“It is unfortunate that you seem so intent on putting words in the man’s mouth to change what he is saying into your own personal cause.”
You appear to have me confused with all of the people on FreeRepublic who are figuratively speaking standing in line to hurl rocks while saying the good doctor agrees with them that ALL transgendered people absolutely must be mentally ill without significant or any exception. I have no personal cause in this subject other than observing what should have been a rather obvious and commonsense truth. It does not serve the Conservative movement well to act in dishonesty and inhumanity to support destructive misinformation and outright lies. If and when the conservative movement fails to act with honesty and integrity, it is up to the members of the community to act to rectify the problem.
“He is specifically talking about situations where the the confusion is mental, not biological.”
The scientific community has only just recently recorded the human genome for the first time, so we are only in the very early stage of discovering what genes are involved in making a determination of physiological and mental characteristics and how they interplay to determine gender behavior and sexual behavior. The SRY gene and its role in determining physiological sex characteristics was unknown a short time ago. The SRY gene and its role in determining mental behavior with respect to gender and sex are virtually unexplored at the moment. Consequently, the good doctor and no one else is in a position to be making unequivocal conclusions and statements about biological science that has not yet even been researched yet. Now, if the doctor had the posters had confined their remarks and conclusions to the results of the sex reassignment surgeries they were responsible for studying, it would be reasonable to find that cohort of research subjects did not on balance benefit from their medical surgeries and accompanying treatments and therapies. Extrapolating those results out to ALL transgendered persons is hardly scientific in any respect, and the commenters advocating the punishment of all transgendered people as being mentally ill is unscientific and contrary to human biology. The commenters on FreeRepublic should not give in to their baser instincts and retain enough skepticism to closely question all proponents of all encompassing policies, pro and con, LGBT or anti-LGBT.
“A 60 year old man who has fathered children and suddenly decides he wants to be a woman is ill. His biology is undoubtedly male.”
You say his biology is male. You don’t and cannot really know that. Even if it happens to be true you do not and cannot know that. Do you have a record of his karyotype and a map of all of the genes controlling the expression of the karyotype? No, you don’t, and no you can’t. Not even the world’s leading laboratories know all of the places to look in the human genome for the genes that control the expression of all such behavior. Is this person mentally ill? It depends upon which of the many definitions you choose to use. Do you choose to use the DSM, if so then which DSM do you prefer? Then explain what the social science used in the DSM of your choice has to do with the actual physical science of human biology.
“Identifying as a woman for him isn’t much different than identifying as Napolean.”
You think so, eh? Then let’s see you produce incontrovertible evidence you are the actual gender and sex you thin you are and claim to be. How can anyone know for sure what you actually are without a comprehensive blood and cell sampling of your sex chromosome karyotypes and your entire genome?
Your argument is irrelevant. Almost every man has the desire to mate with as many women as possible. Most men recognize that as destructive behavior and do not engage in it.
Whether by nature or (failure of) nurture someone has destructive sexual urges, they still have the responsibility to control and abstain from them.
You cannot definitively identify a biological cause in any case, only a correlation.