Posted on 05/11/2015 10:47:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Greg referenced this article by Paul McHugh (former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital) on the show Tuesday, and it's worth posting an excerpt here, as well:
[P]olicy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.
The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight….
Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field….
We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.
It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription….
At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.
Listen to what Greg had to say here (starts at 1:24:40).
First, Do No Harm
Gender reassignment is taking an already deeply disturbed individual, and in the name of political correctness and probably lots of $$$, physically mutilating them. And what good will come of that?
Probably due to all the attempted suicides.
“Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population.”
It would have been more useful to know and compare the suicide rate for those trans before/without surgery.
Did it rise from 2x normal to 20? Or from 19 to 20?
Uh Oh, he’s in trouble.
Holy Moly - I knew it was bad but not that bad. No wonder they quit doing the operation.
The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists... anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight….
If you do not have a medical degree you will likely be hounded as impossibly bigoted if you state this in public. We're not doing these people any favors by cultivating their delusion.
None whatsoever. It's a hardware solution to a software problem.
It is a great pity that Sherlock Holmes never went into the medical research field. It's also a pity that these unfortunate "patients" didn't receive psychiatric care 10 years BEFORE their "Gender Reassignment Surgery."
Not to fear. Soon VA hospitals will perform these surgeries on tax payer dimes for the new transgender the military will be forced to accept. And you want those bamacare subsidies hospitals? Guess what. You’re going to perform this surgery for free. How dare you violate one’s civil rights by not butchering their genitalia.
Just wow, I say! Doesn't anyone realize how groundbreaking this is? If the transgendered have a mental disorder, then so does the homosexual crowd, particularly considering that the vast majority of them are wildly promiscuous and greatly at risk for spreading a potentially fatal disease.
It looks like the Psychiatric Association had it right back in 1970.
And if they did, the latest trendy fad of redefining marriage to cater to a small subset of the mentally ill has no foundation.
One more nail in the coffin of small business.
Normally, testimony from this highly placed an expert would be considered definitive. But since it contravenes the left-wing narrative, it will be either ignored or disregarded as “one man’s opinion.” Then the pro-mutants will trot out some adjunct professor of Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Baitcasting Studies at Possom Hollow Community College “refuting” it.
They don’t have the balls to do them anymore.
I’ve never understood the ‘completeness’ of the surgery.
Other than switching out private parts, aren’t there other distinctly male/female traits that can’t be changed surgically. For example, men’s shoulders are usually wider than their hips, and the reverse in women.
No surgery can change every cell in the body.
Imagine if this was said about homosexuality. That poor psychiatrist just might suddenly see his work options dry up.
Do we know they didn't?
“It looks like the Psychiatric Association had it right back in 1970.”
Of course they did.
“And if they did, the latest trendy fad of redefining marriage to cater to a small subset of the mentally ill has no foundation.”
Going along with sodomite play-pretend marriage helps no one.
I’ve known 2 guys who became faux-women. One committed suicide within about a year. The other one I’ve lost track of. So, from my sample, it’s a 50% suicide rate.
“Then the pro-mutants will trot out some adjunct professor of Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Baitcasting Studies at Possom Hollow Community College “refuting” it.”
I understand that country folk are one of the few groups it is still permissible to slam, and it is really funny, but isn’t it more likely that the sodomites will turn to the Ivy League for their contrary testimony?
To the extent that an association of modern witch doctors can ever have something right.
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