Why Is Transgender An Identity But Anorexia A Disorder?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by TeaAddict, Feb 26, 2017.

  1. TeaAddict

    TeaAddict Active Member

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    http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/27/why-is-transgender-an-identity-but-anorexia-a-disorder/

    By Moira Fleming:

    "The furor over the “bathroom bill” in North Carolina has given the trans movement the perfect kindling to continue fostering their campaign of nationwide acceptance. It has also sparked a semi-hysterical “transphobic” backlash of self-righteous traditionalists.I do not consider myself in either camp. I approach this topic with a wrenching awareness of what it feels like to be disconnected from your body, to hate with every fiber of your being the way you look in the mirror, and to be willing to undergo great feats of self-mutilation to achieve a vision that is always just out of grasp. My perspective on the matter, however, probably would not go over well among most LGBTQ individuals. As a person who has struggled with anorexia nervosa since puberty, the transgender anguish resonates with me. The similarities between the two illnesses are striking. Yet one is an identity, and the other is a disorder. Why?


    At the heart of gender dysphoria is a paradoxical desire to be characterized as something one simultaneously declares is ineffable (i.e. gender roles are illusory cultural constructs, but I yearn to concretely embody that illusion). The contradictory desire in transgenderism is similar in hopelessness as the desire in anorexia. The goal is to be thin, and one is never thin enough until one is dead. The goal is to be a sex other than one’s biological makeup, and one cannot alter one’s chromosomes and genetic makeup.
    If a man wants to wear makeup, dresses, even get breast implants, who are we to stop him? If he wants to legally change his name to Maureen, great! But language policing, the implication that by misusing a pronoun we are savaging a person’s very core, is untenable. Using “he” instead of “she” may very well hurt someone’s feelings, but that is a level of sensitivity on par with agoraphobia (fear of crowded or enclosed public spaces). The onus is on the person to find ways of coping. The world cannot be responsible for validating a confusing, opaque issue that has been too quickly transferred from “disorder” to “condition,” from irrational to heroic.
    [h=2]An All-Consuming Desire to Alter One’s Self[/h]Advocates insist that gender dysphoria is not a pathology. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) describes a disorder as “a description of something with which a person might struggle, not a description of the person or the person’s identity.” This is an absurd string of verbiage. A person’s identity is not his or her biological sex. That is part of a person’s identity.
    However, many individuals with gender dysphoria feel they must try to change their outward appearance to match this inner ideal. Due to the physiological makeup of the human body, however, this attempt is often a mighty undertaking. One may even go so far as to say it’s a struggle. The intensity of this all-consuming desire to alter one’s self is what I find most similar to my own illness. We cannot rest until the outside matches the inside.


    Many individuals with eating disorders assume an identity centered completely on that disorder. According to an article on the Social Issues Research Centre website, pro-anorexia websites espouse starvation as “the right lifestyle choice for them, and will allow them to achieve happiness and perfection.” Imagine if someone with crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder about germs could impose his beliefs. We’d be obligated to all carry gloves and wear face masks.
    The same could be said for a chronically depressed exhibitionist. Accommodation and what is essentially encouraging a delusion is bound to “improve” the life of an individual who has felt like an alien in her own body for years. Unfortunately social support will never change the basic biological facts. Clinging to an illusion does not make a person crazy, marginalized, or inferior. It makes him human.
    [h=2]Remember Your Descartes? Feelings Aren’t Reliable[/h]We cannot rely on our “feelings,” as strong as they are. If I relied on my feelings, I’d be dead. Why? Because my feelings tell me that eating food means gaining weight, and gaining weight is intolerable. Transgender children are apparently absolutely sure they were born in the wrong body. It is a belief held so deeply that we throw out all the entrenched knowledge of psychology and mental illness to appease it.
    People with anorexia can often trace their discomfort with their own bodies back to early childhood, as well. Both situations are abstract feelings that clearly contradict reality. The certainty that one is a woman despite being born a man sounds awfully similar to the conviction that one’s body is overweight even when body-mass index is at starvation levels. The feeling of hunger—the most primal, ingrained of physiological response—impels the individual to abstain. Can you question the depth of that belief?


    No one with any understanding of the matter is denying that a mismatch exists between the person’s brain and her body. The approach to “wellness” however, is hopelessly backward. The brain is the component of this puzzle with the capacity for immense plasticity. Noninvasive reconditioning occurs every day. The body is the factor that is hardest to alter in any meaningful way. So why are sex-reassignment surgeries the gold-standard treatment method in gender dysphoria literature? Why is such a drastic, violent procedure championed so fiercely?
    The question is not whether someone’s identity should be validated, but whether the validation should accompany an attempt to fabricate an impossible artifice. If a man feels he is a woman on the inside, this begs the question: What is a woman? The unswervingly nebulous explanations that abound in defense of transgender rights echo the desperate bravado of the pro-ana crowd.
    Adults have the right to dress, act, and live however they damn well please. But the swiftness with which the transgender “condition” has been accepted as mentally healthy is unfair to both the public at large and the individuals themselves. There are no 100 percent effective treatments for anorexia nervosa, but that doesn’t mean that’s how my mind is supposed to work and I should embrace it. The same should apply to gender dysphoria."

