Is gender dysphoria treatable by surgery?

[Sidney]

@anon7035031

No shit?I would have thought FF historically were more socially liberal than FG and FG have recently moved to join them, which ultimately means they will have to merge or move apart again. Both have pandered equally to the bead twirling demented.

Fianna Fail are to the right of Fine Gael on social issues and have been consistently for years now. That’s not in doubt. Many of their younger candidates in the election are dyed in the wool social conservatives.

Fine Gael certainly has a better track record in having moved on divorce, the marriage referendum, and in a limited way on abortion.

FIanna Fail’s absence from the marriage referendum debate bar Micheal Martin and perhaps Pat Carey, who hasn’t been a TD since 2011, was deafening and it’s why their most prominent young Oireachtas member with liberal social views left them, whereas in Fine Gael, it was their most prominent conservative TD who left over abortion legislation.

[glasagusban]

You started off saying it’s not surprising that @ironmoth’s psychiatrist’s views are controversial to “extreme liberals”. (They’re actually just controversial.) I asked what an extreme liberal was and you gave some examples totally unconnected to any previous posts, or anything really. You have a habit of imputing ideas to others and then knocking them down. Sid on the other hand has fairly nailed you squarely on the things you’ve written and posted.

[Sidney]

To the best of my knowledge from what I’ve looked up about McHugh, he believes that gender reassignment surgery should never be an option (certainly I can’t find an example of a situation where he thinks it would be of benefit to a patient).

That is a position from which he will not be moved since the 1970s, irrespective of any evidence that suggests he is wrong.

That, in @ironmoth’s words, is “a crippling inability to admit defeat, or that somebody else might have a point”.

[Sidney]

@anon7035031

Considering these people hire most of the labor pool and pay their taxes how the fuck can they be regarded as a problem, other than by morons who think everyone should be paid the same, whether sitting in their arse on the dole or working 80 hours a week to build a business that employs people. That’s an example of an extreme economic liberal position.

Straw man alert!

[anon7035031]

By jove lad, you have stumbled on a straw man argument, however inadvertent.
Please point to where in my original post I said McHugh’s views were controversial to “extreme liberals”. I said they were controversial but not outrageous, and mentioned the total overreaction of the PC brigade (who could be anywhere on the political spectrum) to ironmoth’s post . The problem with taking offense at a medical condition being called a mental illness is the person taking offense is the one attaching a stigma to the condition. There is nothing wrong with mental illness, most people suffer from one variety or other.

[anon7035031]

That certainly seems to be his position, and even though I disagree with him myself on many subjects, where is the evidence that he is wrong on this question? I have no idea whether he is right or wrong regarding the short term or longer term benefits or adverse effects of surgery, and I suspect you don’t either. His opinion is based on evidence though, although admittedly from decades old studies. He is not some guy on the street though with an opinion, he was the President of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins from 1975 to 2001, one of the leading medical research facilities in the world, hardly a position you obtain and retain for 26 years without some bit of competence.

You characterization of him as holding opinions based on disgust as homosexuals and transgenders really doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. In his position he would have overseen the sexual behavior clinic, one of the most respected in the US, a clinic that has helped many thousands of patients with sexual problems but also treated some of the worst sex offenders, including pedophiles, in the country. He would have encountered plenty that would disgust most people. I doubt his motivation was disgust in developing the methods developed at John Hopkins, and outlined in his landmark book “The Perspectives of Psychiatry”.

So, fire up the evidence that surgery actually has benefits in terms of treating the medical condition known as gender dysphoria. McHugh points to studies showing that 10 years later significant levels of mental problems (anxiety, depression, suicide) exist. Where are the studies that show symptoms are actually alleviated? I haven’t been able to find any.

The second and more significant issue I have is with your (and others) offense at gender dysphoria being characterized as a mental disorder or illness, which is was up to very recently. You are falling for the argument that there is a stigma associated with mental illness, failing to see that the problem is the stigma exists at all in society. There is nothing “wrong” with mental illness, no more than there is anything wrong with cancer or diabetes. In fact there is a very good argument to be made as to why gender dysphoria should be delisted as a mental illness, but anxiety disorder, OCD, various phobias, depression, panic attacks, etc. continue to be listed as mental disorders, if all of them are due to how the brain processes stimuli. Does the listing of these as disorders stigmatize them (it shouldn’t surely). It doesn’t really hold up to rational scrutiny, leading to the conclusion that the LGBT lobby were successful in removing it from the DSM-V as they didn’t want to be associated with people with mental disorders (surely adding to the stigma of mental illness?)…

If you think about it rationally a transgender person has a mismatch between their body parts and the way their brain processes stimuli to create gender identity. So, is the medical condition wrong body parts leading to anxiety and more serious mental disorders, or a brain that is miswired and reads the stimuli wrong? I’d be inclined to tentatively believe the latter, which would suggest to me that treating the brain (via neuroplasticity for example) might be more successful than surgery. There are lots of studies that other brain wiring conditions such as OCD can be helped by neuroplasticity, it just seems a little less invasive than chopping off genitals.

