Current Events > This is an excellent argument on why trans is right and good

(+) Yeah! (+)

I.e. for people in the "isn't gender dysphoria just a mental illness but SJWs won't allow us to say so?" camp:

https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/f2ol3f/cmv_gender_dysphoria_is_a_cureable_mental_illness/fhdvwge/?context=3

There is something known as the social model of disability that applies here. Being deaf for instance is generally considered a disability, but if society were set up such that we didnt use sound as our primary means of communication than being deaf would not have any negative impacts on a persons life and it would no longer be classified as a disability. This applies with mental illness as well, something is only a mental illness if it causes significant distress in a persons life by definition. What is and isnt a mental illness is a rather arbitrary line to draw and some of it is dependent on what society is willing to accept and accommodate. This means that one could eradicate a mental illness by changing society, that is entirely possible.

Mental illness treatment is a rather tricky thing in general. It usually involves a lifetime of medication and a various forms of therapy that can only ever lessen the problems while only occasionally producing anything resembling a cure in a minority of people. That is the current level that mental illness treatment is at. If you consider gender dysphoria a mental illness though, compare that to what happens when people transition. It cuts suicide attempts by an order of magnitude. Post-op trans people still have a higher suicide rate than the general population by a couple percent, but thats still an order of magnitude better than the nearly 50% pre-op suicide rate. As mental illness treatments go, transitioning has insanely good almost perfect results. People would kill to have something even half that effective for anxiety and depression. The higher post-op suicide rate than the general population is fully explainable as a result of people not accepting them including often their own family.

Transitioning saves lives, thats just an objective fact. Trans acceptance is suicide prevention. The only reason to not do it would be if it also has consequences that are somehow worse than the thing it prevents. I cant even think of a single negative consequence though, let alone one worse than avoiding a proven suicide prevention measure. Calling sex reassignment surgery mutilation is misleading at best. Its a cosmetic operation done in a starile hospital room under anesthetic by a trained surgeon, not a schizophrenic castrating himself with a rusty knife. If thats the standard for calling something mutilation than a hip replacement is bone mutilation and open heart surgery is chest mutilation. If you are worried about children transitioning, people have thought of that. Although transphobes will often call it chemical castration in their usual fear mongering way, puberty blockers only postpone puberty for as long as a person is on them and the moment they stop taking them things resume as normal. Nobody is seriously suggesting doing anything irreversible to anyone under 18.

Homosexuality was once considered a mental illness too. However, people realized that they were freaking out about nothing and that everyone is better off when nobody goes out of their way to cause active harm in order to prevent a harmless action. That is happening again with trans people, though that movement has been consistently a few years behind gay and lesbian acceptance.

I should probably clarify where Im coming from here. Im the son of a trans women, and I dated a trans man once who Im still close friends with to this day. My trans-parent was sent to conversion therapy, in a move that lead to multiple suicide attempts she blamed herself for it not working and that sort of thing can put people in a really dark place. She has since decided to embrace who she is and transition. My trans-man friend and I have shared things with each other that nobody else on Earth knows about us. I have known him for every step of the transition process, and I have seen his mental health improve quite a lot as a result. He was in a really bad place when I first met him, and now hes doing much better.

I would also like to add that I am diagnosed with mild autism myself, and I have problems with the way you seem to think of that sort of thing. I dont know if this is intentional or if youve just spent too long around transphobic rhetoric (Im going to assume the latter), but the tactic of comparing gender dysphoria to mental illness only serves to pin the existing stigma associated with mental illness to being transgender. Its an appeal to ableism, basically. Calling it a mental illness changes nothing though. Mentally ill people still deserve a basic level of decency, the right to express themselves, and freedom from bullying. The word delusional is often carelessly thrown around in relation to transgender people, but that is factually inaccurate based on what is known about gender dysphoria and it only serves to bring to mind stereotypes of mental illness. I have to deal with enough ableism shit on my own, and I hate seeing it used against people I care about too. They dont deserve that.

TL;DR - transitioning saves lives and is the best proven treatment for gender dysphoria, far more effective than any drug or therapy

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i have a better argument: let people be who they are. its none of my or anyone else's business if someone wants to change their sex.

it may sound too blunt but that's just how i feel... lol

Watch the people who need to see this, ignore it
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teepan95 posted...

Watch the people who need to see this, ignore it

Basically. They don't care and are unlikely to even read any of this sadly

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"Actually, transitioning increases change of suicide"
*cites study that definitely doesn't say this*

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COVxy posted...

"Actually, transitioning increases change of suicide"
*cites study that definitely doesn't say this*

Where is this bit, cannot find

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pinky0926 posted...

Where is this bit, cannot find

Naw, i was mocking people who would object.

I've never seen a single miscited as much as that one tho.

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COVxy posted...

Naw, i was mocking people who would object.

I've never seen a single miscited as much as that one tho.

Yeah I've noticed they're obsessed with the high suicide rate but never bothered to look into the reasons why or how it works and how it changes

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Transphobes obsessed with high suicide rate amongst transpeople when their horrible views are a contributing factor to the high suicide rate, just awful people

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Ok, the other side literally cant argue. Theyd be modded. You win.

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pinky0926 posted...

Yeah I've noticed they're obsessed with the high suicide rate but never bothered to look into the reasons why or how it works and how it changes

Oh they have bothered to look into it. They just ignore/dismiss/deny it because it doesn't fit their worldview.
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i could have sworn the stats showed that the risk of self harm GOES UP after transition?

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Thats some propaganda...

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SH_expert44 posted...

i could have sworn the stats showed that the risk of self harm GOES UP after transition?

Lol

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SH_expert44 posted...

i could have sworn the stats showed that the risk of self harm GOES UP after transition?

iirc it goes up compared to average population, not just transpeople who didn't get surgery

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Really good read

i disagree with some of the points here, specifically in regards to the surgery/treatment & equating everything to homosexuality.

i havent done much research on this but i also feel like being trans has not been a concept in mainstream society long enough to have any sort of reasonable study on the long term affects of transitioning. when i google studies about it out of curiosity i mostly get stuff from like 2015 onward

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pinky0926 posted...

"isn't gender dysphoria just a mental illness but SJWs won't allow us to say so?"

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The people who should read this are the same people that won't. Look at the above post, for example. Never done any research against his initial belief.

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bump

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