Slashdot Mirror

I lied, almost done here.

One more little nugget for you.

http://www.dsm5.org/documents/...

71% of people with gender dysphoria will have some other mental health diagnosis in their lifetime.
http://www.webmd.com/mental-he...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

That said I am going to assume you are a member of the 71% and recommend you see a doctor, and cease communications on this topic for the time being since you are obviously not well, and debating with the mentally ill is rarely productive.

It is with all sincerity that I wish you; Good luck.

"Try to keep up, mkay?"

Keep up with what? All I've done is listed someone else's research. I haven't said it's wrong. I haven't said it's right. You've made poor assumptions. Keep your words in mind while reading on.

Your assertions don't match up with the DSM 5.

In case you can't get to it here is a fact sheet.

http://www.dsm5.org/documents/...

The American Psychiatric Association say that GID was specifically renamed to Gender Dysphoria to remove stigma.

You wrote "Gender dysphoria, on the other hand, allows for (and pretty much mandates) that transsexualism has a physical origin, and that the RESULT is gender dysphoria "

The DSM 5 defines transsexualism quite simply: "Transsexual denotes an individual who seeks, or has undergone, a social transition from male to female or female to male, which in many, but not all, cases also involves a somatic transition by cross-sex hormone treatment and genital surgery (sex reassignment surgery)."

This does not match your definition. Transsexualism quite specifically does not need "a somatic transition by cross-sex hormone treatment and genital surgery (sex reassignment surgery)."

You wrote "gender dysphoria - a distress about the mismatch of perceived and physical genders".

I believe you mean perceived gender and physical sex.

The DSM 5 has 6 diagnostic criteria for adults for gender dysphoria of which the patient must have at least 2 criteria present:

"1. A marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the anticipated secondary sex characteristics).

2. A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics because of a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent the development of the anticipated secondary sex characteristics).

3. A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender.

4. A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender).

5. A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender).

6. A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)."

You are half way there. The last three criteria do not require any rejection or desire of sexual characteristics.

In children you're quite off the mark, with 8 criteria, of which the child must have 6. Of the 8 criteria, there are 6 which don't refer to sexual characteristics, and 2 that do refer to sexual characteristics.

You wrote "same as you would have if you woke up tomorrow and some naughty bits were missing".

More assumptions. Sigh.

Some Christians. I am not really the person to defend people whose only defense against the DSM IV definition of delusion is that they are explicitly exempt from it (because else any religion very much fits the definition perfectly), but it should be said that not all of them are THAT delusional. Only a rather tiny minority, and close to 100% of that minority residing in the USA, actually believes that.

That definition was changed in DSM-V. Significantly. The delusion no longer has to be demonstrably false. Now, they can believe that it is true, and still be diagnosed with a mental illness, if their behavior warrants it. But it also means that it is up to the clinician making the diagnosis. Parents who sincerely think praying is going to heal their child should not be penalized for holding that belief if the clinician determines there is no danger to the child. As long as their delusions are doing no harm in the opinion of the clinician, they fit the exemption. But it will be harder to ask for an insanity defense -- they will have to face their crime for what it is if the child dies.

Outside the US, new earth rubbish plays no significant role.

Ahh, yes. But it does play a significant role in the U.S. It is perhaps unlikely, but it is certainly possible, especially if any one of the current GOP candidates for president actually win, that somebody that (emphasis yours) delusional could achieve the highest office in the land. You really, really don't want an American president, a man who can call down a nuclear strike if he thinks it is necessary, to believe the earth is only 6000 years old, and to believe there is an invisible man in the sky telling him to do it... .

Transgender is a mental condition in the age of lazy psychologists, a consumer biased patient population, and abuse of for-profit medical solutions.

There is no such thing as a transgendered person; just people with gender identity disorder who are placated with drugs and operations. Then a large number of idiots who buy into all the crap and shame anybody who dares poitn out the truth.

Only partially right, and for all the wrong reasons. The is no longer anything called "gender identity disorder". The real "disorder" is societies failure to accept this as a treatable medical condition for some people, corrected with hormones and a sex change. The American Psychiatric Association has this to say about gender dysphoria.

DSM-5 aims to avoid stigma and ensure clinical care for individuals who see and feel themselves to be a different gender than their assigned gender. It replaces the diagnostic name “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria,” as well as makes other important clarifications in the criteria. It is important to note that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition.

