Conclusions
Findings from this largest campus-based study of its kind using representative data with both gender identity and mental health measures underscore the importance of recognizing and addressing GM mental health burdens, such as by screening for mental health and providing gender-affirming services. There is broad urgency to identify protective factors and reduce mental health inequities for this vulnerable population.

https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(19)30219-3/abstract

The actual article does not support your interpretation.

McHugh is not himself without controversy.

You talkin' shite.

The actual article does not support your interpretation.

McHugh is not himself without controversy.

You talkin' shite. — Banno

The abstract doesn't cover all what a paper says, so I don't know everything what Ketchen Lipson et al say.

From the abstract on the link you gave:

Across mental health measures, a significantly higher prevalence of symptoms was observed in GM (Gender Minority) students than cisgender students. Compared with 45% of cisgender students, 78% of GM students met the criteria for 1 or more of the aforementioned mental health outcomes. GM status was associated with 4.3 times higher odds of having at least 1 mental health problem (95% CI=3.61, 5.12).

What I find very disturbing are the statistics here: 45% and 78%. If nearly every second person has mental issues, then perhaps one should define at least some of these issues as normal behaviour among people. Every second student isn't going to attempt suicide or go insane. (Or, perhaps I'm wrong and vast segment of American students are totally off their rockers and truly need their safe spaces.)

The actual article does not support your interpretation. McHugh is not himself without controversy. You talkin' shite. — Banno

He does not literally say it, but it is obvious what he means. It is incredible how "critical thinking" is supposedly encouraged in state-controlled schools, but not "critical thinking" about the schools themselves. Centralization leads to corruption, and 150+ years of centralization of the schools has clearly led to an astonishing level of corruption, which is even going to destroy society as a whole.

Sure. The conclusion in the abstract is an appeal for greater equity, not a warning against recognising non-cis genders.

You talkin' 'bout 'Merkin schools?

Yeah, they're fucked. But not for the reasons you give.

Sure. The conclusion in the abstract is an appeal for greater equity, not a warning against recognising non-cis genders. — Banno

And actually it sounds totally logical. No matter how tolerant the society is, to be in a gender minority will likely cause bit of difficulty among people and some anxieties.

The only minority that people don't have any problem belonging to is to be rich. And even with this minority, those being born to prosperity it can be problematic.

Does the study capture etiology? Does it attribute the mental issues to any particular range of factors, or factors in combination with each other?

Fine questions; yet even if it did, it would remain a long way from supporting the OP.

Yeah, they're fucked. But not for the reasons you give. — Banno

I believe that every centralized system will become corrupt and will turn on its users. Now, I agree that this belief is quite ideological. Decentralization is a core belief in the cryptocurrency world:

The Danger of Centralization
The internet should be decentralized. The credit industry should be decentralized. P2P markets should be decentralized. Identity should be decentralized. Loans should be decentralized. Anything that has a trusted 3rd party act a middle man without adding value should be replaced with a decentralized system.

Therefore, for ideological reasons, I am also firmly opposed to any centralized education system. I am convinced that centralization in education will go badly wrong. It will go wronger and wronger until it destroys the very society itself that feeds it with students and money, just like the centralized banking is doing by destroying its customers and even society at large.

There are lots of idiosyncratic choices that are made by a school, for which various alternatives are actually viable. It is utterly wrong to get all the schools to give the same idiosyncratic answer. This only happens because the choice itself has been centralized. It is dangerous to do that. There should be alternatives, and with a state-controlled system monopoly, there are no alternatives.

In the end, I do not even care about what the symptoms will be of destruction caused by a centralized education system. I believe that it will always end up destroying itself, regardless of how exactly it does that, simply, because of the centralization itself.

I had a hard time getting past the title of this thread without calling bs. After reading the OP I thought it might be worth mentioning that on average 19% of adult Americans are dealing with a mental illness. Additionally this article suggests 37% of "gender minority" suffer from a mental illness. The only group with a higher % of mental illness is our Veterans.
What is concerning to me is the astronomical rate of suicide contemplation for both Veterans and those who are in the gender minority.
I just don't know if there is a way to distinguish between the mental illness resulting from combat, something we choose to put ourselves at increased risk for and a mental illness resulting from something that we do not choose such as ones gender.

Does the study capture etiology? Does it attribute the mental issues to any particular range of factors, or factors in combination with each other? — StreetlightX

Good questions.

Also, re this: "They’re going to be in the hands of doctors for the rest of their lives . . . Can you imagine having a life where you need to seek doctors all the time, for everything . . . getting everything checked?" Isn't that what we keep being told we need to do? Go for regular check-ups, prostate exams, breast exams, colonoscopies, etc. etc.?