    What if anorexics were recognized as a "minority group", needing "representation" in our media and government? This push to have transgender/gay characters in films and television, for example, to help these groups feel more normalised, what would the reaction be if this was applied to anorexics?

    Thoughts?
     
  2. Mr. Swedish Guy

    Mr. Swedish Guy New Member

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  3. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Pretty thin analogy.

    Allowing someone to starve themselves usually results in death.

    Allowing someone to change their sexual identity may (and I do say may) make them healthier and feeling more well adjusted.
     
  4. WAN

    WAN Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So if I think I am POTUS, you will let me move into the White House as this might make me healthier and feeling more well-adjusted?
     
  5. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Isn't that what we have done with the present occupant?
     
  6. WAN

    WAN Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Trump did win the election, though. And I didn't.
     
  7. TeaAddict

    TeaAddict Active Member

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    No he was, whether you admit it or not, democratically elected.
     
  8. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Sexuality is probably one of the most complex aspect of human behavior. Did you know that for a few men, a third toe being longer than the second toe can cause sexual arousal? It's actually a fetish! Is that a disorder? The point is, when it comes to sex, people are all over the map. There is no such a thing as normal. People who try to make sexuality binary are viewing it naively and ignorantly.

    But it isn't normal to starve yourself to death.

    A lot of farm boys like the sheep. Is that a disorder?
     
  9. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Actually, he was elected by committee - not democratically.
    But them's the rules.

    But back to the thread - I was pointing out that the treatment for anorexia is to get people to eat. Right now, many in the health field believe that
    the treatment for people with gender identity problems is to allow them the freedom to explore another gender. Forcing them accept their
    biological gender may actually cause harm.
     
  10. WAN

    WAN Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    But people having weird fetishes does not mean that there are now a bunch different "kinds" of sexes. Saying that human sex is binary is not ignorant. There ARE only two sexes, male and female. Yes there are hermaphrodites but it's an abnormality. It's like saying there are people who are born without a brain now means humans can be divided into two groups, those with a brain and those without. It doesn't make sense.
     
  11. robini123

    robini123 Well-Known Member

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    Anorexia harms the sufferer while being transgender is in and of itself harmless.
     
  12. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Yet we know it doesn't. The suicide rate - even in those who've had extensive surgery/hormone treatment and who are accepted/passing - is stupendously high. These are dangerously ill people, and enabling the expression of their disease is a mistake.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Of course it doesn't. It's about the feelz, and nothing else. The people driving this beast have never applied critical thought to it.
     
  13. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    The suicide rate is much higher than the norm for doctors and dentists as well. Should we prevent people from attending medical school?
     
  14. robini123

    robini123 Well-Known Member

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    Source citation needed for claim of "dangerously ill people" and "their disease".

    What is your argument based upon if other than feelings?
     
  15. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Actually mammalian sexuality is VERY simple. Almost all mammals will meet those needs in a basic and predictable fashion.

    Overgrown teenagers still riding the titillation train which embarked in the 1960s, will of course continue to believe that sex is super important and complex. Like they just discovered it last week, and can think of nothing else. Hence the obsession with sexuality and trans stuff. It's all just so ..... deliciously naughty, and makes your grandparents squirm. Go you crazy revolutionaries!
     
  16. WAN

    WAN Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I can also say that medical professionals' conclusion to let transgender people "explore their gender" is also based on feelings.
     
  17. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    Check it out. Suicide rate is about 40%. That's a very reliable indicator of significant mental illness.

    My feelings aren't involved at all. My feelings have long told me that some lovely people are trans. And that trans people are often smart and kind and apparently sane. My objections are 'clinical', social, and political.
     
  18. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Homosexual behavior is common in many animals. Your post is ignorant

    When was the last time a dog humped your leg?

    Was he born in the 60s?
     
  19. robini123

    robini123 Well-Known Member

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    Indeed as there is no conclusive evidence to the positive nor the negative on the subject of transgenderism. In the absence of conclusive data what must be examined is harm. So what harm does being transgender in and of itself cause?
     
  20. WAN

    WAN Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is no harm but it's irrelevant. There is no harm in people peeing in public either but there are by-laws against that.
     
  21. robini123

    robini123 Well-Known Member

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    What is the cause of the increased suicide rate if not bullying and social ostracism? (Source citation needed with answer.)

    If your argument is not based upon feelings then why are you not posting source citation for your claims?
     
  22. CCitizen

    CCitizen Well-Known Member

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    I will not speak for transgendered and LGBT people. They do face much prejudice from society.

    I have Moderate Autism and Moderate Depression. That is also a part of my identity.
     
  23. robini123

    robini123 Well-Known Member

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    Irrelevant to you, relevant to me. I stand against the penalization of harmless action. Why stand against something that is harmless?
     
  24. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    No it won't. Ever.

    Only at the expense of everyone around them.
     
  25. WAN

    WAN Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Are you against by-laws prohibiting public urination? This act harms no one.
     

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