[ironmoth]

@Sidney

Indeed, people generally find it frustrating debating with me because I’m good at it and tend to outpoint them comfortably.

If you’re concerned about results and progress, you wouldn’t be championing Professor McHugh, who I’ve shown is influenced to an unhealthy level by his religious views and ironically has shown that exact inability to admit defeat that you so claim to dislike.

Meanwhile, in the real world, gender dysphoria has been recognised as a medical condition rather than a mental illness and a growing, if still small, number of studies back up my point of view rather than yours and those of Professor McHugh, who is coming from a starting point which provides very little, if any constructive analysis to the debate and largely perpetuates the stigmatisation of transgender people.

Apart from a tongue-in-cheek response to Choco and TSG, I’ve not been championing Prof. McHugh.

As for you tending to outpoint people at debating because you are ‘good’ at it, you must realise that the amount of time you allocate to it (ie. ‘researching’ on the internet and responding) has a sizeable impact on perceived outcomes too. If you come across as dogged enough in a discussion, people will eventually walk away. It doesn’t mean you’ve won. It’s a bit like a terrier that just goes on yapping incessantly at the other dogs in the park. Most ignore it, but eventually a bigger dog will put it in its place.

I suspect you will wake up this morning to find that @anon7035031 has buried you in this discussion (with less than 50% of your number of posts). Not because you’re a shitty debater (you’re not), but because the topic is not as black and white as you might like to have thought. Now you may wish to keep going, because it is entertaining to watch and @Tassotti for one is getting a kick out of it, but you probably have to draw the line somewhere.

[ironmoth]

@The_Most_Infamous

Couldn’t be bothered reading this thread back…as the name of it alone is in poor taste to be honest.

I don’t know any transsexuals but I’m pretty certain it must be extremely tough time growing up for them in that situation…the cheap laughs at their expense on here is unwarranted.

These people are still human at the end of the day…and for an Irish person born say as a transsexual to read should they be allowed in Ireland" is a bit fucking much.

You’d say something if there was pattern between transsexuals and criminality but I haven’t heard or seen that and in comparison to the gay lobby I’d imagine they are 1% of the 1%.

Don’t understand why it’s seen as an issue at all given the numbers involved or the need for a thread on same.

The name wa chosen by Joe Player when he started the thread last year. It’s been commented on that the title and the discussion were at odds with one another, but someone has kindly fixed that now.

Maybe you should be bothered to read it back. Skip to post 30 or 40 and take it from there. The discussion is very informative, and there are very few cheap laughs.

[glasagusban]

@anon7035031

Please point to where in my original post I said McHugh’s views were controversial to “extreme liberals”.

@anon7035031

It’s not surprising that McHugh’s extreme conservative opinions are controversial to extreme liberals

Hmmm

[anon7035031]

That isn’t my original post on this topic, nor indeed my second.
In the full sentence which you have taken out of context to hoist your straw man, I said its unsurprising that extreme conservative views are controversial to extreme liberals, and visa versa, using McHugh as the example. To say his views are controversial to everyone is plainly untrue, many in the psychiatric field would share his opinions on whether surgery is actually beneficial or not to treat gender dysphobia (opinions based based on scientific evidence, sparse as it is, as opposed to just having an opinion).

[Tassotti]

Go easy on him

[Little_Lord_Fauntleroy]

Some Kids are born with male and female genitalia.do the bigots allow them to have surgery?

[HBV]

If you are born with a penis what exactly do the medical people use to determine that it shouldn’t have been put their in the first place and that surgery to aid the formation of a fanny is the most appropriate form of action?

Serious question.

[Little_Lord_Fauntleroy]

They do it with intersex kids at a very early age.whats your opinion on that

[glasagusban]

It’s the first post I engaged you on, but anyway that’s not the point. Don’t try to move the goalposts. You actually said his views were extreme conservative. Where did I say they were controversial to everyone? There you go imputing views onto people and arguing them again. You’re good at winning imaginary arguments. Not so good at keeping track of what you or anyone else has actually said.

[Little_Lord_Fauntleroy]

Thats a clamping

[Matty_Hislop]

That’s a serious clamping.

Luckily enough for @anon7035031 he’s probably pissed and gone to bed.

[anon61956325]

Yurt.

[HBV]

if a child is born with a mixture of male and female reproductive organs then obviously there should be a method and a reasoning for settling that one way or the other. similarly if a child is born one kidney or a faulty heart valve or a dodgy lung or a cleft palate then of course that child deserves the opportunity to have it set right.

a grown man with a family (or not) deciding he wants his balls removed and wants pharmaceuticals to grow tits is not the same thing. frankly its appaling that any right minded folk would deem it appropriate to lump both cases together. a child with a mixture of male and female reproductive organs clearly has an issue that deserves to be rectified. same cannot be said of a man with a pair of balls and a stubble.
back to my original question.
what exactly is the criteria used to determine that for example Frank Maloney should have been a woman and that society should be expected to respect that?
is it simply because he says so?

[Horsebox]

That’s a leg breaker.