Clayton Cramer quotes from some articles about the transgendered deception, as he calls it, and relates some pretty disturbing stories. I'd only like to add that one of the saddest facets of transgenerism is what many transsexuals call the "50% rule": that is, that 50% of transsexuals commit or attempt to commit suicide. There aren't a lot of major studies that I can find, but it's apparently conventional wisdom among transsexuals is supported by some data, as the linked-to site discusses.
Some may be quick to claim that these suicides are caused by a society that refuses to accept the transgendered, but isn't is more likely that a person who would want to undergo irreversible surgery to change his gender is already pretty disturbed? Wouldn't he be better served by counseling than by pandering to his psychosis by validating his self-destructive impulses? One of the tragedies of modern anything-goes morality is that people who really need help are dismissed as simply living an alternative lifestyle; it costs lives and ruins families.
All I know is that I haven't seen a man trapped in a woman's body since before I was born.
I'm curious how "counseling", being a broad term, would be of any help. How would you go about "counseling" transgendered people? How would you decide whether they're really a man or a woman? How would you pretend to understand what they're feeling? Therapy, to the best of my knowledge, works best when a common bond can be unearthed between the patient and the therapist or counselor.
We don't understand what the cause of transgendered-ness is... so how can we claim to be able to "counsel" those individuals and resolve the situation for them?
One more thing: Are we counseling them so they'll better fit in to society and its tolerances (or lack thereof) or are we counseling them to solve the real problem?
M: Their real problem appears to be that they don't think they belong to the gender they're a part of. Their depression flows from that, independently of how accepting other people are; they don't accept themselves and are never satisfied with how they are.
I'm not a psychiatrist, so I can't speak authoritatively on what is undoubtedly a complicated topic. Perhaps these poor people are just doomed to lives of misery and depression, but I'd like to think not.
Oh, but their depression is indeed related to how accepting other people are. Their uncertainty about themselves spills over into their social lives... resulting in lost friends, little hope of a stable romantic relationship, etc. This has a hand in their depression as well.
That's true, Mark, but lots of people have uncertainty about their identity and their role in society without undergoing radical surgery, hormone treatments, and adopting entirely new identities.
Depressed, skinny geeks could be given steroid treatments and implants to make them look more like the muscular jocks they wish they could be. Should we do that, if someone claims it'll make them happy?
My personal suspicion is that the medical profession has been too quick to accept that gender-related confusion and depression is a special case, and some have prematurely adopted surgery as a fix. There was a time when these patients might have been cured by a simple and "effective" lobotomy; I wonder if doctors will look back in 30 years and wonder why their predecessors once again chose dubious surgery over real treatments.
Bryan C: I'm not saying surgery is the answer. I'm saying we don't know.. which means it's dangerous to embark on any course of action because it's uninformed.
We can, however, be more understanding of their dilemma.
One thing to keep in mind that some transgendered people are in fact transgendered in a medical sense (as in ambiguous genetalia trangendered.) Give how much of emotion is hormonal, and how screwed up you can be when you sex hormones are out of whack, I don't think this is all that unplausable.
Mark: I certainly am not sympathetic to their plight, and I don't think I came across as such. I hate friends who are mentally ill, and it's sad and pitiable. A "treatment" that leads to a 50% suicide rate doesn't sound like a particularly good idea, however.
MW: Your quote: "I certainly am not sympathetic to their plight, and I don't think I came across as such. I hate friends who are mentally ill, and it's sad and pitiable. A "treatment" that leads to a 50% suicide rate doesn't sound like a particularly good idea, however."
Umm.. is there a type-o or two in this?
Otherwise it sounds like you're NOT sympathetic to transgendered people.. and that you HATE your friends who are mentally ill.
I think if people wanted to change some other fundamental, otherwise normal attribute about themselves, and went to extreme lengths to do it, most people would recognize that this indicates some kind of mental illness (consider Michael Jackson, who seems to hate being black. Or some other plastic surgery victims who have monstrous results from trying to escape reality -- awfulplasticsurgery.com) I've also heard of stats about depression/suicide among those who get breast implants, but I'm too lazy to go looking for it. ;)
A gender/sex disparity can cause no end of trouble to people. There's the case of David Reimer, the boy brought up as a girl because idiotic doctors burnt off his penis. As we all know, the only thing that makes one male is a penis (ignore that pesky Y chromosome), so a "helpful" doctor prescribed female hormones and the parents tried bringing him up hyperfeminine, which didn't work. He found out the truth as an adult, lived as a man for a while, and then committed suicide. That was definitely a case of other people making trouble for someone.
One definite lesson is one can't change gender lightly - one can't think it will be the magic fix that will solve all other problems.
There are people born with indistinct sexual organs, or very rarely, with both sets. (I have seen a picture of one very unfortunate person in that latter category.)
I can also believe that there might be people who have hormonal problems that are congenital in nature. Of course, there was a time when homosexuality was believed to be caused by this, and attempts to correct with hormone injections did NOT work.
What I find hard to believe that is that the "transgendered" crowd is so large because of genuine congenital defects. I find it far easier to believe that someone who has been sexually abused as a child has some problems with their sexual identity because of it.
No one has a hard time understanding why little girls who were raped might grow up to be prostitutes or lesbians because of it. Why is it so hard to imagine that a guy who was raped at three or four might identify with being female?
I would agree that many living alternative lifestyles need counseling more than anything else. However, I also know many gays and lesbians who appear to be both psychologically and spiritually healthy and many straights who don't.
Mark: Yes, ha, two typos that completely reversed the meaning of my statement.
JT: Right, and serial killers all seem like nice, quiet forks who mostly keep to themselves. People who are seriously disturbed can often hide it very well, that's all.
Come to think of it, Michael, I really don't know anything about you. You could be a bank robber in your spare time for all I know. Or a Jeffrey Dahmer. ;-)