[punster]

"Well, without the evidence you're basing your premature conclusions upon, you might as well go out the rest of the way on that limb and say that ALL delusions have a physical cause, and we could prove it if we juist had enough dead brains to examine.

Thre is evidence schizophrenia has a physical cause. Depression also has a physical cause.

"You're also going to have to prove that the changes were there from birth and not caused later by some other factor. That means examining the brain at birth. And if a baby doesn't grow up, it can't grow up to declare it's trapped in the wrong body."

Estrogens and androgen blocking drugs have been administered to adult men in the treatment of prostate cancer, and they do not produce changes in the brain structure. The structure of the brain is complete at birth, since all the neurons a person has are there at birth. Certainly, training helps to develop skills, but it will not develop ones, for which the basic capacity did not exist.

"In any case, it seems that if you are right, it's a birth defect just like any other birth defect, and should be cured prenatally instead of encouraged postnatally."

It is true that we should work to prevent iatrogenic birth defects. That means not administering potent hormones or other drugs known to cause birth defects to pregnant women (examples: thalidomide; cyproterone acetate; spironolactone; Premarin; birth control pills; propecia; etc.) However, as long as the fetus is carried to term in the mother's womb, there is little way to exercise total control over the environment to which the fetus is exposed.

If it is a birth defect, are we to abort the fetus's on the grounds they will have a gender identity problem? Or tell the individuals they are crazy, and wait for them to commit suicide?

[hellinahandcart]

Thre is evidence schizophrenia has a physical cause. Depression also has a physical cause.

I have never heard anyone claim that depression is predetermined at birth. Until now. ;D

Estrogens and androgen blocking drugs have been administered to adult men in the treatment of prostate cancer, and they do not produce changes in the brain structure.

How do you KNOW they don't affect something at some level, if you're not slicing opens the brains of all such men? The hormones do cause dramatic physical and behavioral changes. I knew a guy who had a pituitary adenoma; the before and after were all pretty radical.

The structure of the brain is complete at birth, since all the neurons a person has are there at birth.

Things like drug use and Alzheimer's change the brain AFTER birth, do they not? Malnutrition can prevent the brain from developing as it should, can it not?

If it is a birth defect, are we to abort the fetus's on the grounds they will have a gender identity problem? Or tell the individuals they are crazy, and wait for them to commit suicide?

Is that how you'd proceed with schizophrenia? Or would you ideally try to correct the problem?

My point is that we don't develop a schizophrenia-based "culture", affirm it as a lifdstyle choice, or pass legislation insisting we all go along with their delusions. Which is happening rapidly in the case of transgenders.

[First Amendment]

Thre is evidence schizophrenia has a physical cause. Depression also has a physical cause.

And love has a physical cause, the universe has a physical cause, and we're all just machine made of meat. Right, drugs cure all mental illness, no need to become introspective and change one's life or consciousness. Oh, and consciousness is based on matter, too.

Yeah, right, everything's just dead meat. That's the materialistic viewpoint, that everything is just machinery and chemistry. No soul, no one really in there, no responsibility, no real choices made, no free will at all. Just chemistry and DNA.

Very limited and one sided (what to speak of illogical) viewpoint.