Is that the same for something like depression?
No...there's a checklist of symptoms and behaviors that we can use to generally determine that.
If however you were to go to the doctor and say "I think my gender is man/woman/something else"....there's no checklist. It doesn't actually matter if you dress up as a man but say you're a woman...or dress up as a woman but say you are a man, etc. There's literally no requirement of behaviors or symptoms for a gender identity.
Good question though.
I think that there is a degree of measurement that can be done through revelation.
If we're going off revelation and not evidence then you can understand why I call this a faith based belief and it appears to be cultish to people.
Not knowing exactly what hormones will do in every case or even most cases is why the program should not be implemented on a grand scale until they have more date.
Well here's the thing...
You would really need to do what they do for other medications...double blind trials with control groups (to weed out placebo effects) and end the affirmation nonsense.
When you think about it, there's going to be a ton of conditions and issues where we can hand someone a drug, tell their friends and family to be super supportive and positive towards them, tell them the drug will fix their problem, and they'll respond by thinking they feel better. After all, they are now getting a lot of support and help for whatever the problem is...
Of course, it may not feel that way for long....so they will seek out the next step and go from puberty blockers to hormones, new pronouns, etc. They're just chasing the feeling of progress and care from others regarding their problem.
There's an endpoint to this of course, when family and friends have their own lives to deal with...and the patient will need to be ok with themselves (and almost certainly by themselves).
Other nations like Russia have make homosexuality a crime.
Sure.
Should we strictly go by what other people do?
Well the nations I'm talking about were doing what we are doing now...except they had nationalized healthcare programs. They also followed the Affirmative Care Model...except more quickly because of their government paid healthcare. They found the problems faster than we will...and that's assuming we find them at all. It would require thousands of people making the government actually care about the many negative outcomes that we know are being kept quiet by the media and government. It gets downplayed as a rare event that we don’t have to worry about while trans activists literally harass these victims into silence.
We all knew oxycontin was a highly addictive opioid that destroyed lives for nearly a decade before the government did anything about it. Why? Because the government doesn't run the healthcare system....they don't have to worry about outcomes....and pharmaceutical companies rake in massive profits.
I don't think they found that it was pseudoscientific quackery but they may have found out that they are going onto hormone treatment and surgery too fast.
I don't think the exact words were pseudoscientific quackery. It's more like...
A systematic meta-analysis of all available data has shown that all available research on the Affirmative Care model, puberty blockers, HRT, and transitioning for trans youth to be of extremely low quality and extremely low confidence in the positive outcomes of these treatment while simultaneously underestimating the negative effects of these treatments. This quality of research is far below the basic national standards for the medical treatment of children and should cease immediately.
In my mind...the easy way to describe that....is pseudoscientific quackery.
Being honest looks like you are giving parents the best information that you know of. They have to evaluate that and make an informed decision.
I know all about informed decisions. My wife had brain surgery. We met with the surgeon. He starts going over the whole spiel...everything that can go wrong from long term issues, personality changes, death, etc. It's a long scary list. We aren't halfway through it and I can tell my wife is terrified. By the end when he has her signing waivers, I ask him...
I know you can't give me any guarantees, you can't promise us nothing will go wrong, but hypothetically...if we were talking about some other case just like hers...what do you think the chances are you would get this surgery right without any problems?
He looks me dead in the eye and says "maybe 1000/1. I've done this hundreds of times more than anyone else I know, I can't remember the last time I had any issues before or after surgery".
I knew I had the right guy for the job then...and that's the degree of "knowledgeable" most people get regarding their healthcare in this country. I get what you're saying about the need for people to be as knowledgeable as possible regarding something this important. They should also be knowledgeable about their car loans/safety/reliability. They should be knowledgeable about their mortgages, whether or not they are good or trash or something in-between. They should be knowledgeable about their diets, the food they consume and how it affects their health personally. They should know everything about their firearm, how to operate it safely, how to shoot it accurately, and every law regarding its use, carry, and ownership.
People should be walking encyclopedias about a whole range of things that affect them or their children but frankly....they aren't. They typically rely heavily on experts. They rely on the mechanics who tell them what needs fixed and when. They rely on their bank who profits from the mortgage they are paying off. They rely on the latest diet fad regarding their food. They rely on the guy on the TV telling them this new type of vaccine that only took a year to make is not only safe but effective.
People should be experts in this stuff...but they won't be. They simply will do what they already do....trust the doctor who quite literally depends upon their business to pay his bills. He'll tell them that the puberty blockers are just going to give their child "time to sort out their feelings" and if they change their minds....no harm done. Does he tell them it will stunt their physical development permanently? Probably not. Does he tell them that a study just came out showing any prolonged use will almost certainly leave your child permanently sterilized? Unlikely. Does he even tell them that over 90% of children who go on puberty blockers end up progressing to cross sex hormones? If he did that...you might wonder why bother with the puberty blockers at all? They're basically a guaranteed pathway to the hormones....is it because we're trying to stunt development? Are they just trying to squeeze every last dollar out of these clients?
