Defining mental illness is imprecise. We’ve gotten it horribly wrong before, from diagnosing intelligent women as hysterics to gay men and women as deviants. We also have a long, failed history of well-meant prohibition.
If we’re seeing preliminary evidence that a surgery makes miserable people happy, I say we follow the lead without prejudice. Maybe we find these peoples’ bodies are picking up on precancerous signs? (Airball.) Probably, we don’t. But my peers’ botox has visibly reduced their faces’ expressiveness; is that mental illness?
Out of all of our emotions, I trust my sense of social disgust least. The world in which it evolved is no more. If I can’t find reason beyond discomfort to question someone’s decisions about themselves, I broadly tend towards letting them be.
(Side note: appreciate the discussion.)
Gender dysphoria - yes, people suffer form it. Transition is the way to lower this suffering. That's the 'cochlear implant' equivalent from your example.
Not OP. But this seems unfair. Not only does the language surround trans persons vary from decade to decade, city to city, it’s also—understandably—guarded.
Someone far from knowing “nothing about the issue,” and moreover, wishes to learn more, could innocuously use language that is offensive in some circles but tolerated—even encouraged—in others.
See for example "sex assigned at birth" https://service-manual.nhs.uk/content/inclusive-content/sex-... as an example from a mainstream medical institution, the British National Health Service.
And transition is not "the cochlear implant", the implant would be "an implant that makes you not dysphoric". Transition is "learning how to live as a deaf person".
This is what repression looks like. Before coming out, while you try to live as you assigned gender - that's living as a deaf person, pretty literally as derealization and depersonalization are kind of 'deafining'. As with deaf kid - you fix the body, not the mind, so with gender dysphoria you fix the body first.
Maybe it's just me, but fixing identities scares me much more than fixing the body. There was studies in which trans people were asked if they would want to be consent with their assigned sex (i.e. trans woman to be happy as a man) - most don't. After transition almost none would agree to change it for 'no dysphoria, assigned sex at birth'. 'Fixing' such people sounds like a very cruel and scary idea.
In some instances we provide a prosthetic that overcomes the defects of the ear, like a traditional hearing aid, or surgery that corrects those defects, and in others we augment the person with a cochlear implant that bypasses the issue with the nerve. We don't yet have the ability to directly modify the brain with surgery or implants for deafness but I'm sure that we would if we could.
It's interesting that we're talking about deafness because there are many instances of deaf people with heredity causes for their deafness opposed to testing their children with new, effective treatments like cochlear implants because they view it as impinging on their deaf culture.
I think that there are many parallels between this and the developing trans culture which will result in trans people being resistant to more effective, less invasive treatments to cure them of their affliction.
Why do certain maladies develop strong identity politics while others don't? There isn't a diabetic identity, or a halitosis community, so why these ones?
Dysphoria goes deeper than just bodily dysmorphia, it's about how you see yourself, not only your body. So changing my mind to make me something I'm not (a man) sounds like a horror - some kind of upgraded lobotomy. That's much more invasive than any surgery. And it's not about culture, it's about understanding that people identities is not a part that you can/should fix.
And speaking about data and science, there is pretty clear evidence that trans people who receive proper care (hormones) and accepted by society live normal happy life as the rest of the people.
That's why people are treated by medical experts for it.
We're merely discussing the best form of treatment.
Yes. And? A stable identity is preferable for the sufferers. Can you explain the problem with that?
I don't see much of an actual solution to these issues in your arguments other than some hand waving about politics as some sort of root cause.
Should taking of legs be the first treatment option? No.
Should people get therapy, medication and other treatment? Yes.
Should those treatments be refined and improved, sufferers of BIID experimented on to improve treatments? Yes.
If society is unable to come up with a treatment that works for years should society deny sufferers this radical treatment forever? No. That is imposing the majority world view on a minority when the difference in world view poses no harm. Yes, society would need to address potential cognito hazards/memes and make sure there are no people doing this for economic incentives or other mental illnesses for which treatments exists.
If society would let people get the treatment, that would not be capitulation. That would be acknowledging that while society has interest in being able to treat that, that interest can not forever outweigh the benefits the radical operation has for the sufferer. Capitulation would be if society stops trying to find a treatment besides radical operation and handed operations out without scrutiny.