CONTENT WARNING - TRANSPHOBIA, ABLEISM, SUICIDE
Well fuck. Better late than never.
As I promised about a month ago, I'd be responding to "NotPoliticallyCorrect" further in a second part on a lengthy, lengthy transphobic post he linked to in a comment responding to, of all people, a popular trans pro-Blanchard blogger known as "Sillyolme." Her blog, unsurprisingly, consists of basically worshipping Anne Lawrence and everything she says. Before I do that, though, there's a couple smaller points he made that I believe need addressing. Firstly, he cites a book by Ronald Corner entitled "Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology" as saying on page 358 that trans women are "consumed by the need to be female." However, the book never says this as far as I know - page 358 is in regards to scizophrenia, and searching within the Google Books search box for the phrase pulls up nothing. Either he misrepresented the source, the quote is on a page not available and he just miscited the page, or it's in a different edition of the book. Considering that there aren't multiple editions of the book as far as I'm aware and that Google Books typically shows quotes even in unavailable sections, I'd ascribe this to the former. But even barring this fact, it's completely false - and I'll be speaking from my own anecdotal experiences as a trans girl, my conversations with other trans women, and from official clinical recognition of transgender folk. This should hopefully help contextualize to cisgender (for those who don't know, this term just means people who identify with the gender assigned at birth - it'd be inaccurate to say cis means 'not transgender' though as this doesn't account for people who simply identify as intersex, genderfluid people who don't identify as trans, and non-binary people who don't put themselves under the trans label) people what the experience actually is like. Julia Serano has plenty of works on this topic of well that I would recommend. I'd also like to use this as an opportunity to elaborate on some concepts in the former post.
As the APA standards of care guidelines note,
"Gender identity is defined as a person’s
deeply felt, inherent sense of being a girl, woman, or
female; a boy, a man, or male; a blend of male or female;
or an alternative gender... For [transgender and gender non-conforming] people, gender identity differs
from sex assigned at birth to varying degrees, and may
be experienced and expressed outside of the gender binary."
While it's a bit incorrect in noting that gender non-conformity is synonymous with trans individuals (the very document later makes the important distinction with expression of one's gender identity, such as in say clothing or body alteration, and gender identity itself), and the issues with the very term 'sex' that I'll detail in a separate post at a later date, this nonetheless gives us a starting ground to explain what it means to be trans. To identify separately from a gender identity typically linked to "sex" (which typically, albeit inaccurately, is ascribed to chromosomes or genitalia) is to be transgender, provided one feels the label suits them (given the significant variance in how one may identify). What this means is that part of an internal sense of self is incongruent with that is socially ascribed to the individual - gender is, at least in my view, best emphasized as a part of an individual's identity and subjective experience the world. This is partially why trans people feel that the "x gender trapped in y's body" is inaccurate - because there isn't a necessary link between an identity and body, given that there's a broad range of identities that can be congruent with any body type, but rather that identities are socially ascribed to certain body types.
Of course, I should emphasize that not all trans individuals feel the same about what gender itself is. There's quite a bit of variance, from egoist interpretations to the woefully transphobic and scientifically inaccurate (not in the way you'd think) 'transmedicalist' view of it being a "brain sex."
However, this isn't to say being trans is a social phenomena - trans people exist across an abundance of cultural boundaries and have been documented for millenia. It is loosely related to social phenomena, such that a desire to express a say type of hairstyle with one's gender only is that way thanks to society associating certain say articles of clothing with said gender identity, but the experience is nonetheless pervasive and real.
With that said, this doesn't necessarily constitute a response to that phrase, you might be thinking - even provided what I said, it's still somewhat consistent with an 'obsession' and being 'consumed' by a view. My first response to this is to fuck off with that rhetoric, and my second is to point out that we've still got more ground to cover before delving into the experience of transition - that is, why trans people transition.
While it's impossible to ascribe a universal reason as for why, the APA document cited earlier does provide a good elaboration for the absolute most common reasons out there. The following quote goes into a good basis for elaboration.
