Do you think a trans person has to experience "dysphoria" to receive any treatment?
Not at first, they likely will have to get a referral from their primary Dr. (unless they have grade-A insurance that has a list of providers that you can see). That's beside the point but that's step one when seeking mental health treatment. You will be matched with someone or you may be able to choose who you want to see (insurance thing again).
That person will do a basic intake which will go over physical health questions, family history, medications, etc. Then they will get to the questions that will better determine a few things like.... Is this patient a candidate for the diagnosis of gender dysphoria? If the doctor believes they fit the criteria or if it's a clinic like Mayo, a team of doctors will come to a consensus on the diagnosis and the Doctor and patient will agree on a treatment plan. This is where they set goals for treatment, what is an indicator that each goal has been met. At that point, if their goals have been met, they go to the next phase of treatment, reevaluate, and so on.
Treatment, (if they are any good) will help the patient make peace with where they are now and help them clearly define what their desired outcome would be (usually that's what's in a treatment plan.
Those places you see in the news are on the news for a reason. It's not "normal" to rush someone through the process in order to get to the big expensive surgery. It's like comparing a clinic like Mayo to a pill mill. Sadly, some medical "professionals" are just out to get a quick buck. They fly them through the paperwork and do the bare minimum enough to make it mostly legal. Even those cheap abortion clinics (Not Planned Parenthood), but those walk-in abortion clinics. It's different than going to a quality PP clinic or get a referral from your primary doctor.
We SHOULD be able to trust all the medical professionals who took the oath to do no harm. If someone wants to change their gender and they want it paid for by insurance, you have to cop to gender dysphoria. It is a medical diagnosis with established criteria by the American Psychiatric Association. in the DSM-5 manual. It's the basic criteria for diagnosing mental disorders, gender dysphoria is in there and every diagnosis in that manual is considered also a health condition. Gone are the days where having a mental condition is simply a character flaw.
Measurement
No objective measurement or imaging of the human body exists for gender identity, as it is part of one's subjective experience.
[119][120] Numerous clinical measurements for assessing gender identity exist, including questionnaire-based, interview-based and task-based assessments. These have varying effect sizes among a number of specific sub-populations.
[121] Gender identity measures have been applied in clinical assessment studies of people with
gender dysphoria or
intersex conditions.
en.wikipedia.org
You're talking about evidence now....
What evidence is there for the concept of a "gender identity"?
I think it's a lay term for gender dysphoria.
In Canada they offer you assisted suicide....sometimes for curable or treatable conditions.
You really are overestimating modern medicine here
That's another matter but I would think an Atheist would approve of someone making a free choice about how to end their suffering. Some people prefer to DIY with dignity and not a diaper. I'm against it for religious reasons but not secular ones.
That's not what was happening. Years of therapy and support groups and the rest is your imagination.
It may be what they did but it doesn't make it best practices. I said earlier in this post there are always rip-off artists, even in the medical community.
The Affirmative Care model is the standard model. It's not the "questioning gender" model.
An introduction for an article posted byhttps://focus.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.focus.20190030#:~:text=Affirmative%20care%20is%20defined%20as,the%20individuals%20served%20(1).
Affirmative care is defined as an approach to health care delivery in which organizations, programs, and providers recognize, validate, and support the identity stated or expressed by the individuals served (
1). Affirmative or affirming care has been recognized as a best-practice form of service for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ+) people (
2,
3). This model of care for members of sexual and gender minority communities is
much preferred over approaches that pathologize LGBTQ+ individuals or attempt to cis-heteronormatively convert their identities and preferences.
As I'm reading this, I am realizing that they mostly want to believe someone when they tell you what they feel, affirm it, and support, teach, and treat them. I haven't read anything about this recommendation forcing boys to say they are girls or fast-tracking them to the surgeon's table. I think what is most important to them is not heaping shame on someone for how they feel and, I bolded it in the paragraph above.
By you wanting to kick a boy out of a clinic and tell him, to go home and be a boy doesn't treat anything. It only makes them feel like they have no place in this world. By treating it, they see that other people feel the same way, it's done in stages and every step is documented and subject to review.
Why do you think this is happening?
Because there's tons of stories of people getting pills in 1-2 visits to a clinic. There's no stories of anyone doing "copious amounts of psychotherapy" prior to getting pills.
That may have been the model long long ago....but it's very fast now. Why would a trans person need "psychotherapy" if being trans isn't a mental illness?
Again....you need to explain what it is you think for us to continue because you keep talking about "years of psychotherapy" and the rest....
Being transgender isn't considered a mental illness. Do you understand that?
If you do...why do you think it would take all this therapy and psychological testing for them to get puberty blockers or hormones?
Look it up in the DSM-5. It's a medical diagnosis, insurance pays for it like they pay for any mental health treatment. Do you understand that? Has your car insurance ever bought groceries? Why would a health insurance company pay for treatment the has nothing to do with healthcare?
www.pewresearch.org
