ceciliasol posted:

some are born with biological body that doesn't match their gender identity which can be diagnosed by doctors

Actually, you can't diagnose. Medicine currently uses the DSM and CID classifications of "gender identity disorder" or "transsexualism" to try and separate "real trans people" from those who "aren't real". This approach is flawed, people who have been diagnosed based on medical criteria sometimes detransition, and many people who don't fit the criteria are just as transgender as me or anyone else.

Well then, nightblade96 was right. It is just your viewpoint and you can't force it on other people. You can go and change your body etc. but don't expect rest of people just accepting your whims. People who have dicks are guys, you can go and think differently but most people will disagree.

You seem to fail to understand that, that kind of acknowledge by medicine is important if you want it to be accepted world wide. Listing it as something that can be confirmed makes it a fact and give you argument to discuss with people. Also without it, you can forgot about being officially recognized as your psychological gender by government etc. because it would really be just a whim. You can choose how you want to live your life, but nobody else has to agree with it, but this way it force them to acknowledge it and in fact it normalizes it. If you want to be unique, only trans on earth, then go ahead, but that is not the case. It is something that happens to more people, hence it was studied and accepted. Without it getting a hormone therapy, surgery or any medical help in general would be much harder as well. So I really don't think you should trade all of this over not wanting transgender to be considered a disorder. Also you talk as if the fact there are some criteria is a bad thing. They use some of base personality testes, but the most important thing is still what you feel. As long as you experience dysphoria to some degree and identify as opposite gender, there shouldn't really be any issue with getting accepted for treatment. I actually heard nobody ever detransition or at least it is really rare, so in case they do, I'm more inclined to think they doctor did their job poorly. Decision to start hormones and get a surgery is huge and especially surgery is permanent, that is why there should be someone who make sure you make a right choice. There might be other things influencing your feelings, so talking to professional about it can clear up a lot of things and let you make sure, you want it. Again, I'm pretty sure it is rather fault of poor doctors that some people were rejected rather than issue with process of diagnosing itself. So I don't think they are being mean and accept or reject people at random and still overall having some kind of moderation and guidance is better than people just doing it on their own and regretting later.

There's a strong international movement towards the depatologization of transgender identities (let me remind you that lesbians, gays and bisexuals were once under the same diagnosis criteria, but have since then been recognized as real by most of society without the associated disease stigma).

Look, cos it is getting ridiculous. Yes, being gay was once considered a mental illness etc. but isn't anymore, because doctors/researchers/scientist/whatever were researching it and didn't find a case and came to conclusion it is something that you are born with and you can't just change it. It isn't illness because it doesn't make you sick, hurt you or anything.

Now then look at being transgender. You are born with wrong body, you experience dysphoria, it negatively affects all aspects of your life. Is that something you consider normal? No, it isn't. That is why trans people undergo hormone therapy and surgery. Because they want to set things right, to make things feel the way they should. Natural. Is it depathologization of trans people? No, because it is a abnormal state. Being born with wrong body. Unless you want to say when you are trans being born with wrong body is natural. Then trans people shouldn't complain, because everything is the way it is supposed to be.

Being homosexual is not the same as being trans, so grouping it together and saying as if treatment of 1 term should be exactly the same as other is wrong. You are born with both, but they affect you differently. One is your sexual preference and other is your freaking gender identity. Being homosexual doesn't need being diagnosed, but being trans does, but doesn't make either any more real or fake. Again, if you want to be taken seriously you can't run away from reality that being transgender is not norm, it isn't something you see everyday. If it was just 1 person way of living then sure, there is no need of any acknowledge, but it isn't. It is a problem that bother more people and they all have similar roots and signs.

