About That “Anti-Trans Movement” …

So, semi-regular commenter on this blog “Lungta” posts the following as a reply to the last post: 

I’m not going to publish this bit of drivel in the comments - it simply isn’t worthy of publication, but I do want to take apart the ridiculous assumptions that it is built upon.  

First, transgender identities are not based in “fantasy”.  There is far too much clinical evidence that undermines that conceptualization entirely.  This claim is a variation on the hoary old claim that transgender people are suffering from “delusion”. 

Clinically speaking, delusion has a specific meaning:

A delusion is a belief that is held with strong conviction despite evidence disproving it that is stronger than any evidence supporting it.

When applied to transgender people, this falls apart on the very fundamental point that transgender people are absolutely aware of the contradiction that they are experiencing.  It isn’t a case of “with enough evidence” you can change it - decades of experience going back to German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld have shown that transgender identities do not fit the clinical idea of delusional.

Delusion requires a belief that is not tempered by a grasp on objective reality.  Transgender identities don’t fit this because most transgender people are aware of their identity, and fully aware of their bodies.  A transgender person will stereotypically say something along the lines of “I feel like X inside, but my body says something quite different”, reflecting a degree of awareness that is not found in clinical delusion. 

Second, arguing that being transgender is a "mental condition" is trivially reductive, and frankly is incorrect. Yes, it has psychological dimensions to it, but it is incorrect to reduce it to "it's all in your head".  Part of the reason for saying this is the fact that the usual treatment approaches for things like delusion simply do not apply, and in fact medications that would normally address major psychiatric symptoms doesn't do anything to alleviate the distress transgender people feel. 

If transgender identities are not actually major mental illnesses, then the simple fact is that transgender people are in fact part of social reality. It is unreasonable to demand that a group of people simply "disappear" to make you comfortable. The fact is, transgender people have existed throughout history and across cultures. There is likely no culture that has never experienced at least one transgender person in its midst - including those cultures who insist that it’s some kind of personal moral failing rather than a normal developmental phenomenon.

Lastly, the people at the forefront of the current wave of anti-transgender sentiment are a collection of grifters - street preachers, demagogues capitalizing on notoriety, hate mongers, etc. When men like Calgary's street preacher Artur Pawlowski are surfacing in the movement, you have to know that it's a grift. 

PS: @Lungta:  after reading your snivelling, passive aggressive temper tantrum comments, you can kindly get lost.  As stated on the blog, comments are moderated and I am not obliged to publish your opinions here.  You can set up your own blog and comment there all you like.  

... and trans women are not "taking away" women's rights. That argument assumes a whole bunch of things that are simply not true, nor is there so much as a shred of evidence to support the claim.