So...uhh...this is gonna be a thing

[auto_asphyx]

as much as i was going to stay out of this whole thing, i just thought i'd throw my two cents in, @"ArcanaEmpress"

"Well if what they're feeling isn't justified by reality, what am I supposed to do, lie to them to make them feel better? It's not bigoted to tell someone who is wrong that they're wrong, especially if their misconceptions are taking a toll on their mental state."

wrong by whose metrics? your own? which are based only on your own personal biases, and experiences? what "reality" works in your mind doesn't apply to everyone in the world.

"Treating their disphoria resolves all of their problems related to this issue as far as I can tell."

this sounds just a bit too close to gay conversion therapy for comfort, something that has proven to be ultimately unsuccessful, harmful, and inherently based in hateful biblical homophobia. yes, therapy works in helping treat people with dysphoria, but it's not a cure by any means... and treating people wih gender dysphoria like they need to be "cured" is pretty bigoted and awful, just like the aforementioned conversion therapies.

"Why aren't you on my side on that? What is the justification for trying to make reality conform to transpeople through a series of expensive invasive procedures rather than helping transpeople conform to reality through treatments that may have some side effects but would likely be more reversable and less harmful than bodily mutilation and hormone therapy?"

you're rather obsessed with what others do to their own bodies. it's all rather controlling, not unlike "pro lifers" who demand dominance over women's bodies. it makes me think the problem is with you, and your own inherent control issues with others like trans people, and not the other way around. 

my two cents... ciao.

[auser-unreg]

as much as i was going to stay out of this whole thing, i just thought i'd throw my two cents in, @"ArcanaEmpress"

"Well if what they're feeling isn't justified by reality, what am I supposed to do, lie to them to make them feel better? It's not bigoted to tell someone who is wrong that they're wrong, especially if their misconceptions are taking a toll on their mental state."

wrong by whose metrics? your own? which are based only on your own personal biases, and experiences? what "reality" works in your mind doesn't apply to everyone in the world.

"Treating their disphoria resolves all of their problems related to this issue as far as I can tell."

this sounds just a bit too close to gay conversion therapy for comfort, something that has proven to be ultimately unsuccessful, harmful, and inherently based in hateful biblical homophobia. yes, therapy works in helping treat people with dysphoria, but it's not a cure by any means... and treating people wih gender dysphoria like they need to be "cured" is pretty bigoted and awful, just like the aforementioned conversion therapies.

"Why aren't you on my side on that? What is the justification for trying to make reality conform to transpeople through a series of expensive invasive procedures rather than helping transpeople conform to reality through treatments that may have some side effects but would likely be more reversable and less harmful than bodily mutilation and hormone therapy?"

you're rather obsessed with what others do to their own bodies. it's all rather controlling, not unlike "pro lifers" who demand dominance over women's bodies. it makes me think the problem is with you, and your own inherent control issues with others like trans people, and not the other way around. 

my two cents... ciao.

Thank you for your two cents.

First, there is such a thing as objective reality, and it's based on what data supports. I have yet to see any data that indicates that bigotry against trans people as people for being trans is a widespread problem in the United States. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to share it with me, as that might change my understanding of what is objectively reality. Yeah what is reality to me doesn't apply to the whole world, but if you have no evidence to the contrary, doesn't that make my view of reality more correct than yours? I have seen the media and entertainment industry fawning over and glorifying transgenderism though as well as politicians who allow massive pride parades to run through their cities. If hatred of these people was really as widespread in America as people claim, how would these things be allowed to continue?

I'd like to make it clear that I have no problem with homosexuality. It's something you can't control like a fetish and it doesn't result in suicide rates as high as transgender people or horrible invasive procedures. We have on our hands a situation where transpeople have two options; take the treatment for disphoria with its own set of side effects and potentially see remission in disphoria symptoms while a cure for it is developed, or have a series of destructive surgeries and hormone treatments that tear up and permanently alter the body despite this not resulting in lower suicide rates. With Gay conversion therapy, there was no treatment that reliably helped reduce feelings of homosexuality that I'm aware of, so I fail to see how these are even comparable. Show me some evidence that dysphoria treatment is anywhere near as barbaric as electroshock therapy. I would think that the disphoria treatment has more pros than cons when compared to the downsides of gender reassignment surgery, you know, like necrosis. Would it have been bigoted for the psychologist of the woman who identified as blind to try and cure her rather than pour drain cleaner in her eyes? Please man, tell me how those two stories are different rather than calling me bigoted for wanting to see people cured of a disorder linked with a spike in suicide rates where one of the alternatives is a life of horrific surgeries and symptom management that doesn't even guarantee they still won't kill themselves!

It's rather uncharitable of you to claim that all pro lifers demand dominance over women's bodies. I'm not strictly pro life, but I'm more inclined to agree with them than the people cheering for abortions themselves as though they're occasions to be celebrated. Either way, I don't really care what people do with their bodies. I'm not going to go out to a protest or shame people for their decisions either in real life or on cesspools like Twitter; I would think that if I really cared I would be motivated to do something like that. I'm just a guy on the internet with opinions that I enjoy sharing. One of those opinions is that I would like to see the amount of suffering, death, and misery in the world decrease, and it seems to me that in the case of transgenderism, and specifically the transgender pregnancies, the best way to accomplish this would be research to pull gender disphoria up by the roots rather than constantly tending to the symptoms forever, potentially ruining the lives of both the patient and any children they might bring into the world.