Of course, I should emphasize that not all trans individuals feel the same about what gender itself is. There's quite a bit of variance, from egoist interpretations to the woefully transphobic and scientifically inaccurate (not in the way you'd think) 'transmedicalist' view of it being a "brain sex."
However, this isn't to say being trans is a social phenomena - trans people exist across an abundance of cultural boundaries and have been documented for millenia. It is loosely related to social phenomena, such that a desire to express a say type of hairstyle with one's gender only is that way thanks to society associating certain say articles of clothing with said gender identity, but the experience is nonetheless pervasive and real.
With that said, this doesn't necessarily constitute a response to that phrase, you might be thinking - even provided what I said, it's still somewhat consistent with an 'obsession' and being 'consumed' by a view. My first response to this is to fuck off with that rhetoric, and my second is to point out that we've still got more ground to cover before delving into the experience of transition - that is, why trans people transition.
While it's impossible to ascribe a universal reason as for why, the APA document cited earlier does provide a good elaboration for the absolute most common reasons out there. The following quote goes into a good basis for elaboration.
"A person’s identification
as TGNC can be healthy and self-affirming, and is
not inherently pathological. However,
people may experience distress associated with discordance
between their gender identity and their body or
sex assigned at birth, as well as societal stigma and discrimination."
Essentially, trans individuals largely transition (which means to do anything from change your social expression to taking hormones and under going genital reassignment surgery) because it affirms our identity, and because it helps to alleviate dysphoria - the explicit or implicit feeling of discomfort as a result of physical or social incongruence with our identified gender. It's a feeling that results from our identities being invalidated, whether it be due to being forced into gender roles¹ or having our own bodies feel incongruent with how our identity ought to be expressed. Of course, it's important to recognize that not all trans individuals may desire to transition, or even experience dysphoria² - some may simply experience gender euphoria, the happiness of the affirmation of one's internal identity (although some trans people argue gender euphoria is another form of dysphoria). The reasons trans people may not transition vary - as Planned Parenthood points out, it can be due to a lack of ability to afford medical costs, social issues with family, problems with health insurance, or they simply may not desire parts of surgery - although this may not be due to them not wanting the characteristics provided by surgery but rather concerns with the surgery itself, such as a general fear of the practice, or dissatisfaction with what the outcomes may be for a variety of medical reasons irrelevant to identity itself. However, many simply are content with certain characteristics, whether they be genital, social, or otherwise, and may desire to not transition whatsoever. Identity inherently varies, and there is no 'correct' way to transition or express oneself. It's a process inherently about the individual.
This sort of individualism inherent in being trans goes much further, as with these points made we can finally begin to address the initial quote about trans individuals being "consumed" by a desire to transition. As is said before, this is patently false - trans individuals don't transition out of a desire that encompasses our entire selves, but rather do so primarily thanks to a desire to want our gender identity - something that's only a part of us and not our whole - to be affirmed and/or to alleviate dysphoria, although many more specific reasons exist that don't entail this. There's much variation by individuals, which is a pretty easy way to discredit it by pointing out that there isn't one reason people transition or experience dysphoria. As the APA citation points out, it even conflicts with religious and traditional beliefs (p. 837). While indeed trans identity is of course highly prevalent in many of our lives, it's important to realize why the transgender community exists - to provide support for trans individuals. The APA Guidelines frequently discuss discrimination experienced by trans individuals, such as mental health issues as a result of intense dysphoria and discrimination (p. 845), social stigma (p. 841), institutional barriers (p. 840), a lack of knowledge by healthcare providers (p. 837), and social prejudice - even violence (p. 838 - 839). With the recent trans military ban by the Greatest President for LGBT Rights, it's pretty obvious at this point that, even in the supposedly progressive West, an abundance of problems face the community, so of course it's going to be prevalent in our lives as we have to undergo activism to even self express as we desire.
With that said, NPC continues in the same comment to claim that you can treat trans people! And what would be the ever so pervasive evidence for it? Because golly, it sure is marvelous to think that my entire identity can easily be invalidated by taking a random drug or by sitting 'like a man.'
The cited source is within the Cambridge Textbook of Effective Treatments in Psychiatry by Peter Tyrer and Kenneth R. Silk on page 711.
