I’ve been reading the threads on this illness and hadn’t commented until now. Here goes;
A dear friend of mine called a couple weeks ago, on the verge of collapse. Her brother had announced he was going all in with a sex change. Apparently he had dressed up previously and gone out in public as a woman. Now he has decided, at 54 years old, he is really a woman.
Now that is challenging enough for my friend to digest. What turned it on it’s head was finding out from a relative that said brother, had raped this relative decades ago. As that was revealed, others came forward with their stories of incidents with this brother.
All this clarified to me that yes indeed, those who seek this surgery are indeed very sick. My friend now fears her brother will eventually commit suicide as more of his past becomes public.
All of it makes my head spin. I know there has always been sick people amongst us, but these days their sickness is in our faces all day long.
It could be that your friend’s brother is trying to distance himself from his past actions by becoming someone else. And, since he sees his gender as a fundamental part of himself, becoming another person is as simple (to his pathological way of thinking) as having his genitals mutilated.
I see the same thing happening with traitor Bradley Manning. He was profoundly unhappy prior to joining the Army; he did not find happiness in the Army, and rather than seeking help, he committed treason. And now he is unhappy in prison, and seeking to distance himself from who he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if sometime in the future, after he has been allowed to indulge in “reassignment”, he finds a way to suicide. (Don’t get me wrong—I have no sympathy for him—I like to understand the factors that make people behave the way they do, that’s all.)
No one who humors the mentally ill by going along with their delusions is doing them any favors. Yes, it takes time to treat the illness, and success is very tenuous in these cases. But treatment is far better than using their condition for profit.