As I said before they didn't try to diagnose homosexuals to validated them. They tried to figure out what is the cause and cure it if possible, but they realized it has nothing to do with being sick. So the fact they removed homosexuality from list of illness doesn't suddenly validated gay people and make them officially real or something. Those who were gay were real all the time and they don't need validation. Being trans is not just your sexual preference. You identified as opposite gender so normally they would automatically consider you crazy and want to treat your head. Because that is not like 99% of humanity works. But they studied it and figured out that it is something that actually happens and you are not crazy. So again, they didn't suddenly validated all trans people, just confirmed it was something that you are born with. Still you talk as if being gay/lesbian/bisexual was easily accepted world wide. In both cases it takes time for entire society to accept it and we are still far from being done with accepting homosexuals, so trans people who are even rarer and even harder to grasp for most people, have even longer way. So even in case they would really remove it from list, it wouldn't magically make everyone accept trans people overnight.

they win a rare disease

Err... kinda horrible to refer to transgender people as diseased, don't you think?

Except it was just a comparison and I never called them "diseased". I was trying to be as direct as possible to get the idea through, but of course someone has to get offended over nothing. Actually I'm getting tired of people trying so hard to avoid using word like illness etc. so I can as well open that can of worms. Gender identity disorder is a mental illness, but there is nothing wrong with calling it that. First of all disorder and illness means the same thing in medicine. They try to avoid word illness and disease in some cases because people have bad associations with the word, but in practice there is no difference. Transgender people have a disorder between their body and mind, as in one is of 1 gender and other is of the other. As I said before, trying to change mind to fit their body never worked, and only changing of the body gives any positive effects, but that doesn't change the fact there is something wrong. You are depressed, feel discomfort and all that shitty stuff so in order to get better you need treatment. Cure if you will. The issue is not by pathologizing homosexuals or trans, by rather that most people view stuff like mental illness etc. negatively and avoid going to psychiatrists/psychologists to avoid being labeled as mentally ill etc. The freaking depression is considered as a mental illness and somehow nobody is getting shamed for saying they are depressed. So really we should instead focus on depathologizing people with mental illness and other stuff considered stigmatizing and turn it into norm. A lot people have mental illnesses, but they are not insane and can live normal lives. So yea, the part you decided to get offended by was basically "they already are unlucky to have a very rare serious illness they have to deal with and it is crappy already, so the least thing you can do is accept their struggle and don't insult them over it", but because there was a word disease in it you consider bad, you failed to notice the entire quote was positive.

Nya-chan posted:

If not for this tag shenanigans, I would have said too that it's yuri.

I pretty much only read it because I randomly checked dpf comment and his post about wondering if they should tag it futa or trans, but either way sex scene clearly points it is not yuri, made me rise a eyebrow, because it was clearly implying neither futa or trans can be considered yuri. So yea, I read it biased towards fact that You is supposed to be either of them and was reading it focusing on figuring which it is. Story did give me more of a trans vibe, but if I had read it blind, I might think differently.

EDIT/

ceciliasol posted:

who don't feel in the wrong bodies, just in the wrong imposed gender;

Well, most trans want to change their bodies to be as feminie as possible, so it is pretty good short cut for majority, but if you are ok with your body, more power to you.

last edited at Apr 15, 2017 2:49PM

I always kind of assumed that Kindaichi Renjuurou was friends with a trans lesbian when they were writing those chapters of Mermaid Line, since that's the sort of thing manga authors get really wrong a lot of the time (see Kyou Kara Yonshimai), but they managed a pretty good and reasonably respectful attempt at the subject. Certainly they took Aika's feelings about herself and her girlfriend seriously.

I'm not going to answer this point by point, just here to say that...

People who have dicks are guys

it is a abnormal state.

Being homosexual doesn't need being diagnosed, but being trans does,

Gender identity disorder is a mental illness

Transgender people have a disorder between their body and mind

...based on the things you say, and on the opinion you have of transgender people, I don't feel it would be productive to pursue this debate with you. Also, funny how you say I'm "imposing" my opinion that trans people aren't sick, but you're doing the exact same thing by saying we are.

