Posted: 22 October 2018 at 4:17am | IP Logged | 12
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I don't believe that there are. I don't wish ill on those that think they are one way or another but from what I know of it, it's a disorder. I don't understand why it is being treated differently than if someone thought they were Napoleon or any other type of delusion. |
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Gender identity disorder was dropped from the DSM five years ago, much like homosexuality was depathologized in the 70s. The US psychiatry community does not treat transgenderism as a mental disorder. The new classification of gender dysphoria is not about transgenderism being a delusion, but distress over gender nonconformity.
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It seems that when the conversation is about gender it gets complicated but when the example is someone who identifies as a 6 year old who wants to wear diapers that it becomes less controversial. |
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Sure, because they are different things. If your genitals were removed, would you cease to identify as male? If that's not the case, then we can accept that gender identity is separate from one's genitals.
So if genitals are not what defines gender identity, then what does? X and Y chromosomes? I can point to intersex conditions like Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, where individuals with XY chromosomes don't respond to androgens, so they develop as females phenotypically with female external organs and female identities.
If gender identity can be disconnected from one's genitals and one's chromosomes, what determines it? Parents seem to believe that gender identity is innate and expressed early on when they talk about their young children, like how their 3-year-old daughter is a girly girl or their young son is such a typical boy. This is long before the sexual development of puberty or a social understanding of gender roles.
If gender identity exists at a young age, how does it develop? There's evidence that behaviors associated with boys or girls can be influenced by exposure to hormones in the prenatal environment. So would it really be farfetched if one's gender identity in the brain developed in a different direction from one's sexual organs?
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