3 ms·

I think the difference is context. If you want to get together at a psychology conference and talk about how we ought to classify gender dysphoria based on our

by Spivak 4y ago

I think the difference is context. If you want to get together at a psychology conference and talk about how we ought to classify gender dysphoria based on our current understanding of the people who experience it then that's cool and nobody would bat an eye at a speaker making a case that it's a mental illness. But outside of a medical context if you make a joke that (in this case somewhat ambiguously) that relies on saying that trans people have a mental illness then the actual meaning changes because that phrase is used as a pejorative and as a dog whistle for people who support conversion therapy.

mrguyorama 4y ago
>nobody would bat an eye at a speaker making a case that it's a mental illness. That's not true. There would be a huge outcry, specifically from the psychology camp you are disagreeing with, who would get very huffy and maybe insinuate you don't have the best intentions and the psychologists who think you are right would back you up and also get huffy and write angry letters about letting feelings get in the way of physical reality and that we shouldn't let current stigmas about "mental illness" stop us from improving our understanding and cataloguing of mental disorders. You know what doesn't happen? Making it a felony if a book that contains a trans person exists on your bookshelf in your classroom. Telling the general public that if you allow trans people to use the bathroom they feel comfortable in, they will molest and rape your kids (this is a real take right now). Entire forums set up with the express intent of bullying people into killing themselves.
- Spivak 4y ago
  To me at least, your first paragraph about everyone getting huffy and writing letters is the expected outcome and exactly the kind of impassioned Socratic debate that's good for the field. The term used to describe those with intellectual disabilities has changed a bunch of times in response to the term being picked up as a pejorative; I can't imagine people would be too up in arms about that happening to "mental illness." The debate with more meat is what categories exist, their defining characteristics, and where different experiences fall, not that the category that used to be called mental illness is now called "harshed brain vibes." I think the difficult issue is that gender dysphoria occupies a similar space to neurodivergence where the line between "this is a problem that needs corrected" and "this is a kind of person that needs accommodation" is heavily influenced by cultural attitudes, and while the difference isn't arbitrary we have more examples than we can shake a stick at from history where psychology has persisted the wrong view (usually the former when it's the latter) for many many years.

by Spivak 4y ago

mrguyorama 4y ago

>nobody would bat an eye at a speaker making a case that it's a mental illness. That's not true. There would be a huge outcry, specifically from the psychology camp you are disagreeing with, who would get very huffy and maybe insinuate you don't have the best intentions and the psychologists who think you are right would back you up and also get huffy and write angry letters about letting feelings get in the way of physical reality and that we shouldn't let current stigmas about "mental illness" stop us from improving our understanding and cataloguing of mental disorders. You know what doesn't happen? Making it a felony if a book that contains a trans person exists on your bookshelf in your classroom. Telling the general public that if you allow trans people to use the bathroom they feel comfortable in, they will molest and rape your kids (this is a real take right now). Entire forums set up with the express intent of bullying people into killing themselves.

Spivak 4y ago
To me at least, your first paragraph about everyone getting huffy and writing letters is the expected outcome and exactly the kind of impassioned Socratic debate that's good for the field. The term used to describe those with intellectual disabilities has changed a bunch of times in response to the term being picked up as a pejorative; I can't imagine people would be too up in arms about that happening to "mental illness." The debate with more meat is what categories exist, their defining characteristics, and where different experiences fall, not that the category that used to be called mental illness is now called "harshed brain vibes." I think the difficult issue is that gender dysphoria occupies a similar space to neurodivergence where the line between "this is a problem that needs corrected" and "this is a kind of person that needs accommodation" is heavily influenced by cultural attitudes, and while the difference isn't arbitrary we have more examples than we can shake a stick at from history where psychology has persisted the wrong view (usually the former when it's the latter) for many many years.