I also find it intellectually weak to base your stance on the classification in a highly flawed, constantly revised, hotly contested document. The stance that if nothing changes, but the next DSM re-institutes TG as a disorder, you’ll admit what you were completely wrong. Then if it changes again you’ll re-admit you were wrong about being wrong? And further that your opinion is that you were wrong a few years ago for agreeing with the old DSM. It largely seems to me that, in this discussion, you aren’t personally adding anything. You could just as easily hand out some pamphlets. And when the new contradictory pamphlets come out you can tell is to throw those away and start handing out new ones.
Let me state for the record, which I haven’t yet - I just nodded along as I read - that your focus on the lack of gender clarity in some infants/people is an important factor and should be a larger part of the debate. It is for me - the impact on functioning of ambiguous genitalia, reproductive organs, or hormonal makeup do not constitute mental illness. They constitute a blurring of the lines, which is all TG people seem to be asking for.
So you fit in, from my perspective, with people who are curious, compassionate, and invested in trying to do the right things for the right reasons.
You try to molest my son as a natural-born white, well-employed, heterosexual pillar of the goddamn community and I’m going to have a problem specifically with YOU. All the other whites, employed people, and civic-minded heterosexuals will still be on my good side. Same goes for everyone else. To this point I have ONLY felt sexually threatened by heterosexual men, almost all of them white - and yet most of my all-time most beloved people are white heterosexual men.
You find it “intellectually weak” that I base my opinion concerning a scientific issue on the latest distillation of the extant scientific research, a distillation conducted by the premier scientists in the field? You find it ‘weak’ that I would revise my opinion as the scientific evidence warrants doing so?
Given this, does it mean you do not allow your opinions to be informed by science? And further, that you refuse to revisit/revise your opinions as new scientific evidence becomes available? That’s what you consider ‘intellectually strong’?
Science is a method, not a result. The DSM is a result. It is also the result of a largely political process (not scientific). It also lacks an overwhelming consensus despite your claims. The scientific part is also NOT in pursuit of the issue at hand. The DSM is concerned with what is best for treatment and solving problems. This means that something is classified based on perceived outcome, not systematically on facts. TG was largely declassified as a disorder because calling it a disorder is perceive to negatively affect the people involved, not because it isn’t a disorder.
But you refer to revisiting your opinions based on new evidence? Ok, I assume you used to hold a contrary opinion. What new evidence changed your mind?
It is also curious that you bring up the treatment of blacks in past years when by your own logic of leaving it to the “expert consensus” you would have been one of the people supporting the supremacy of whites over blacks back then.
As I said, the DSM is a distillation of scientific research–both basic and clinical. So far as psychiatric conditions are concerned, it is the standard of care.
Is the DSM an American publication? If so, is it possible that there are varying opinions?
In my experience, as you know EyeDentist, what American medical professionals define as treatment here, completely differs in other countries. Maybe this is different in the psychiatric domain?
On another aspect of this discussion:
I think a reasonable person would consider an individual who was a biological man transitioned to female, then to a dragon, has a mental disorder; regardless of what the DSM believes.
There is a list of inherent qualities to each person, that, prior to recently, were considered unchangeable. Such as:
race
gender
species!
sexual preferences (beyond MF, MM, FF)
Where’s the determining line between social sensitivity and mental illness?
It really sounds like you don’t know much about it. There is a section of the lobbying industry specifically dedicated to the DSM. I can start listing out lobbying groups that have managed to push changes through if you’d like, but evidence doesn’t seem to matter to you much.
It isn’t political my ass. But as you’ve stopped denying or logically addressing my points or answering any of my questions, I’ll let you alone with your argument based exclusively on appeal to authority.
Yes (it’s published by the American Psychiatric Association). I cannot speak with certainty about publications by the professional societies of other countries, but given the ease with which research findings can disseminate, I would expect broad agreement.
TG individuals do not change genders. Rather, they change their physical appearance (+/- their anatomy) to match their ‘true’ gender.
I didn’t dispute the existence of political pressure; I disputed your assertion that the DSM is “the result of a largely political process (not scientific).”
And there just happens to be a high correlation between amount of lobbying pressure and changes. A group invests a lot in lobbying for X, then they coincidentally change the DSM to say X. Another group lobbies for Y and then they coincidentally change the DSM to say Y. Over and over. Obviously the groups (like the TG lobby) spending big money on it seem to think in has influence. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your just naive.
Consider a transgender male. He was born with female genitalia, but always felt himself to be male-gendered. Post-transition, he would tell you his gender didn’t change–it was male pre-op, and remains so post-op. What did change pre- to post-op was his physical appearance/anatomy, which was now consistent with his gender. This is why I said ‘TG individuals do not change genders.’