This textbook does indeed claim that, however it's misleading, as it's only in discussion of comorbidity with mental illness. As I noted in the former post, comorbidity of trans people with mental illnesses don't represent anything close to the bulk of cases - in fact, it's equivalent to that of the general population, suggesting a lack of any sort of relation. The very link even admits this in sections in the top left sections of the page, albeit having a disturbing flirtation with the idea that being trans is caused by mental illness.
I'd first like to discuss the claim that 'occasionally' those with psychosis, and that even some gay people, albeit rarely, choose to transition, which is attributed to a case report from 1979 by Thelma Shtasel. The claim about gay individuals is cited within that paper as supposedly coming from a clinical opinion from an almost entirely speculative, pretty transphobic, and clinical rant by Wardell Pomeroy without any actual citation given for the claim - in fact that paper contains almost no citations for any claims given, and of those given, they're irrelevant for any given claims. However, nowhere within that paper is the opinion given, making it all the more lacking of truth. The case report itself does describe this phenomena, however, but it only portrays the individual as seeking to transition and not actually succeeding in obtaining it - and considering the heavy gatekeeping of the time in conjunction with the case report actually existing, it's likely she never did. The reason she tried to transition isn't attributed towards identifying as a man, but rather to try to win her bisexual partner back. Nowhere in this case report is even a mention of psychosis.
Next are the actual claims about supposed treatments of trans individuals, being a set of four separate case reports of varying different mental illnesses and treatments for them.
The first is a case report by Marks and Mataix-Cols in 1997 (The book miscites it as 1988). The authors claim that the patient, after behavioral therapy treatment for OCD, suddenly went from identifying as a straight trans woman to a straight cisgender man - however ended up, after moving out of his deceased parent's house and developing depression, identifying again as a straight trans woman, denying previously denying herself. I approach this with skepticism, for the reason that the authors seem to be pretty keen on insisting that trans people can 'remit,' suggesting that they may interpret this with bias. It seems more plausible to me that, rather than suddenly changing identities after treatment for OCD only for the same methods to fail to work after developing oppression, she went into denial - maybe due to her father, who the psychiatrists of the study were in contact with. Either way, since she continued to identify as trans, this only goes against claims of remission and just demonstrates the need for long term followups in these studies.
There's other good reason to suspect this isn't the case too. There's been two recent case reports by Uvais & Sreeraj and Debra Safer & Colleagues that both show individuals with OCD developing persistent and intrusive thoughts of identifying as female or being transgender - they both recognize that they don't identify as that, and report experiencing no euphoria at the thought nor dysphoria as identifying as male, but instead actively try to fight against it and find the thoughts scary even. While one could argue that trans individuals in denial would likely exhibit similar behavior, and they would be correct, they wouldn't be correct in ascribing this towards the same thing. The individual in the Uvais case report, for instance, only had these thoughts after mistakenly grabbing clothing from his wife's wardrobe and with the thoughts fleeting after he began to have intrusive thoughts in the nude - the thoughts he received of being trans occurred in a distinct and recognizable pattern, with him never having doubts until that incident. None of this at all strongly mirrors and case report of a trans individual that I'm aware of, and it should be clear that it's not OCD resulting in an identity shift but rather simply intrusive thoughts The Safer case report is even more suggestive that the Marks case report isn't causal, as the individual there only briefly had intrusive thoughts after seeing a video of Caitlin Jenner, and then proceeding to forget about it until the interview. It was little more than a fleeting thought and not suggestive of causality. Further, the Safer case report points out that individuals with OCD may end up questioning their sexuality and becoming obsessive with validating their own - again, not suggestive of any different identification due to this. As far as I'm aware though, there's no data on the subject.
The next case report is one by Singh Puri in 1996. While I could spend a lengthy amount of time debunking this, all of my issues were addressed in this article over at Gender Analysis by Zimmia Jones. She pretty nicely debunks the case report's incorrect usage and citation - except for one thing I'd like to note, being that they never include any validated quantitative measures of the patient's symptoms. It may seem like a small criticism, but it's important because, as I said in the prior post, it's the best way we can understand the patient's experiences and know how truthful the authors are being, what with the measures being validated.
