CMV: Gender Dysphoria is a cureable mental illness, we've stopped looking for the cure because society is now forced into accepting transgenders.

"This means that one could eradicate a mental illness by changing society, that is entirely possible"

Its an interesting point, but it doesn't entirely work. You mean we could eradicate the definition of a mental illness. The illness itself, like schizophrenia, will be there no matter what you call it. If we changed our society to accept death by heart attack as a divine intervention from god, we wouldn't call heart ischemia a disease any more but it wouldn't stop it from objectively existing.

I would like to see the studies you are mentioning about the effectiveness of transitioning. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281441727_Suicide_risk_in_the_UK_Trans_population_and_the_role_of_gender_transition_in_decreasing_suicidal_ideation_and_suicide_attempt seems to be referenced a lot. It is a self selected survey, which is the least rigorous type of study (but obviously better than nothing). It showed about 70% of people who transitioned saying they thought about suicide less than before transitioning.

Another study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/ was more rigorous, looking at long term, objective outcomes (not survey but clinical data like did a patient die from suicide). It showed death by suicide hazard ration of 19 for post reassignment patients vs controls. It was not looking at pre transition vs post transition however. It basically shows that sexually reassigned patient are at SIGNIFICANT risk for suicide and not "just a couple percentage" points higher than the general population. I think it is very dangerous to say, definitively that "The higher post-op suicide rate than the general population is fully explainable as a result of people not accepting them including often their own family."

I am not against sexual reassignment surgery. I am staunchly in that liberal territory of people should do whatever they want as long as they aren't harming anyone. But I am also a doctor and I am very cautious about incredibly invasive treatments. The more invasive the treatment the better the data should be on projected outcomes.

/r/changemyview Thread Parent