These would be good questions to ask. Most parents aren't asking though.
It may not require a physical intervention. Are you under the impression that a child can walk into a clinic and get a sex change without doing anything other than that?
Are you under the impression that people are getting sex changes? Why would you need to change your sex if gender and sex are unrelated?
You said that to me....remember? I said I wasn't very confident in this idea of gender being a real thing....you replied that sex was this biological fact, and gender was something else....a psychological thing unrelated to sex.
Yet here you are....suggesting that we alter someone's sex to fit their gender....as if these things are not only related to each other, they're so deeply connected that we can't really talk about gender without talking about biological sex.
Doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that all those gender activists....all those people supporting this....they all insisted over and over again that biological sex and gender are completely unrelated concepts.
Yet for some reason...we can't discuss them as if they're unrelated. The doctors in these clinics have only 1 treatment....to halt the normal development of a boy into a man or girl into a woman (biological sex) and then try to alter the appearance of a person's sex into the appearance of a different sex. All to deal with someone's "correct gender"....something unrelated to biological sex.
One of the tactics of manipulation is repetition. Repetition. Just repeat the message, in a way so basic that the dumbest person in the audience will understand. It doesn't actually have to make sense....but if repeated often enough, it will be accepted as true. This is used in advertising....it's used in propaganda...and it's used in politics.
Gender and biological sex are completely unrelated.
How many times have you heard that? I probably read it in one place or another a few hundred times. I probably accepted it for awhile.
Then I actually began thinking about it. It doesn't seem like they're unrelated. It actually seems like they're deeply intertwined. In fact, if I said gender dysphoria is just someone who wishes they could change their biological sex....we wouldn't need to bring up gender ever again. We would just be talking about men who wanted to be women and women who wanted to be men. Nothing about the conversation would change at all. We'd even be discussing the same treatment. We could call it "biological sex dysphoria" and do away with the concept of "gender" entirely.
Do you feel like you've been manipulated?
I would suggest that the reason why they inject this nonsense concept of gender is because you would automatically assume that someone who wants to change their biological sex (which is impossible) is suffering from a mental disorder. They may deserve sympathy....but we don't change the English language and ask for preferred pronouns or let men into women's restrooms because they're suffering from mental illness.
We'd tell them they're mentally ill...and should seek help. Maybe there isn't much help for such people. Maybe it's a very difficult problem to solve...like schizophrenia or anorexia.
Once they convince you that it's not a mental illness, that it's a matter of gender....and gender doesn't have anything to do with biological sex. Well, why not let that man into the women's restroom? He's not mentally ill......he's just a woman in his mind....and that somehow matters more than biological sex.
Again, are you sure you aren't being manipulated? Did you see a bunch of people being called bigots and transphobes if they didn't go along with this? Did you decide that you aren't a bigot, nor a transphobe, so you were willing to go along with it? After all, the demands were so small at the start....just use different pronouns, let them use whatever restroom they want. Next thing you know, they're beating up actual women in the octagon and letting male rapists into women's prisons. Now they're teaching children this nonsense in drag, putting sexually graphic books in elementary school libraries, and pumping children full of untested drugs the FDA doesn't approve of.
This needs to stop. I think you believe deep down that these people are suffering some sort of mental illness....just like I do. I think we agree that generally speaking, we can describe this mental illness as wanting to be the opposite sex....something impossible, and therefore frustrating and difficult to deal with. You can believe in gender if you want....I don't....but it doesn't appear to be a necessary part of the discussion.
I don't think you're a bigot. I think you think these people deserve sympathy and high quality mental health care. Me too.
Mental illness isn't a reason for me to use different pronouns. You can if you want, it doesn't bother me.
Mental illness isn't a reason to allow men into the women's restroom, prison, or sports team. I have sympathy for them...but it's not a valid reason. A bipolar person may believe god gave them your car....but if they steal it, they should be punished. They still have to follow the rules. Maybe that shouldn't mean prison time...maybe it should mean medication...but it's not a reason to let them ignore the rules the rest of us follow.
The problem we're having in this conversation is you seem to think "trans people suffer from gender dysphoria". They might...but it's not required to be trans. "Trans" is just a claim someone makes about themselves. That claim is all they require for treatment. Doctors aren't supposed to question the claim or try to talk anyone out of it. Trans people insist they aren't suffering from a mental illness. Being trans isn't listed as a mental illness....so why would they require a mental illness to get hormones or surgery?
You seem to be flip-flopping between the idea that trans people are suffering from a mental illness....or they aren't. Which is it?