Transgenderism: What if the “Experts” are Wrong?
On May 25, 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) approved a resolution to no longer categorize transgenderism as a “mental disorder”. According to the WHO, the previous classification of trans-related and gender-diverse identity issues created stigma and potential barriers to care. For example, individuals had to be diagnosed as mentally ill in order to access gender-affirming health care supported by health insurance coverage.[1]
Data indicates that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth.[2] With such an alarmingly high number of attempted suicides within this population, any barriers to mental health treatment must be eliminated. Suicide is not the most selfish thing a person can do. It’s the most desperate. Children with gender dysphoria are especially vulnerable.
According to Graeme Reid, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights director at Human Rights Watch, “The WHO’s removal of ‘gender identity disorder’ from its diagnostic manual will have a liberating effect on transgender people worldwide.” On May 27, 2019 Reid called upon governments to “swiftly reform national medical systems and laws that require this now officially outdated diagnosis[3].”
As the 4-year anniversary of gender identity disorders being removed from the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) publication approaches, what has changed? It’s subtle, but significant. The primary reason the WHO removed all gender-diverse identity issues from the ICD-11 was because individuals first had to be diagnosed with a mental illness before he or she could receive any “gender-affirming care”. The stigma of being told they’re mentally ill before surgically removing or adding breasts, and cutting off penises or manipulating vaginas was apparently too much of a burden for these patients to bear.
Unfortunately, stigma is still part of most mental illnesses. Alcoholism and drug addiction are mental illnesses, yet we still incarcerate more of these sufferers than we treat. Depression, perhaps the most easily treated mental illness, is still met with frustration and misunderstanding by those who love the sufferer the most. Schizophrenia causes people to take the long way around a sufferer. The long list of phobias often leaves the sufferer a victim of ridicule; the butt of the joke. Mental illness is not what you think. It is the cause of what you think.
Since 2017 there has been a sharp rise in children and teens across the United States receiving a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Defined as distress caused by a conceived discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and his or her actual gender, gender dysphoria diagnosis’s have tripled in the last six years. With the militant approach taken up by the LGBT community, and wide support from Democrats and the medical community, expect the number of children and teenagers to come out as transgender to compound exponentially for years to come.
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There are many skeptics who still believe transgenderism is a mental illness. To believe that it’s as natural to “transition” to another gender, then to not, stretches the imagination. It doesn’t seem normal, but normal is like beauty. It’s in the eye of the beholder. Just because the medical community have made surgical and pharmaceutical advances to make the transformation appear more real, doesn’t make it right. It just makes it possible. Should society be telling children and teenagers that it’s possible that he is a she, and her is a him? Should government be validating public school students who decide they’re a victim of a birth defect?
According to Matt Sharp, senior counsel and director of the Center for Legislative Advocacy at the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, “Children suffering discomfort with their sex are best served by compassionate mental health care that enables them to live comfortably in their bodies and with their true identities as male or female”. Sharp is correct.
Growing up is difficult. Puberty is an emotional and physical rollercoaster. The desire to feel comfortable in one’s own skin, especially as a teenager, can be overwhelming. For most young people, the need for acceptance within peer groups is so important that to not fit in can be devastating. Girls and boys who reach puberty late are self-conscious of the fact. They so desperately want to grow up. And some girls are more masculine. They used to be called tomboys. Some of the boys are more feminine. They were once called sissies.
For the Baby Boomer and Gen X generations, we look back and can remember all these things. We can imagine what would have happened if adults were dangling the gender-affirming cure to classmates who had yet to overcome their gender awkwardness and sexual uncertainty. Many children and teenagers would have recklessly taken the bait. Anything to kill the pain driven by this question. What is wrong with me?
In a civil society, children are recognized as vulnerable because they are so impressionable. Once an adult, Americans are free to have cosmetic surgery to change their appearance. They’re free to take the necessary hormones to appear more feminine or masculine. They can even adopt a persona of their opposite sex. They can create an entirely new reality for themselves, regardless of how departed from reality their new reality has become. But the children? Should we be filling their heads with such suggestions? Should we be encouraging them to become someone else when they have yet to fully grasp who they already are?
I think not.
[1] World Health Organization, Moving one step closer to better health and rights for transgender people, https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/17-05-2019-moving-one-step-closer-to-better-health-and-rights-for-transgender-people
[2] Austin A, Craig SL, D’Souza S, McInroy LB. Suicidality Among Transgender Youth: Elucidating the Role of Interpersonal Risk Factors. J Interpers Violence. 2022 Mar;37(5-6):NP2696-NP2718. doi: 10.1177/0886260520915554. Epub 2020 Apr 29. Erratum in: J Interpers Violence. 2020 Jul 29;:886260520946128. PMID: 32345113.
[3] https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/05/27/new-health-guidelines-propel-transgender-rights
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