What we don’t like makes us special
Reading something that mentions “gender dysphoria” I come to a stop to think about the label for a sec (not, of course, for the first time). It strikes me all over again what an absurd concept it is. You could use it for anything. I don’t like very hot summer days; is that Hot Days Dysphoria? No, wait, Thermal Dysphoria – so much more sciency and thus convincing.
I don’t like mosquito bites, and neither does anyone else; are we all mosquito bite dysphoric?
I detest Trump; am I Trump dysphoric?
We could play this boring game all day and never come to the end.
We all dislike some things. It’s the human condition – it’s the animal condition. If you’re sentient, there are sensations you don’t like. There are things about ourselves we don’t like – we would like to be taller or wiser or stronger or you name it; is it “dysphoric” to have preferences of that kind? That’s all we’re talking about – liking this rather than that. Calling it “dysphoria” makes it sound technical but guess what: it isn’t. It’s just life as a sentient being.
Beware of pseudo-technical labeling, that’s my advice.
You’re right that a mere discomfort shouldn’t be pathologized. But a dysphoria isn’t simply a dislike… at least it isn’t defined as such medically. People using “dysphoria” to mean a simple dislike is akin to people claiming to “be a little OCD” when they just like to keep their space tidy, or claiming to be “on the spectrum” to excuse acting like an asshole, or accusing strangers of having eating disorders when they disapprove of their dietary choices. Clinical psychiatric disorders are nearly all (actually all? I can’t think of any exceptions off hand) descriptions of one extreme or other of a normal human state, that is so extreme that it interferes with or overwhelms an individual’s ability/capacity to function normally. Most people seem to have missed that memo, and we end up with a bunch of people with a self-diagnosed psychopathic/paychiatric conditions that… aren’t.
I’m not saying unscrupulous/captured doctors don’t exist, but the term is indeed being misused if it’s being used to pathologize a dislike.
Thank you, that’s informative. “we end up with a bunch of people with a self-diagnosed psychopathic/paychiatric conditions that… aren’t” is what I was groping for.
@ibbica
Gender dysphoria is indeed a clinical disorder, but that just means clinicians have drawn up a set of consistent criteria for diagnosing it. That doesn’t make the diagnosis much less arbitrary at the end of the day. There’s nothing to ensure that the diagnosis is based on a naturally occurring phenomenon and not a cultural epidemic, for example. A diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” doesn’t eliminate the possibility that it’s an effect of peer pressure or depression or anxiety or any number of other factors. In other words, it’s a diagnosis for a symptom, not a cause. I believe this is a major problem: people are making assumptions that a formal diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” tells us something more fundamental about a patient’s condition than it actually does. All a diagnosis of gender dysphoria tells us is that a patient is in distress and is ruminating about his or her body. That by itself should only be the beginning of a proper clinical assessment, but far too often it’s treated like a conclusion.
Artymorty: yup! That’s 100% a major issue resulting from how defining psych disorders at all… they’re ALL described as syndromes or sets of symptoms/criteria, because we don’t truly understand how the brain works, and haven’t yet nailed down the one underlying biological cause of… well, any of them. Most probably have multiple different potential underlying causes, which yup may be biological, or social, or (most likely) a combination of those. Whether many of them “interfere with normal functioning” also largely depends on what one’s societal “normal” looks like… hence the differences in how many psych disorders manifest in different countries, in men vs. women, during childhood vs. adulthood, etc. Nevermind that a disorder defined by a set of symptoms is also likely to result from a number of different causes (think of how laypeople tend to think of “cancer” as a single disease).
Yeah, it’s a mess, only made messier by using terms sloppily :-/
I can definitely say that body dysmorphia is real, though I never tried (or wanted to) solve it by surgery. I look in the mirror only about once every twenty years; the rest of the time I can sort of believe my body is mine, except that there are deucedly many surfaces that reflect. I have learned how to get through the day without my strange discomfort with my fleshly body disrupting me. I did that through therapy – lots of it. And I never went around telling people they had to recognize that I was something other than how I appeared. I am an adult, and dealt with it myself. I still suffer from it, but have learned how to avoid it as much as possible, and am again going through therapy.
Therapy is a long, difficult process. No one gets praised for how brave they are for undergoing therapy. It can take years to feel better. It’s a lot more difficult than changing your clothes, your hair, and putting on (or taking off) lipstick. I am the body reflected in my mirror, even if I can’t recognize myself when I see myself. It’s disconcerting, yes. But I am not oppressed because no one is validating me.
Exactly. One of the most evil things that gender ideology does is to claim that dysphoria = trans, skipping right past the phenomenon of “desistance”*. The motivation to fast track children into “social transitioning”, puberty blockers, surgical procedures, etc., is to short-circuit and pre-empt desistance by pretending it doesn’t exist, because the alternative is that “transness” doesn’t exist. After all, how can a supposed “gender identity” be anything core, fundamental, unchanging, or eternal, if you can outgrow it? But recruit/trap them before they get a chance to think about things too much, and you’ve won yourself a whole cohort of children (and often parents), who are now fully committed. Having invested their very bodies (or those of their children) in the “cause,” these True Believers will be all the more motivated to defend the ideology, rather than admit that they were fooled and misled by adults who should have known better, and that they have made horrible, irreversible mistakes.
Regret and detransition must, like desistance, be hidden and denied, because it is not the actual health and wellbeing of children that must be defended but their “transness”. Admitting the possibility of mistaken diagnoses leads to questioning the the standards used for a diagnosis of “transness” in the first place. Can’t have that. This is the real meaning behind all of those “Protect Trans Kids” t-shirts. It’s not children being “protected”, but their “diagnosis” as trans. This is tragically ironic: “gender affirming care” is going to inflict more harm on these children than “cis” society is ever likely to. Buying into the “dysphoria = trans” claim means more mutilated, sterilized children. Who’s protecting them?
For those children whose mental or psychological distress is not resolved by going through puberty, whatever it is they are suffering from, it can not be the result of having been “born in the wrong body.” That does not happen. If this supposed “cause” is taken off the table, what is left of “transness” at all? Very little, apart from a movement of bullying, intimidation, and emotional blackmail led by predatory, misogynistic, narcissistic, fetishists.
* We’re often told by gender activists that we must “educate ourselves” about trans “rights”. I believe that most of us here have done exactly that. But we have not reached their approved conclusion. They’re not interested in truth or enlightenment. They want obedience and submission. They want us to re-educate ourselves, more in the spirit of Mao than of Mill.
In regards to education around trans “rights”, I’ve sometimes thought that a good start to getting people to see gender ideology for what it is would be to get them to examine and understand the following concepts:
Desistance and detransitioning
Forced Teaming
DARVO
Institutional Capture
DSD vs “Intersex”
Autogynephilia
among others. Feel free to add to this list.
Great comment, YNNB!
Excellent as always, YNnB. I would add Critical Social Justice Theory (and the legacy of postmodernism in general) to the list as well. As the last sentence of your first paragraph illustrates so beautifully, a basic understanding of cognitive dissonance/the Oedipus Trap and the Sunk Cost Fallacy should probably be in the list too.
[…] a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on What we don’t like makes us […]