Gender dysphoria is a disorder. The treatment is a sex change. It's really only a problem if left untreated.
I disagree. I talked with this kid quite a bit about it. He said he loved his penis and couldn't fathom removing it. He just wishes he would have been born with a vagina instead of a penis. But he says he cant come to believe that having an artificial vagina would be as good as having a real penis... or something like that. I don't think it is a disorder anymore than homosexuality is a disorder.
Simon: Since humans are animals, then everything they do is natural. Perhaps homosexuality would be better described as abberant behaviour.
Not all MTF transsexuals go as far as having the surgery. Many undergo hormone therapy and live as women, and are content with that. Being forced to live as your physical gender rather than your mental one is what creates problems, not the gender dysphoria itself.
MBello: Sounds like you need to get out more. Go to a few gay bars. As I said, I don't think you get out enough. Go to a few straight bars and listen in on some heterosexual conversations. You're a bit naive about the real world, obviously. It sure sounds like you are. Well, don't worry. Once you've met more gay people you'll soon learn how wrong your initially impressions are. Because of prejudices like yours that are constantly expressed to them? How about homophobes? I think they have a deeper, more troubling, disorder. Don't you? Their disorder is actually harmful, because it leads them to persecute other people because of their own insecurities. I think all homophobes need compulsory mental treatment. Agree? Norsefire: Let's deal with homophobia first. Once we've cured that, then we can start on curing homosexuality itself. Homophobia is by far the greater worry. What, and lose all our great artists and entertainers? No thanks. Obviously, sex and love are not just between a man and a woman. Ask any gay person. So is going around naked. If God had meant us to wear clothes, we would have been born with them! Off with all the clothes, I say!
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Not for all animals. Humans are a species of animal, and in most cultures it is inappropriate to wander about in public naked. Walking about naked in public is a practice not engaged in by the majority, and is also against social convention. So no, it's not the 'norm'. I think it's rather fallacious to try and claim that if a particular behaviour is the norm for non-human species, then it is also the norm for the human species. For example, particular mammal species eat their own fecal matter. Does that mean to tell me it's normal for humans to chew on turds?
I actually do agree with this 100%. Male lions often kill the offspring of rival male lions. We would never consider such a behavior normal, or natural. There are a number of animal behaviors that you would never ever see humans engage in, unless they had some sort of uhh... disorder. To compare us to them is in my opinion ridiculous. Not to say that homosexuality is a disorder, but eating of feces and murder is a disorder among humans. But apparently not among animals.
We're born naked, just as some of us are born homosexual. Nakedness is "natural", and natural is good and right. Right?
Norsefire says heterosexuality is "normal". I say homosexuality is equally "normal". It's normal for homosexual people, in exactly the same way that heterosexuality is normal for heterosexual people. Of course, it could be that Norsefire is saying nothing more interesting than that the majority of people are heterosexual. But everybody knows that; it is no amazing revelation. And it does not impact one iota on whether homosexuality is good or bad, right or wrong. By the same argument, the fact that the vast majority of people wear clothes in public does not in any way impact upon whether wearing clothes is good or bad, right or wrong. The rightness or wrongness must be established independently of mere force of numbers.
James R: Correct. Normal does not = natural. No. Normal behaviour is the most common behaviour in society. Abberant behaviour deviates from the norm. As an overwhelming majority of humans in all cultures (that I know of) are heterosexual, then heterosexual behaviour is the norm. Homosexuality is abnormal behaviour. Note that I'm not commenting on the morality of homosexual behaviour, so don't go getting all defensive.
Normal animals and progress as a throwback Humans are animals. Perhaps statistically. And we see, in your appeal— —what that brings: statistical segregation. Perhaps, then, blond and dark-haired people should be segregated. Perhaps the melanin-deficient genetic mutations known as white people should be sequestered away from all the normal people who aren't so pale. Perhaps men, statistical minorities and deviations from our natural state, should be kept away from women. Such progress! See, that's the problem with statistical segregation; where we begin and end is completely arbitrary. Beyond that, though, homosexuality is as normal as snow in California: it occurs through natural processes. This is why it occurs in our fellow animals.
Tiassa makes a good point. By your argument: Blond hair is abnormal. Blue eyes are abnormal. Being male is abnormal. Living anywhere except China and India is abnormal. Speaking English is abnormal.
James: We're talking about normality in the context of behaviour, James. Not in an English speaking society. If you go around speaking English in an African country, then yeah, that's rather abnormal behaviour.
Having your cake and eating it too: it's all in how you slice it up I was not aware that homosexuality was a condition of human existence limited to English-speaking societies. Let me reiterate a phrase: a condition of human existence. This is another problem with statistical definitions of normal: they depend entirely on where one chooses to draw boundaries. Homosexual behavior among humans is not limited to specific cultures; it is a phenomenon inherent to the broader human condition. One can, for instance, argue that melanin-deficiency is normal if we draw the boundaries to consider England specifically. Higher melanin levels are, generally, imported. And, historically, any number of issues—from the decline of the British empire in general and the loss of the American colonies specifically to American slavery, the troubles in Ireland, the disarray of the Commonwealth, and even the establishment of Protestantism itself—suggest the problems of thinking so narrowly. And that's just England. The rest of us do no better by such self-imposed limitations. While abstract boundaries have certain utility in defining the range of statistical consideration, humans tend to presume wrongly and with faith verging on blindness the consistency and propriety of those boundaries.
Someone's getting all caught up in their own little briar patch. So speaking English in Africa is 'abnormal'...? What about wiping your arse with your right hand? That's very abnormal if you happen to be a Hindu (you simply do not use the hand you eat with for the job). Sitting your smelly bum down on someone's table, that they eat off is extremely abnormal in some cultures. You no doubt have a few European habits that would highly offend people from some other cultures. Try showing the soles of your shoes to a Muslim sometime. In many Polynesian societies, boys are raised as girls - like for centuries. Thailand has a lot of transsexuals, who are tolerated since they've been around for thousands of years, but nowadays there's 'complete' surgery. Back in the day the surgery was castration, and eunuchs are as old as civilisation. It's been with us since forever.