I thought this was pretty good, and open to interpretation shrug Yuri, futanari, transgender...whatever. There's really no evidence that points more to one of those than another.
Good read, pretty cute too. I loved how Pito depicted You ^^

Oh, and also...

psychological gender

I take the feminist approach to gender systems, that is: All gender is a social construct and an imposition. Gender systems vary between different societies (some have up to 5 different genders) and so do gender roles. From this approach, there is no such thing as a "biological gender", only reproductive systems and sex characteristics which are later used to justify the existence of a hierarchical gender system in our society. Transgender people, under this viewpoint, are people who transgress the imposed gender, simply. The reasons that push them to transgress might include feeling in the wrong body, but that's one possibility.

But you obviously don't see things this way. And I respect that.
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@Nezchan

At the time Mermaid Line was written, those were still pretty common terminology, even in the west. I can't really judge it too harshly because they didn't know which direction the culture (in another country no less) was going to move. When I started to transition, there was considerable resistance to the word "transgender", but within a few years it was the default. Life comes at you fast.

I see, I agree with you there <3

last edited at Apr 15, 2017 4:04PM

ceciliasol posted:

I'm not going to answer this point by point, just here to say that...

People who have dicks are guys

it is a abnormal state.

Being homosexual doesn't need being diagnosed, but being trans does,

Gender identity disorder is a mental illness

Transgender people have a disorder between their body and mind

Because you are listing them out of context as supposedly bad things I said, it is clear you didn't understand anything from what I wrote.

and on the opinion you have of transgender people

Oh, do tell me what kind of opinion I have about transgender people, since I never stated any.

I don't feel it would be productive to pursue this debate with you.

You "corrected" me so I corrected you back, but sure, you can run away from difficult discussion if you want.

Also, funny how you say I'm "imposing" my opinion that trans people aren't sick, but you're doing the exact same thing by saying we are.

I'm not imposing my opinion, I'm stating the medical fact.

I'm not imposing my opinion, I'm stating the medical fact.

Well, I'm a medicine student and also member of the psychiatry league in my college, and as far as "medical facts" go, the issue of transgender people would be much better categorized as a "medical debate". I have met several psychiatrists who also support depathologization of transgender identities, and I have met my fair share of people who oppose this idea. There is no medical consensus about who are or what characterizes transgender people, the debate is quite heated and it's hard to point out anything as an uncontroversial fact.

So, yeah, it's your opinion.

last edited at Apr 15, 2017 3:52PM

I'm not imposing my opinion, I'm stating the medical fact.

yer being super gross and shitty about trans identity and insisting that you know better than trans people about our own identities and that's super fucked

I have to disagree with you Nevri.

Sex and gender are different. While you have few different sexes (male, female, intersex and some variations of it) expressed by biological characteristics, there are several ways to express gender, not necessarily linked to the biology and not always lived as a problem.

There are people perfectly happy with a male body, but who feel better when they are considered a woman.

So, it's not always the case that being transgender is a medical problem. It may just be a societal problem because other people deny them their happiness.

^Vivian. While I understand it's a touchy subject for you, could you please stop with the ad-hominem?

last edited at Apr 15, 2017 4:17PM

So, it's not always the case that being transgender is a medical problem. It may just be a societal problem because other people deny them their happiness.

This <3

The idea of "biological sex" is oversimplified because its not an A or B scenario. Even with intersex there's a lot of variety. Chromosomal sex may not align with what someone's apparent genitalia are, even at birth. Other secondary sex characteristics can also be at odds with an interpretation of "biological sex" that is simply "what bits do you got?" I would go so far as to say that divorcing biological sex from gendered terminology would be for the best but that's easier said than done.

