tbieter wrote:XENA3001 wrote:So . . . a girlie walks into a den of philosophers . . . I'm a HUGE fan of existentialcomics.com, and those wonderful cartoons found on the editorial pages. I also love finding a gem at a thrift store, gentleman of all ages, (prefer 50+), winning the lottery, being an awesome guitar player, and life on the West Coast. I have a fondness for a good bourbon while discussing all sorts of Really Important Stuff; I especially love it if I can remember what we talked about the next day. I'm a transgender woman, and yes, I go both ways; I love "chic-flicks," AND science-fiction anthologies !!
What distinguishes a transgender psychological inclination from the standard psychological definition of delusion?
See http://www.firstthings.com/article/2015 ... r-delusion
I purchased the First Things article. It has great merit. Here are the concluding paragraphs:
"That purported experts on
mental illness should enable
the acting-out of a cultural
delusion is egregious enough. Most
flagrant, however, is their treatment
of a mental disorder with mutilating
surgery. What can my colleagues be
thinking when they prime patients
with hormones and prepare them for
surgery? Are they themselves delusional,
and do they believe that they
can change women into men (and
vice versa)? Do they think that surgery
should be the treatment of choice
for people who are dissatisfied with
themselves? Have they forgotten, or
did they never learn, about psychotherapy,
a cornerstone of psychiatry
that helps patients understand themselves
and their experiences so that
they can take control of their lives?
Clearly the disaster of a previous attempt
to treat mental illness with surgery—prefrontal
lobotomy—has not
served as a lesson.
Lest common sense fail to convince
readers that surgery is not a
treatment for a mental disorder, a
Swedish study published in 2011
found that over the long term, 324
people who had undergone sexreassignment
surgery demonstrated
an alarmingly high suicide rate and
experienced considerably higher
numbers of severe psychiatric problems
than were present in the general
population. Unfortunately, as Charles
Mackay has so well illustrated, such
scientific evidence is typically ignored
in the hysterical contagion of popular
delusions. Human nature indeed does
not change."
I once had a client who was in the middle of the surgery. He/she presented a problem for the jail - where to put him/her! 
