Gender Dysphoria and Co-Existing Psychosis: Review and Four Case Examples of Successful Gender Affirmative Treatment

Jiminy Christmas, Genbu, chill out. Sooner posted an intolerant, disrespectful comment about people with gender dysphoria, which was deleted. That really should be end of.

2 Likes

I’m not gonna argue with you over something I don’t care about anyway
You win buddy

@RowanAmethyst

Thank you for adding your personal experience.

I didn’t see the post that was deleted, so I’m the dark as far as that’s concerned.

I’m glad that you were able to get treatments for transition.

1 Like

Thanks! I didn’t see the post either, typical transphobic rhetoric is my guess.

1 Like

Sooner, knock it off, now. This is exactly the same kind of talk that homosexuals had to deal with, and sometimes still do.

4 Likes

To play devil’s advocate there has been some talk of transsexualism as a “schizophrenia spectrum disorder” . In posting the links I am not saying I agree with this position but only showing that some professionals have had it,and perhaps still do.

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1991-31183-001

I am someone who amongst several diagnoses was once diagnosed with schizophrenia with disorder of gender identity.
At one point I was very persistent I wanted a sex change.

Over a period of years the insistence lessened. Reasons for that may include (1) that it was a delusional obsession that went as I became less acutely ill (2) a defensive mechanism to defend me from the stress of the likelihood that the go ahead for gender reassignment would never occur due to my psychiatric problems.
(3) It was an interest stemming from autistic like behaviour that developed an obsessional quality.

I think it’s both possible to be gender dysphoric and experience psychosis. It’s also possible to mistakenly think your are transsexual as part of a delusional process. Proof of the latter would be such thoughts disappearing with the adminstration of antipsychotics.

I think if you are gender dysphoric and experience psychosis then the biggest barrier would be how the illness affects your ability to function socially. If you have good social functioning then the greater likelihood you’ll be able to successfully transition.

The problem is how to help those who are gender dysphoric but have poor social functioning suggesting transition may be problematic.
This would almost certainly have been the case with me , and is probably true of a number of people who may be both gender dysphoric and experience psychosis

@firemonkey

This link will explain the criteria for gender-reassignment surgery:

http://www.thetransgendercenter.com/index.php/prerequisites.html

I had some idea of that before. It doesn’t suggest someone is not gender dysphoric but rather the grounds for giving the go ahead for surgery.
I think with my social difficulties I would have had problems with the ‘true life’ test irrespective of whether I was gender dysphoric or not.

1 Like

@firemonkey

Yes, this is true.

I just wanted to point out that before any forms of treatment for transition (hormone therapy, etc.) is the criterion of a long period of emotional stability.

2 Likes

I think it would depend on how you defined ‘emotional stability’. Being gender dysphoric itself could well affect a person on an emotional level.

1 Like

diction is confusing enough. a little more punctuation. please. :sob:

just kidding… (sniffle)

Edit: okay, I read it slower and I understood it gramatically. now I’m grabbing my dictionary for round 2

@firemonkey

True.

This brings us to DSM-5, which lists Gender Dysphoria as a mental disorder. The criteria is too narrow, and makes nearly everyone who is transgender as having a mental disorder.

We’ve been down this road before with the DSM as to homosexuality.

One of the sections of this giant book I read had to do with gender dysphoria/trans kids and there was this one doctor who claimed this high success rate for keeping kids as their birth gender, but when you looked at them as adults they were all depressed and many had committed suicide. So just because they don’t change their gender it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re solving the problem.

3 Likes