The next one is a case report by Cary Caldwell and Matcheri Keshavan in 1991. It describes a trans woman with scizophrenia who supposedly gradually lessened in 'symptoms' of being trans after taking various medications. This case report is somewhat confusing but it's likely the individual in it was never trans. On one hand, by the end of it, she still preferred to see herself as a woman, but on the other hormone therapy was very unpleasant for her as the authors note she 'functioned very poorly' during the first nine months of it, and had believed themselves to be a 'secret agent from the government who was trying to be silenced by being given hormone shots and being hospitalized.' It's likely that her identification as a woman is, in actuality, just a result of scizophrenia as evidenced by the fact that hormone therapy appeared to worsen her psychological functioning. However, an important limitation is that they don't point out any quantitative measures of her functioning or measures of say dysphoria or euphoria. This one's pretty ambiguous but certainly goes against claims that it's evidence that trans individuals can be 'treated.'
The final one is a case report by Martin Commander and Christine Dean of an individual believing their penis to actually be a vagina, seeming to insist they were a cisgender lesbian in spite of being assigned male at birth. After being treated with medication, it's reported that they believed themselves to be a cisgender man afterwards. This case study is pretty clearly not reporting a trans individual but rather someone experiencing hallucinations as a result of scizophrenia. These authors also report that other psychiatrists pointed out case reports of individuals successfully and happily transitioning without success from treatment, which is pretty clear evidence that the original authors of the Cambridge book cherry picked aspects of the literature to support them. This is further supported by two studies authored by N. L. Gittleson and colleagues (1966, 1967) of individuals with scizophrenia who openly admit that perceptions of genital hallucinations and perceptions of themselves identifying differently as hallucinations and 'delusions.' This pretty strongly indicates that it's incredibly rare for individuals with scizophrenia to see themselves as transgender as a result of say hallucinations, with the only evidence of this being in a few scattered case reports, most of which are of a questionable nature.
A final thing not mentioned that I anticipate being mentioned is trans individuals supposedly being a result of psychosis. There's absolutely no evidence for this, and in fact, very little case reports on the matter - to total it, there's about 22 (Meijer et al 2017, Summers and Onate, 2014, McConaghy, 2018). Meijer and colleagues summarizes the literature, effectively concluding - along with four case examples of their own - that a significant portion of the examples - at least 11, counting their own - that psychosis didn't cause the individual to be trans, with some cases even noting transition reducing symptoms of psychosis. This is seen in the Summers and Onate case report and in the McConaghy case report. It occurred in the Summers and Onate in a unique way, with a trans individual developing psychosis after taken off hormone therapy. Meijer also note that some of the individuals in previous case reports were concluded to not be transgender only due to having gender based delusions without actual conclusion of causality. Considering most of the case reports were in the 90s or early 2000s, with some in the 70s and some in the 2010s, it's likely that the bulk are either fallaciously represented or cherry picked with bias by clinicians, as it's reported within the Meijer study that in one of clinicians in the early 2000s, a significant portion believed that trans individuals were trans due to psychosis (though this study was noted to be flawed, it still indicates that there are many clinicians who do have this view in spite of no evidence. The proportion is likely much smaller though). Further, in some of the case reports, such as the Schwarz and colleagues one, the 'remission' was entirely subjectively rather than clinically described. A final bit of evidence against this is that, in a sample of people at risk for psychosis, there was a prevalence of trans individuals (presumably self-identified) about at the upper bounds for current estimates of the general population rate, being at about 1.7% to 2%.
As for the main claim I initially wanted to address, it's a citation of NPC to an explicitly transphobic website advocating a book by a non-professional that claims being trans (or "autogynephilia" as they try to argue) is a behavioral addiction. Barring the obvious bias and thus large potential to misrepresent studies, the article itself is pretty lackluster, having no actual citations and instead just consisting of baseless rambling and assertions without any real claim. What I'm more interested in responding to is this one, which attempts to justify trans individuals having a 'behavioral addiction.'