... and that stress in large part comes from people who are either ignorant or actively haters. But that's becoming less of a problem as more of us speak out.

it's exploiting peoples' body image dysphoria to charge lots of money for unnecessary operations.

(I'm a little scared that I'll offend some transsexual people by using the word dysphoria

Random pedantry, but you've conflated two different things.

There is Body Dysmorphic Disorder, where people are really really concerned about the appearance of their pieces and parts. This is the broader one which includes why people get 30 plastic surgeries.

There is Gender Dysphoria, in which the pieces and parts don't match internal identify.

I've known a few women (and a few men come to think of it) who fell into the former. It's not vanity, it can be a clinical issue where it becomes debilitating for you.

I've also met a couple of people in the latter category -- and trust me, nobody would go through all of the stuff they do unless they were really really committed to it and felt they had no choice. It's hardly a glamorous (or easy) thing to do.

Autism or Asperger’s syndrome? I guess the distinction is moot now with the very recent release of the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders eliminating Asperger Disorder in favor of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Also, remember person-first language: "workers with autism" instead of "autistic workers"

Physically, despite popular, bullshit lies, you CAN be physically addicted to cannabis. Physical Dependence requires Tolerance and Withdrawal. You definitely get tolerance with cannabis, specifically because the receptors that the cannabinoids attach to begin to down regulate or stop functioning so that you need more cannabinoids to have the same effect. As for withdrawal, there is very clear withdrawal symptoms associated to stopping cannabis use suddenly: irritability, anger, aggression, restlessness, difficulty focusing, increased appetite, weight gain, sleep disturbances (insomnia, disturbing dreams, etc.), anxiety, depressed mood, cravings, sensitivity to light, stomach pain, increased sweating, fever, chills, and headaches, to name a few. In fact, because this has become accepted fact throughout the psychological and medical fields, they are adding official diagnosis of Cannabis Withdrawal to the latest diagnostic standards (mind you, they are also dropping the terms Abuse and Dependence and moving to simply Substance Use Disorders, with a spectrum of No Diagnosis, Mild, Moderate, and Severe).

Reputable facts are a good thing to know if you're going to make claims...

'Popular bullshit lies' - yet the only evidence you provide to the contrary is a proposed revision. Addiction is a term in dispute - I prefer the below example as it provides a measurable line, unlike yours where no there is no requirement for the symptoms to be directly caused by the lack-of-drug and can be attributed to patient-dependent psychological factors.

The DSM definition of addiction can be boiled down to compulsive use of a substance (or engagement in an activity) despite ongoing negative consequences—this is also a summary of what used to be called "psychological dependency." Physical dependence, on the other hand, is simply needing a substance to function. Humans are all physically dependent on oxygen, food and water. A drug can cause physical dependence and not addiction (for example, some blood pressure medications, which can produce fatal withdrawal symptoms if not tapered) and can cause addiction without physical dependence (the withdrawal symptoms associated with cocaine are all psychological, there is no associated vomiting or diarrhea as there is with opiate withdrawal).

There are no fatal withdrawal symptoms from Cannabis - there are for heroin, cocaine, amphetamines etc. Therefore, it is not addictive in the same sense as other 'addictive' drugs. Whatever you want to call them doesn't matter, we have to at least acknowledge there is a distinction there and offer a term to describe that distinction. The generally accepted clinical term is physiological addiction - but if you would to propose a new one, do so.

It won't change the fact that Cannabis 'addiction' is not the same physical mechanism as heroin 'addiction' or that withdrawal symptoms are not fatal unlike traditionally 'addictive' drugs.

Reputable facts are also useful for definitions - you should also learn what hypocrisy is....

In fact, because this has become accepted fact throughout the psychological and medical fields, they are adding official diagnosis of Cannabis Withdrawal to the latest diagnostic standards (mind you, they are also dropping the terms Abuse and Dependence and moving to simply Substance Use Disorders, with a spectrum of No Diagnosis, Mild, Moderate, and Severe).

In fact, because this has become accepted fact throughout the psychological and medical fields, they are adding official diagnosis of Caffeine Withdrawal to the latest diagnostic standards (mind you, they are also dropping the terms Abuse and Dependence and moving to simply Substance Use Disorders, with a spectrum of No Diagnosis, Mild, Moderate, and Severe).