But they do "choose" their gender in the parlance of officialdom, from the falsely slimmed down menu foisted on them. The stated alternative of "gender minority" was "cisgender".

I've always had hobbies, studies and jobs where men & women joined in equally. My cousin when a boy liked girly dolls for some years, afterwards married a lady, they had a happy marriage.

People didn't pass personal remarks about each other, didn't look in the mirror much and the women didn't use much makeup (the makeup sellers starved).

Now if it is sometimes argued gender is different from sex, this leaves additional question marks as to categories.

Above all I want to comment that, saying that an even higher proportion of these people are quivering wrecks, than everyone else, merely illustrates what a high proportion of the rest of us are having our nerves shredded as well. I for example am now scared rigid because politics and commerce tell me every day that I haven't got a mind. Some days I "keep myself sane" some days it "gets to me".

This is the trend from ideologically motivated corps whether in schools or anywhere. The immediate context can get salami sliced between "gender", economic vulnerability, race relations, cultural deprivation, you name it.

There is even an ideology that you have to finnick about everybody else's personal appearance.

So, this study doesn't grind anybody's axes but neither does it by any means disprove concerns.

An emotionally frail young person goes to see officialdom, officialdom tells them they don't worry enough and ought to worry more, et voila.

Now if it is sometimes argued gender is different from sex, this leaves additional question marks as to categories. — Fine Doubter

It is. You can be a masculine woman i.e tomboy and/or an effeminate man i.e bobcat.

The American Journal of Preventive Medicine says that most gender-minority students report having mental health problems. At the same time, a Johns Hopkins professor says on the child transgender trend: ‘Many will regret this’. He argues that doctors are doing treatment without evidence: — alcontali

One could say that ALL gender minority students have mental health problems, if lacking a firm and biologically consistent gender identity is a disorder. I tend to view gender confusion or gender fluidity as a disorder --not as a mere variation. This is not a popular view in many circles; it is probably not a popular view here.

There is variation in sexual behavior, of course. Sexual orientation, for instance, ranges between exclusive heterosexuality and exclusive homosexuality. Orientation, however, is not the same as gender confusion. Persons who are in the middle of the hetero-homo distribution are not confused about their sexual identity.

A very small portion of the population are sexually ambiguous from birth. They are a category apart from what we are discussing here. A larger portion (less than 1% of the population) express varying degrees of gender ambiguity. That they think they are something other than what their physical body says they are is a significant delusion. It seems like this delusion is becoming more common, which suggests that the act of expressing gender confusion may be a learned behavior and a front for some other neuroticism.

Physical treatment for a psychological disorder would be as wrong as lobotomies. Young children, for instance, should not be allowed to cross-dress for school; they should not be allowed to claim they are the opposite gender than their biology indicates and need to use toilets of the opposite gender. And they should not be given hormones of the opposite sex.

Needless to say, children should not be punished for exhibiting delusory ideas. Delusions should be overcome, not punished.

You can be a masculine woman i.e tomboy and/or an effeminate man i.e bobcat. — Shamshir

Yes, and these aren't examples of gender confusion either.

Young children, for instance, should not be allowed to cross-dress for school; — Bitter Crank

Needless to say, children should not be punished for exhibiting delusory ideas. — Bitter Crank

You don't see a contradiction here?

Let us assume the OP is precisely true, that all GM folks are wacka-doodle. What is the antidote you suggest that will be less harmful than the disease? The shaming approach and conversion therapies haven't been exactly helpful. Perhaps you should offer them the same sympathies you do of heart disease and cancer patients, as they too suffer from the effects of an ill environment.

If only moral condemnation would snap people upright, you'd be well on your way to a cure, right?

You don't see a contradiction here? — Banno

I don't see a contradiction unless you equate denial of the right to live out one's delusions as punishment.

I don't care so much about cross dressing because there are no long term consequences from wearing ill fitted clothing. I do object to hormonal therapies and genital surgeries for the young because the statistics do show many change their minds as they age. Even among the adults who choose hrt and surgery, unless the statistics show a decrease in depression and suicide (which they don't), I'd be as opposed to it as I would any useless medical procedure.

I don't see a contradiction unless you equate denial of the right to live out one's delusions as punishment. — Hanover

SO the utter misery induced by forcing a child to wear gendered clothing doesn't count?

the statistics do show many change their minds as they age. — Hanover

Source?