It justifies this claim with this study that's an overview of the behavioral addiction literature - while it does indeed have the diagnostic criteria claimed, it by no means suggests this be used to clinically diagnose a group - it's just a broad guideline for future researchers. A more appropriate measure would be, say, this. The author also cites no empirical literature to justify her claims, making all of this anecdotal. Nonetheless, let's go through each point to address its flaws. I'll be comparing this to heterosexual relationships and attraction to exhibit how flawed this sort of rhetoric is. I'd also like to note the author never even cites what "trans behavior" exactly is. I'll be formatting this by putting the supposed 'diagnostic criteria' as a headline, and the author's arguments and my rebuttal below it.
"The behavior is exhibited over a long period of time (at least 12 months) in an excessive, aberrant form, deviating from the norm or extravagant (e.g., regarding its frequency and intensity)"
The author claims this diagnostic criteria applies to trans individuals because, supposedly, "feelings towards gender transition increases as time progresses," without a citation (while it's true some trans individuals report greater dysphoria, as said before this is much more complicated than the author says). Further, just because a trait is stable doesn't mean that it's 'aberrant, deviating from the norm in its frequency.' That's essentially what the author seems to imply, although they also claim that "transsexualism was barely on the radar prior to the onset of their cross-gender variant behavior," which I'm not sure what that means. If they mean there were no 'signs' people were trans before that, then it's plenty wrong as plenty of trans individuals point out some more implicit signs such as identifying with characters of a different gender than assigned in TV shows as a bit of an example. Given no evidence cited for this, and the fact it's clearly long as demonstrated before, this does not meet the diagnostic criteria.
We could make similar arguments about heterosexual behavior and attraction - it's exhibited over a long period of time and clearly deviates from the intensity of other sexualities by being the dominant one. See the absurdity here? We can spin anything we'd like to fit this vague, non-clinical and non-diagnostic criteria.
"Loss of control over the excessive behavior (duration, frequency, intensity, risk) when the behavior started"
This one is cited as an example because "Transsexuals, who begin a gender transition, have difficulty turning off their intense feeling toward gender transition," which is essentially implying that inherent feelings of dissatisfaction should be controlled - I guess individuals who feel any emotion not at will ought to have a behavioral addiction too. The author then claims that "personal gender transition emerges in virtually all aspects of their life," with this again being vague and unclear - trans individuals exhibit a wide array of interests, being artists, politicians, programmers, you name it. That's hardly indicative of it consuming trans people's lives. And again, I elaborated beforehand on why it's so prevalent for trans folk. The author next claims that trans individuals "fail to consider the risk," which ignores that's a large reason why trans people fail to transition. But nonetheless, I think it need not be an unknown claim that full on social and hormonal transition is considered safe by clinicians - as evidenced by the APA report and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines. The author then claims that, by not weighing risk of workforce discrimination, trans individuals are not 'weighing risks.' This is something trans individuals completely fear! There's a known stigma that, as addressed before, is a large worry among trans individuals! This doesn't mean that trans individuals shouldn't fight for our rights though, to sit back and allow ourselves to be discriminated against. None of this supports trans people being diagnosed with a behavioral addiction.
A heterosexual individual has difficulty turning off their attraction to another gender, with their attraction emerging in virtually all aspects of their lives - they fail to appreciate the risk of unprotected sex and do not weigh the issues surrounding potential pregnancy.
"Reward effect (the excessive behavior is instantly considered to be rewarding)"
The author tries to justify this by saying that, because trans individuals feel 'rewarded' as they go through the process of transition, and by seeing it as good, it's a behavioral addiction. The author further tries to justify this by saying that trans individuals have to "act out in ever creasing degrees to feel the same satisfaction." This makes little sense, as the process of transition isn't just immediate repetitive behaviors but heterogeneous ones dealing with a social transition, a great deal of therapy, potentially hormone therapy and even surgery - it's a lengthy and spaced out process that isn't just one set of things. If the author means simply dressing as trans individuals identify, not only does this ignore the significant variance, but is patently wrong by assuming that trans individuals feel a progressive desire for more - there is no evidence of this. Instead, trans individuals are simply satisfied dressing how we please. Further, transitioning isn't so much a 'reward' for trans people as it is fulfilling the desired identity and receiving validation from it. If undergoing a process for one's well being is a 'behavioral addiction,' then you may as well consider any mental health treatment that.