It seems to me that the listed symptoms of Cannabis Withdrawal are less severe than those of Caffeine Withdrawal.

In fact, because this has become accepted fact throughout the psychological and medical fields, they are adding official diagnosis of Cannabis Withdrawal to the latest diagnostic standards (mind you, they are also dropping the terms Abuse and Dependence and moving to simply Substance Use Disorders, with a spectrum of No Diagnosis, Mild, Moderate, and Severe).

In fact, because this has become accepted fact throughout the psychological and medical fields, they are adding official diagnosis of Caffeine Withdrawal to the latest diagnostic standards (mind you, they are also dropping the terms Abuse and Dependence and moving to simply Substance Use Disorders, with a spectrum of No Diagnosis, Mild, Moderate, and Severe).

It seems to me that the listed symptoms of Cannabis Withdrawal are less severe than those of Caffeine Withdrawal.

Wrong. The first is prescribed by a doctor and is highly addictive. That part you got right. Congratulations.

Cannabis, you're wrong on, though. It is prescribed by a doctor in growing number of states in the US, and I can't speak for outside of the US on that, so I'll leave that to someone who knows better (as far as I know, it may or may not be the case elsewhere in the world that doctors prescribe it). So, a little right on the first one there, but equally wrong.

As for addictive... Cannabis IS addictive. Psychologically for sure (you can be psychologically addicted to all kinds of things, though). Physically, despite popular, bullshit lies, you CAN be physically addicted to cannabis. Physical Dependence requires Tolerance and Withdrawal. You definitely get tolerance with cannabis, specifically because the receptors that the cannabinoids attach to begin to down regulate or stop functioning so that you need more cannabinoids to have the same effect. As for withdrawal, there is very clear withdrawal symptoms associated to stopping cannabis use suddenly: irritability, anger, aggression, restlessness, difficulty focusing, increased appetite, weight gain, sleep disturbances (insomnia, disturbing dreams, etc.), anxiety, depressed mood, cravings, sensitivity to light, stomach pain, increased sweating, fever, chills, and headaches, to name a few. In fact, because this has become accepted fact throughout the psychological and medical fields, they are adding official diagnosis of Cannabis Withdrawal to the latest diagnostic standards (mind you, they are also dropping the terms Abuse and Dependence and moving to simply Substance Use Disorders, with a spectrum of No Diagnosis, Mild, Moderate, and Severe).

Reputable facts are a good thing to know if you're going to make claims...

Indeed. It can be refactored as follows:
Depression::Somatization.

Indeed. It can be refactored as follows:
Depression::Somatization.

I think it's called "the government lies to us all the time, so now we don't know what's true and what's not". I'll call up the APA and see if we can get it into the next revision.

In the DSM-5 (the new one), the closest I get is Unspecified Psychotic Disorder (B18). The criteria are open, which means no one has a clue how to define it. Send in your ideas today!

It's easy to see his actions and watch his videos and say "Dude's crazy and he killed some people because of it" and move on, but you need to remember that there are millions of schizophrenics in the world that don't go around shooting dozens of innocent people

True but, if your read DSM-V draft section on schizophrenia you will learn that it not a specific disease but a continuum of disorder. Their is a varying level of lucidity present in the various form of the disorder therefore some untreated schizophrenics are really walking time bombs.

The APA is the American Psychological Association. Basically it's a scientific organization of psychologists worldwide. The DSM is a collaborative effort. While the DSM is not immune to political influence, the process is reasonably well designed to try to keep the DSM as scientific as possible. As one example, in spite of intense political pressure, when research proved that homosexuality was not a disease, it was successfully removed from the DSM (it was included as such in an early edition due to widespread assumption that had not yet been researched).

Here is the APA's website:
http://www.apa.org/

Here is the dsm-v website, which describes the research going into the next DSM.
http://www.dsm5.org/

From http://www.apa.org/about/
With 150,000 members, APA is the largest association of psychologists worldwide.

Gerald P. Koocher, PhD is the 2006 President of the American Psychological Association. He currently serves as editor of the journal Ethics and Behavior.

Dr. Koocher was elected a Fellow of twelve divisions of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Koocher has more than 25 years of APA governance experience--spanning from his service on APA's Ethics Committee as a 25-year-old to his completion in December of two five-year terms as APA treasurer, an office that includes membership on APA's Board of Directors. He has been president of the Massachusetts and New England Psychological Associations.