women are feminine and attracted to masculine men.

Biology makes men and women differently, that is likely to include behaviours to utilise the differences. But humans being as flexible as they are the exact forms are completed by culture.

There are a constant minority percentage of people across all societies who do not strictly fit that pattern. Which implies a natural trigger not a pure social construct.

Is it mental illness? It depends on your definition of mental illness. So in a sense defying social norms is mental illness. But people in this category are not necessarily disconnected from reality.

I have less evidence for, but guess at a component hybrid model of gender. That some parts are associated with a sex but the combinations do not create perfect averages or perfect mirrors. For example I think same sex attraction IS from an opposite sex behaviour, however the combination does not always result in the same behaviour.

[–]penelopekitty 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Quite sure. Gender dysphoria is a new term and a social contagion. Sex dysphoria is a real but extremely rare mental illness. In either case treating these issues with hormones or plastic surgery doesn't change one's sex. Men have always been dangerous to women and should never be allowed in our spaces no matter how they identify or to what degree they modify their bodies.

I once had a more lenient view but after engaging with TRAs and "listening to trans people" I've come to the conclusion that there can be no exceptions.

[–]Philogynist 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I believe that gender dysphoria is a mental health condition or perhaps a symptom of other mental health conditions. I think there needs to be different treatments/cures researched for gender dysphoria other than just transitioning.

I believe strongly in my perception because I'm a nerd in the life sciences who spends too much time reading articles on this type of shit and feel well-rounded in what we know and don't know about it - and boy we sure don't know a whole lot.

[–]QuietCheer 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I believe in my perspective pretty strongly, but I try to keep an open mind and heart because what I know or think I know can change. My beliefs about gender dysphoria are really flexible because I think it can mean different things to different people, but overall I just see it as referring to discomfort with or intolerance of some or all aspects of one's natal sex or associated roles and expectations of that sex. To me, that way of looking at it doesn't indicate any particular way of addressing the dysphoria, like concerning medical treatment. GD could lead to transsexualism, but I don't think they are synonymous terms or concepts. And I'm pretty sure in these beliefs, mostly from lived experience and listening to a wide variety of personal descriptions of experiences of gender dysphoria and how people addressed it.