The heterosexual individual takes steps in order to receive a long-term partner, each one seems to be the correct one, regarding each step as well founded, experiencing reward. Overtime, however, the individual needs a greater deal of such actions in order to feel the same satisfaction.
"Development of tolerance (the behavior is conducted longer, more often and more intensively in order to achieve the desired effect; in unvaried form, intensity and frequency the desired effect fails to appear)"
The author seems to believe that because trans people go through later steps in transition, this means that being trans is a behavioral addiction. For one, this ignores the significant variance in how people transition I mentioned earlier. For another, this ignores how trans people aim to do this beforehand - it's all explicitly planned, and surgery isn't a repetitive action but a one time thing. Somehow, it's indicated that, because there's multiple procedures, the "satisfaction diminishes in intensity," as if it can't be cumulative. Why the fuck am I even trying to respond to this, it's so absolutely terrible that anyone can easily dismiss it with a glance. God damn.
Because people advance heterosexual relationships in a process, it's a behavioral addiction.
"The behavior that was initially perceived as pleasant, positive, and rewarding is considered to be unpleasant in the course of addiction"
This one is easily proven false - trans people exhibit essentially no regret due to transitioning (Lawrence, 2003; Tanehill, 2016). Most estimates are at most around 2% regret rates, with this largely being due to say social stigma and poor surgery outcomes, something that's inevitable in a field with growing research. It has nothing to do with being trans itself. This, however, is a topic I'll go into more detail on at a later date; for now, it's important to recognize what the rates of regret actually are.
Anyway, the author claims that 'the thought of periodic cross-dressing is abhorrent,' with claims that cross-dressing is 'fun and exciting' beforehand, and therefore behavioral addiction. This is again without any citation, but it can be inferred that to a trans individual, cross-dressing means dressing as the gender assigned at birth, at least after transitioning - something inherently going to be 'abhorrent.' I guess according to the author's view, trans individuals both crave more to transition but also crave less? I smell a contradiction, and it smells of nasty bigotry.
A heterosexual couple who eventually loses interest one another demonstrates the very phenomena described, therefore behavioral addiction.
"Irresistible urge/craving to execute the behavior."
According to the author, who believes in Blanchard's debunked autogynephilia hypothesis, the drivers of trans individuals are "psychological and sexual," and since "sexual urges are irrepressible," therefore behavioral addiction. Does this author mean to say that we can't resist sexual urges? Even barring the fact that AGP is false, the author seems to believe that one can't not act on a sexual impulse. I'm pretty sure it's clear how that's absurd, and by the author's own logic I don't even have to demonstrate heterosexuality as a behavioral addiction in a cheeky manner - it's done for me!
"Function (the behavior is primarily employed as a way to regulate emotions/mood)"
The author now claims that since trans individuals can't "emotionally function if precluded from acting out cross-gender behavior due to one circumstance or another," therefore behavioral addiction. First, by saying "most" and not "all" the author inherently agrees that being trans isn't an inherent charcateristic for this - meaning it can't be a behavioral addiction! Barring the obvious fact that not all trans people experience emotional distress, it's pretty easy to note how this is misrepresenting the quote, considering it's right there - being trans isn't used as a way to regulate emotions or mood, so it can't be considered one. EVEN IF we are to accept the author's terms, just because trans individuals experience psychological distress from being prohibited from an action doesn't make it a behavioral addiction - by this merit, people who say develop depression because they can't accomplish a certain task have a behavioral addiction. It's just absurd to use vague and non-clinical explanations like this - because bare in mind the original document was meant to give a general overview of characteristics of behavioral addiction and not a full on diagnosis!
Heterosexual people experience emotional function if deprived of their romantic partners for extended periods of time, therefore behavioral addiction.