Source? — Banno

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/

"Conclusions
Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group."

https://www.transgendertrend.com/children-change-minds/

"Ten studies have been conducted looking at whether gender dysphoria persists throughout childhood. On average 80% of children change their minds and do not continue into adulthood as transgender. Some of these studies are very old, the first being published in 1968 and others in the 1980s. This was during a time when being transgender was not accepted as widely in society as it is now so it can be argued that this may have influenced many to change their minds. An analysis of all published studies can be seen here.

However, the most recent study published in 2013 confirms once again that gender dysphoria does not persist in most children past puberty. "

The first article is the NIH study itself. The second provides links to all studies.

If you are committed to the idea that this treatment should be judged by its medical efficacy, then you have to be opposed to it. If this is a right to expression and liberty issue, you might not care what the studies say. I'd think though, even if it's the latter, you might wish to withhold such choices from children.

This contention raises a few interesting questions. Like, why does clothing matter so much? Why would identity be contingent on clothing expression? And why is clothing gendered in the first place?

Increasingly, we view only "women's clothing" as gendered. Women can wear, I think, anything a man wears, and not be considered necessarily "cross-dressing." That's in part because patriarchy determines everything male as the standard or normal thing, and everything female as "other." But in any case, it means that we're really only talking about mtf and not ftm here.

I don't want to call it shallow for gender minorities of any kind to worry about clothing, but I do think it's creating wrong priorities. It suggests that being a woman/man is about clothing. But, even is the socially constructed view of gender, gender is so much bigger than that.

That being said, I agree with Hanover that people should be allowed to dress in what fashion they choose. But that surgeries and hormone therapies are too permanent and invasive to be options for young people. You can easily change a shirt, but you can't grow back body parts.


As to the OP, I think the most obvious response is "correlation does not equal causation." There are many things about gender minority's lives that could contribute to mental health issues that might go away in a more tolerant world.

And it is possible that there are actually mentally ill people, who perhaps aren't transgender, who are drawn to that idea because they hope it'll be an easy fix for their deeper problems. That does not mean that this applies to all or even the majority of gender minorities.

On average 80% of children change their minds — Hanover

this figure is obtained by assuming that every one who was untraceable changed their mind.

We are a group of parents, academics and childcare professionals with no political or religious affiliation, from a range of backgrounds. We are united in our concern about the medical transition of children and young people and the erasure of girls’ sex-based protections in schools and society.

Biased source.

...and the conclusion from the NCBI...

Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.

not that kids change their mind.

A problem with no solution, as they seem to think...

No problem in my mind...

Perhaps you should offer them the same sympathies you do of heart disease and cancer patients, as they too suffer from the effects of an ill environment. — Hanover

Or just tell them the truth like we do anorexic patients. You're not fat, so stop trying to use extreme methods of losing weight. You're not a woman, you're a man, so you dont need to go to a fixture to get cut up and have to wear a stent for the rest of your life to keep the wound between your legs open.

Or just tell them the truth like we do anorexic patients. You're not fat, so stop trying to use extreme methods of losing weight. You're not a woman, you're a man, — Harry Hindu

Ah, well, I guess you're applying the motto "when at first you fail, try and try and try again"?

No. Not accommodating an inappropriate behavior isn't punishing the child.

Here we are talking about quite young children deciding they are the opposite gender and demanding to wear clothes (or behave) in the manner of the opposite sex. Young children don't go clothes shopping by themselves (one would hope) so how does this problem arise? By the parents providing the clothing the child wanted to wear. Why would an adult take their 6 year old's clothing preferences as a directive, let alone something as major and complex as identity?

Not accommodating an inappropriate behavior isn't punishing the child. — Bitter Crank

So forcing a child of eight to wear boy's uniform at school to the point where she is suicidal is just correcting a bit of delusional defiance.

No. Not accommodating an inappropriate behavior isn't punishing the child.

Here we are talking about quite young children deciding they are the opposite gender and demanding to wear clothes (or behave) in the manner of the opposite sex. Young children don't go clothes shopping by themselves (one would hope) so how does this problem arise? By the parents providing the clothing the child wanted to wear. Why would an adult take their 6 year old's clothing preferences as a directive, let alone something as major and complex as identity?

We do not (or at least we should not) allow children to marry, have sex with whomever they wish, smoke, drink, use recreational drugs, chew tobacco, play with guns, and so forth. Children are expected to defer such activities until they are 'of age' like, 16, 17, 18 to 21. It is reasonable for people to defer some behaviors and delusions until they are old enough to manage the complexities which come with these activities.

I have doubts about transsexualism, gender dysphoria, and so on, when these terms are applied to adults. Many more doubts when applied to children.