[anotherunreg]

Yay mentally ill people trying to be the opposite sex.

Thats fuckin rude as shit and bigoted.

Truth is rarely kind and reality is EXTREMELY bigoted.
Further I'm not very concerned about how pleasant I am to people I don't like.

Except what you say isn't the truth. It's just you being an asshole. And you just hate any Trans person you might meet? Even if they're the nicest person in the world? Yeah that makes you a bigot.

>Except what you say isn't the truth.
If you tested the tranny's DNA it would tell you what sex they are, what their defective brain THINKS is their "actual" sex is irrelevant. That is the irrefutable truth of the matter, how mean it is is irrelevant.
>And you just hate any Trans person you might meet? Even if they're the nicest person in the world?
Considering they have a perception of reality so warped that even their own body is foreign to them I really couldn't trust them even if they genuinely had the disposition of a saint.

Also I like how about half of your post is variations of "u a meanie" like it's an argument.

[ILikePregnancy]

Fuck off bigot

[knicks]

Hi all,

I'm reluctant to say this because I highly value privacy and discretion on this website for very obvious reason but I am actually a psychologist so I thought I could offer some professional views on this topic. I'm not going to go more into my background because I know how excellent some people online can be at figuring out identities with limited information, so I'll just leave it at this: I am not licensed to work with clients, so I'm speaking on behalf of research, not personal experience in a clinical setting.

I also want to be clear that I'm not singling anyone out in the points I address nor am I trying to change anyone's opinion, as trying to change someone's mind online is about as futile of an endeavor as it gets; again I'm just offering a professional perspective for anyone interested.

First thing I thought I'd address is what "gender dysphoria" is. "Gender dysphoria" was introduced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM) when the the 5th edition was published in 2013. It replaced "gender identity disorder". This was a major change in psychiatry; "gender identity disorder" was the belief that the thinking that one was born in the wrong gender in and of itself was a disorder. However, "gender dysphoria" is a "disorder" however, the disorder is not the thinking that the person is born in the wrong gender rather distress about not being able to remedy being born with the wrong gender. To summarize, being "transgender" itself is not considered a disorder by the American Psychological or American Psychiatric Associations, and I don't imagine the American Medical Association considers it a mental disorder either. Many people who are transgender DO NOT have gender dysphoria and they live happy lives with a unique gender identity they've carved out for themselves.

This leads me to another thing I wanted to touch on which was, someone mentioned that surgical process. Yes, some people do seek out sex reassignment surgery, but not everyone who identifies as "transgender" seeks this nor does everyone with "gender dysphoria" seek this. Therapists often help clients find a way to live a happy, meaningful life without going through the very expensive and time consuming process of sex reassignment surgery.

The last thing I wanted to address, someone mentioned there being little research regarding the harm of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination towards transgender people and what type of outcome that has. That's true that there isn't much research on the subject, but the little bit of research that has been conducted has found that the consequences are similar to racial or gender stereotyping. I attached a peer-reviewed journal article published in 2018 entitled "Transphobia in the Workplace: A Qualitative Study of Employment Stigma" if anyone's interested in reading an actual piece of research exploring that topic. To quickly summarize the researchers used an interview method to collect qualitative data from 45 individuals who self-identify as transgender. The researcher then noted the common themes which include: lack of social support, barriers to advancement in the workplace, and threats to personal safety to name a few concerns from the participants. I thought this study would be insightful because we can all relate to working, and it's a recent publication being only a couple years old.

For anyone who read the initial post and reacted harshly, and took the time to read my post, if you're still not going to change your mind I would definitely thank you for reading and at least giving some of the science behind this topic a read when it goes against what your opinion is. If this is something you're just not comfortable with, I would ask that you introspect and attempt to understand why that is. Yes, you and everyone is entitled to your own opinion, but be mindful that your opinion can have negative consequences, just something to think about it.

[knicks]

And I see that this site does not allow .pdf files to be uploaded (am I the first person in this site's history to upload a pdf? Probably!) So, best I can do is attach a screenshot so the abstract can be read.

   

[doubleintegral]

Your opinion does way more to harm transpeople than the existence of transpeople does to harm you (or really anyone at all).

I'm actually not certain that this is true, at least in terms of his *perceived* harm that trans people have inflicted upon him.

[orta03]

While don't agree with treating trans people as outcast and they should be treated with dignity and respect, I don't agree with this whole words equate to violence thing that many seem to espouse. No, words can hurt emotionally but they aren't violence. And to take such a position is quite dangerous. One of the many things that makes American society great is we can speak our conscience. Good, bad or horrific, i think preserving that is vital if want to keep our society free.

[Lucifer Morningstar]

While don't agree with treating trans people as outcast and they should be treated with dignity and respect, I don't agree with this whole words equate to violence thing that many seem to espouse.  No, words can hurt emotionally but they aren't violence.  And to take such a position is quite dangerous.  One of the many things that makes American society great is we can speak our conscience.  Good, bad or horrific, i think preserving that is vital if want to keep our society free.

This! No matter how you feel on the subject, it doesn’t give you the excuse to berate and belittle those who just have a different way of doing things as you do. Fighting fire with fire is never effective.

Well said, orta.

[lovingbelly]

Yay mentally ill people trying to be the opposite sex.

I'd rather you not say that please