Transgenderism and Mental Health

In regards to the United States president's recent statement that transgender people cannot serve in the military, I want to clear up some recurring misconceptions I have seen online.

Being transgender is NOT a mental disorder and has no direct relation to your ability to effectively serve. Mental disorders are defined by how much they impact your ability to function. This isn't a political belief of mine, it's the consensus of the psychiatric community.

Here's a quote directly from the American Psychiatric Association: "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."

In fact, the only reason it's classified in the DSM-V at all is for protection and insurance purposes: "Persons experiencing gender dysphoria need a diagnostic term that protects their access to care and won’t be used against them in social, occupational, or legal areas.[...] To get insurance coverage for the medical treatments, individuals need a diagnosis. The Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group was concerned that removing the condition as a psychiatric diagnosis—as some had suggested—would jeopardize access to care."

Furthermore, not all transgender people require drugs or surgery. Some are post-op already, some are not transitioning yet, and some simply have no need to physically match their gender.

With these points in mind, there is no meaningful justification for the denial of transgender people in the military.

• If the concern is being mentally unfit, that can and must be evaluated independently of gender.
• If the concern is medical need, that too must be evaluated independently of gender.
• If the concern is cost, in addition to the point above there are literally thousands of more efficient targets for cost-cutting that do not unfairly discriminate. The savings on this are utterly trivial.

As has been mentioned by others, the actual number of people this affects is very small.

What it does do is fuel the above misconceptions on a national level and provide a precedent for discrimination based on characteristics that are not directly related to the job at hand.

What Is a Man?

You are what you do, not what you say.

Do you agree? My answer is 'yes and no'. At its barest, the statement is just 'people lie.' And that's true. But can you not lie in action as well as in words? Some argue that doesn't matter, that motives are irrelevant, only actions count. Motives are internal, they do not affect the outside world, but actions do. It's a very pragmatic view. It's also very self-centered. 

Think about your own existence. Your experiences, your feelings, your thoughts, your opinions. Do you define these as part of you? I believe identity is ultimately subjective, so if you do not then we may have a very different argument on our hands that I will discuss in a later post. But I think most people would say, 'yes, that is a part of me.' So who are we to deny that to others because such things do not impact our world?

And they do impact our world, albeit indirectly. It could be argued that they're irrelevant, as they are only catalysts to action. Thus, we could remove them from the equation and only look at action - the sum and result of all these motives, feelings etc. But not all of these parts of 'you' always manifest in action. We are frequently contradictory in mind, but our actions can only take one course. If you believe in any degree of determinism, it is this mental 'you', and the rest of your biology's interaction with the outside world that determines action. Those thoughts and feelings of that do not noticeably influence our actions are not any less real to us for it. Why should they be less real for anyone else?

That's certainly a more complicated picture. But I suppose, 'you are the sum of your thoughts, feelings, and biology, as influenced by your environment, manifested by your actions, and determined subjectively' just doesn't have the same ring to it.