re: "being trans is a mental disorder"

a thread

I've seen this crop up somewhat lately on my TL with a lot of perspectives from trans people on both sides of the fence. I would like to discuss.

Yes, gender dysphoria is in the DSM (big fancy mental illness diagnosis book). Until 1973, so was homosexuality. One of the hallmark criteria for any mental disorder is that it must cause significant disruption or distress for the person. Being gay in a homophobic society

can certainly cause distress. Being trans in a transphobic society can also cause significant distress. Just because something is distressing *does not mean it's an issue with the individual*. THIS is one of the HUGE problems with therapy: focusing ONLY on the individual and

completely ignoring the CONTEXT in which they exist. Being trans puts you at incredible risk in our society. Not only for direct physical or sexual violence, but also verbal abuse, social ostracization, and poverty. Not to mention trans people don't even have the same rights.

In 26 states, you can legally be fired *just* for being trans.

It makes sense that existing in this space as a trans person is distressing. Perhaps downright terrifying. Again, this doesn't mean it's the trans person's fault or that there's something wrong with them.

Preoccupation over your survival is inherently distressing. This is one of the reasons poverty and mental illness have such high comorbidity: it poses what is called an "inescapable stressor" meaning it's something that doesn't ever go away. This type of stress highly correlates

with mental illness because being constantly stressed produces cortisol with no end. Cortisol has no negative feedback loop, which means the body never gets told "hey there's enough" and production never gets cut off.

A little cortisol is good, necessary for survival.

It's part of the "fight or flight" side of your nervous system.

A lot of cortisol kills brain cells. Mainly in the limbic system, which contains the amygdala and the hippocampus, responsibile for emotional response & regulation and memory consolidation, respectively.

Neurons dying in this area of the brain puts you at risk for mental illness.

Poverty is an inescapable stressor. So is being trans. You can never not be trans. Even if you pass or don't "present" as trans (using quotes here bc presentation is inherently tied to socialization)

and therefore aren't publicly treated as trans (with all the dangers that come with it) you are still trans. You still know you're trans. This may cause gender dysphoria (distress caused by conflict btwn one's body & gender identity) &/or feelings of shame and confusion. Trans

people may feel there is "something wrong with them" or defective. They may be angry with themselves or with the world. They may be depressed because they have to, for safety reasons, stay closeted, or they may be depressed bc they came out and were rejected by loved ones.

ALL of this is a result of socialization. The way others see and accept or reject transness is shaped entirely by socializion. Babies do not have a conception of gender. Gender roles and expectations vary WIDELY around the world in different cultures. Gender is TAUGHT. It is a

social construct, created and reinforced by the dominant (cisgender heteronormative) narrative.

The hatred of trans people is taught. The idea that cisness is the only thing that exists or is the only thing that is "natural" is taught. Trans people have existed for

millennia. There are records of gender variant people from Indigenous tribes across the globe. Transness has always been a part of human culture, the hatred of it has not.

Now, yes. Some people take solace in getting an "answer" about the source of their suffering, and transness being a disorder provides that. But, to harken my previous point, the diagnosis confirms something is wrong on an individual level when really it's a systemic problem.

Blaming oppressed people for feeling the impacts of their oppression upholds the system that oppresses them. It's the same rhetoric as telling poor people they should just work harder and not be so lazy and one day they could be a billionaire too. It's YOUR fault, not the

fault of the system that tirelessly exploits you and encourages violence against you.

The medicalization of transness reinforces this idea that trans people are defective. Applying the language of "disorder" to trans people

implies there is something about their transness that needs to be "fixed" or "cured". This leads to an approach to transness that has the goal of eradicating IT and not the transphoic culture we live in.

Not all trans people experience dysphoria, and you don't need it to be trans. But this diagnosis can be applied just bc someone self-identifies as trans.

One of the tenets of diagnosis in psychology is the right of the patient to the "least stigmatizing label". Now, although we

might know the stigmatization of mental illness is wrong in the first place, the reality of it is that it exists and has real impacts. The gender dysphoria diagnosis is the basis on which trump disqualified trans people from serving in the military. It has been weaponized against

trans people already.

I understand that this is the only way some people are able to get insurance to cover any trans-related medical care, & that is horrid. It exemplifies the fucked transphobic system we live in. But this larger concept of the individual being divorced from

their context stands. Being trans isn't a problem to be cured. The threat to personal safety trans people experience is not their fault. The solution to the problem exists on a systemic level.

I welcome comments & conversation around this topic. Thanks for reading my thoughts.