"Expectancy of effect (expectancy of pleasant positive effects by carrying out the excessive behavior)"
The author claims that because trans individuals expect transition to be beneficial, and it indeed is, that it's a behavioral addiction. By this logic, anyone who undergoes any surgery has a symptom of a behavioral addiction! This is seriously so fucking ridiculous that it just hurts. Why the hell would anyone believe this, jesus fuck. At this point I'm legitimately laughing as I'm typing this from how just ridiculous it is.
Because heterosexual people expect a relationship to be positive, they have a behavioral addiction.
(Note: The next two are grouped together)
"Limited pattern of behavior (also applies to buildup and follow-up activities); Cognitive occupation with the build-up, execution and followup activities of the excessive behavior and possibly the anticipated effects of the excessively executed behavior."
Jesus Christ this is gold. Apparently, because trans people are 'excited' at transitioning, trans people have a behavioral addiction! So getting excited about ANY process is a symptom of a behavioral addiction! Not only is this a gross misapplication of what was actually said - that a restricted set of behaviors as well as an entire obsession with the process and results of the behaviors are traits of a behavioral addiction - but it's just so laughable that anything can be called that. But anyway, I don't think I need to describe why trans people would be excited to transition, which is clearly not for any of the above reasons.
Because heterosexual people are excited about getting into a relationship, therefore behavioral addiction.
"Irrational, contorted perception of different aspects of the excessive behavior."
The author claims that, because the "masturbation thoughts [of trans people] are not indigenous to those of a member of the opposite sex," and because "transsexuals have no real construct of what it means to be a member of the opposite sex," therefore behavioral addiction. Ignoring the fact that the former statement is actually debunked by Charles Moser and Julia Serano in the papers I linked in the latter post, since when is masturbation a necessary trait for a behavioral addiction? Do gamblers just jack it in an irrational way to gambling machines? Not to mention the latter argument being laughably bad, that "trans people have no construct of what it means to be the opposite sex." For one, 'sex' isn't defined here. For another, neither do people who are supposedly part of the 'opposite' gender identity - gender identity is inherently a subjective phenomena that we only arbitrarily ascribe to a group because of shared characteristics. No one has any idea what it's like to be another individual - being trans is inherently an individual phenomena, one about identifying with what's most comfortable and trans individuals feel best represent us. If that's a gender identity that's different from what was assigned to us, so be it - it's no more invalid than someone it was assigned to.
Because heterosexual people are incapable of realizing that not everyone is straight and wants to fuck them, therefore behavioral addiction.
"Withdrawal symptoms (psychological and physical)"
This is where it gets insanely absurd. The author argues because trans individuals experience dysphoria and distress when suppressed when forced into gender roles that don't apply to our identities, and because we 'have no difficulty living as members of the assigned gender prior to consideration of transitioning," therefore behavioral addiction. This is pretty clearly false, as anyone who would think for a minute would realize that trans individuals, as I said prior, may transition due to dysphoria - it isn't by any means the only cause, but a main one. It's dysphoria that leads people to even consider transitioning! That's why trans individuals are known to have higher suicide rates and lower psychological functioning pre-transition. Of course, unless the author somehow wants to argue that just considering oneself transgender may magically invite these feelings without any explanation beyond trying to invalidate identities, it's clear what the actual explanation is, and that the author's just pulling shit out of their ass. It also should be obvious why trans individuals report discomfort given what I wrote earlier.
Because heterosexual people experience discomfort by being forced into homosexual acts instead of heterosexual ones, behavioral addiction clearly.
Three more shitty ass points on this bullshit article to go.
"Continued execution of the excessive behavior despite negative consequences (health related, occupational, social"
The author argues that because trans individuals don't 'revert to living as a member of assigned gender role' due to discrimination, in spite of, as the author claims, it being in our 'best interest,' therefore behavioral disorder. Not only is this false as one can see by the transgender regret studies and reviews I linked to before, but also, I guess any group that stood up to discrimination - be it women, racial minorities, homosexual individuals - all have a behavioral addiction just because they didn't tolerate discrimination. Seriously though, this ignores how transitioning may overall be better for the trans individual in spite of the bigotry, and basically is telling trans people not to fight for our rights.
