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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   32489 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025

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The problem very much isn't that we've become unwilling to call these things mental illness! I say that neither should be classified as mental illness.

You have four healthy limbs. You feel really, really sad about that and believe you should only have three. Yes, that is mental illness, every bit as much as if you believed your neighbours were breaking into your house to smear shit on the kitchen walls.

You have healthy external and internal sexual characteristics. You feel really, really sad about that and want to undergo surgery to change what can be changed to those of the opposite sex. The only difference I see is that so far we have agreed to go along with the latter and not the former, as yet, though I wonder how long that distinction will hold. Somebody is going to do "limb reassignment surgery" (and apparently already has), there will be a movement and activism, there will be "studies show that after getting the amputation suicidality goes down and self-reported happiness goes up", there will be "what harm does it do? besides, it doesn't affect you anyway" and the rest of it.

Mental health is a part of medicine. The treatments we have in this area are less effective, less evidence-based, even controversial but part of current medicine nevertheless.

Some issues are clearly related to biologic disorders like autism or schizophrenia. Sometimes we are not even sure what it is.

You're a biological woman. You have healthy but pretty small breasts. You feel really, really sad about that and want to undergo surgery to make them larger. Is that mental illness?

I don't think desires should be pathologized, except in extremely rare cases. My belief is that legal adults should be able to get whatever elective surgery they damn well want, so long as they demonstrate informed, lasting consent. If it's kosher for a cis woman to get breast enhancements if she sees fit, I see no reason why the same right shouldn't apply to a biological male. Contrariwise, if we recognize that a woman who gets plastic surgery (or her ears carved to look pointy, or whatever non-gendered body modification) is just exercising her rights as a free individual, not responding to some all-important mental illness which it would obviously make her suicidal to deny - then the current classification of "gender dysphoria" as a mental illness becomes obviously nonsensical. It becomes a cheap and dirty hack to convince people to support transition, in minors and others, Because Psychiatrists Say So Suicide Risk Suicide Risk Suicide Risk Do You Want Their Deaths On Your Conscience. I think that is the great lie of the trans movement, and while I understand how they got there, I would like them to get rid of it and revert to a principled stance of "people can do what they want".

Is that mental illness?

If you think that in order to be attractive you need Giant Bazongas, and guys really do expect women to be waifs with Giant Bazongas or else they're not pretty enough, then maybe not strictly mental illness but something has gone wrong with social attitudes and expectations diverging wildly from reality. And people addicted to plastic surgery do exist, and I would have no problem calling that mental illness.

You feel really, really sad about that and want to undergo surgery to make them larger. Is that mental illness?

No real dog in the rest of this fight but I should point out that some of the plastic surgeons I've met believe that ANY desire for their services is fundamentally body dysmorphia (and therefore mental illness).

Even things as simple as nose jobs.

I really don't think that's enough for them. If it was just about body modification, then appeals to autonomy would be fine and a sensible position. But they want more than that. They want the right to do want they want, and make everyone else approve of it. They seek self validation from external sources and are sad at not getting it. Hence the moral blackmail.

I agree! See "while I understand how they got there, I would like them to get rid of it and revert to a principled stance". I have more common ground with the pro- than anti-trans movement at the end of the day, but I am very happy to criticize the current Standard Trans Message, which has been optimized for winning PR battles, not for truth.

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