Because heterosexual people have children at a young age in spite of the negative consequences, therefore behavioral addiction.
"Conditioned/learned reactions (resulting from the confrontation with internal and external stimuli associated with the excessive behavior as well as from cognitive occupation with the excessive behavior)"
According to this, because trans people believe themselves to (possibly) experience gender dysphoria and be trans and (possibly) undergo hormone replacement and genital reassignment therapy, as well as not listening to people trying to talk them out of it, and since by the author's view all the aforementioned concepts are flawed, therefore behavioral addiction. There's no argument for why they're flawed - that's what anyone making a valid point would do! Instead let's argue that the very existence of a clinical diagnosis is indicative of a behavioral addiction, and because trans people don't listen to transphobic rhetoric from family members (which is inherently assumed to be the 'rational' and 'correct' person here in spite of the benefits of transitioning and the fact that trans people would inherently be the ones to know and understand their own identities), that means trans people have a behavioral addiction!
Because heterosexuality exists, and because they can't be convinced to be gay, behavioral addiction. I am very intelligent.
The last fucking one, here we go.
Suffering (desire to alleviate perceived suffering)
The argument here is that because trans people may essentially experience dysphoria and see themselves as suffering, and that prevention of treatment is considered harmful, and that because trans people commit suicide without treatment (it's baselessly claimed that more trans people commit suicide after transitioning - even if true, stigma would be a likely explanation, something the author claims, again baselessly, had no relation), therefore behavioral addiction. I guess somehow that the author considers it possible too that the suffering is nonexistent? Which is entirely unfalsifiable, arguing that trans people are lying, and only serves to invalidate the experiences of trans people, but whatever. Anyway if you couldn't tell this is equally as fucking dumb, since anyone who experiences any harm from being prevented from any treatment has one. I'm honestly just so annoyed at how terrible this is that I no longer really care, I'm tired as hell and want to finish writing this shit, was at this all god damn day, Jesus.
Heterosexual people experience suffering if not allowed to be heterosexual, therefore behavioral addiction.
Annnd there's that taken care of, a shitty article that didn't consider anything from the interplay of the symptoms to using any actual diagnostic criteria. It was a complete waste to try to tackle it, but here I did it and feel like I wasted a decent lot of my time. The article's gotten to a ridiculous length now and I'll have to postpone my other posts till tomorrow but heyy, this series is done at least.
Yay fucking me.
EDIT: So in a private correspondence with NPC on Twitter, he pointed out to me I was citing the incorrect edition of Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology - he was using the 7th one, and I wasn't. The quote was indeed in there, but it was specifically referencing autogynephilia and not trans folk as a whole - something he admitted was his mistake.
EDIT: So in a private correspondence with NPC on Twitter, he pointed out to me I was citing the incorrect edition of Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology - he was using the 7th one, and I wasn't. The quote was indeed in there, but it was specifically referencing autogynephilia and not trans folk as a whole - something he admitted was his mistake.
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1. It's often used as transphobic rhetoric by TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) types that non-conformity with gender roles and discomfort with them doesn't mean that someone is trans. While this is true, it's also misleading as it's describing two different types of discomfort - one is due to being constrained from acting how one desires and fulfilling certain roles out of a simple affinity or like for them, and the other is due to an invalidation of one's identity by forcing roles that don't apply to said identity onto them. Trans individuals can experience both types of these, however they're generally felt in a very different way, which will be elaborated on in the following discussion of what dysphoria is - cisgender individuals only experience the former.
2. A brief explanation of what dysphoria specifically is ought to feel like. It's best described, at least in my own experience, as a 'deep' and ever present feeling of sadness and intense discomfort that slowly causes my mental health to decline, being prevalent even when it's not on the explicit subject of my mind, with distractions failing to work. The feeling itself, as said prior, is 'deep' and intense, being 'layered' differently than other feelings of discomfort, which can be described as 'lighter' and more situational. Of course, feelings of dysphoria vary by individual, and there is no 'true' way to feel it.
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