Gender is an aspect of identity. It's a part of culture and such. Different cultures had different ideas of gender. Because of colonialism a lot of places that had different social ideas of gender had what we consider the modern idea of gender forced on them. The "you're either a boy or a girl, also I guess maybe some intersex people exist" idea of gender. This interpretation of gender is based purely on other people deciding someone's identity based purely on what their genitals are. It is an imposition. In truth, people aren't born as girls or boys or anything. They're born as people, then society imposes a gender identity on them and most of them grow up comfortable with the identity they've been told is theirs their whole life. There are people who don't grow up that way and those people are transgender. HRT and surgery are not treatments for being transgender. They're not "I'm going to make my body match my gender" because a penis isn't inherently male or female. Neither are breasts. HRT and surgery are treatments for gender dysphoria. It's treating the fact that your body doesn't feel correct for you and that that divide is tied to identifying as a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth. It's complicated. It's the difference between saying that to have a female body you have to have a vagina, and saying that I already have a female body cuz I'm a female and this is my body, but that I want to have surgery so that I can feel more comfortable in that body.

It's the difference between saying that to have a female body you have to have a vagina, and saying that I already have a female body cuz I'm a female and this is my body, but that I want to have surgery so that I can feel more comfortable in that body.

I agree with Vivian's comment entirely. If I might add something, it would be that the importance of these surgeries is often also tied to the need we have, as transgender people, to recognize ourselves and be recognized as a specific gender. This is partially why breast removal and facial feminization are so important to trans men and trans women respectively: because they influence how we perceive ourselves and how society will perceive us. One thing is recognizing that your body doesn't dictate your gender (society does that), another thing is day-to-day life, when these sex-related characteristics will affect your self perception and your psychological well being.

So even if we're not necessarily "in the wrong bodies", it turns out that HRT, SRS, FFS and other surgeries are still a necessity because we're all people inserted into a cissexist society filled with masculinity/femininity standards and that will judge us based on our bodies, and even push us to hate these bodies.

Even if you're not a radical social constructionist feminist/queer theorist, if you're a fan of accurate history then using a medical model for defining transgender is still pretty wacky - because the origin and modern meaning of the term did not come from doctors, it came from trans activists.

I'm not imposing my opinion, I'm stating the medical fact.

Well, I'm a medicine student and also member of the psychiatry league in my college, and as far as "medical facts" go, the issue of transgender people would be much better categorized as a "medical debate". I have met several psychiatrists who also support depathologization of transgender identities, and I have met my fair share of people who oppose this idea. There is no medical consensus about who are or what characterizes transgender people, the debate is quite heated and it's hard to point out anything as an uncontroversial fact.

So, yeah, it's your opinion.

Quite disingenuous. Your impression of the debate as a med student doesn't cancel out what is currently on paper. Nevri is referring to how GID/GD is currently described and handled pretty much exactly. The DSM isn't "just your opinion".

The DSM isn't always right either.

Quite disingenuous. Your impression of the debate as a med student doesn't cancel out what is currently on paper. Nevri is referring to how GID/GD is currently described and handled pretty much exactly. The DSM isn't "just your opinion".

Homosexuality used to be in the DSM, dear.

A large part of why GID is in the DSM is a lot of insurance companies won't cover trans-related medications unless it is.

Considering that GRS is, many times, quite literally a life saving surgery and therefore very much a medical necessity, I never could understand why most insurance companies refuse to cover it. It seems likely the friend I've mentioned before would no longer be alive if she hadn't had the chance to get that surgery.

Edit: At least insurance did help her pay for the hormones.

last edited at Apr 15, 2017 6:53PM

Considering that GRS is, many times, quite literally a life saving surgery and therefore very much a medical necessity, I never could understand why most insurance companies refuse to cover it. It seems likely the friend I've mentioned before would no longer be alive if she hadn't had the chance to get that surgery.

Edit: At least insurance did help her pay for the hormones.

Even more so, given the overall size of the population even if we all wanted hormones and surgery (which of course all of us don't) it wouldn't be all that expensive from an insurance perspective. It's cheaper than a lot of stuff they do cover.

There are so many issues with the DSM that i wouldn't use it to get your point across.

There are so many issues with the DSM that i wouldn't use it to get your point across.

And let's not forget that Ken Zucker worked on the DSM-5, and what a kettle of fish that is.

Are these tags temporary or does tag rules not mean anything anymore

Who's got the "hundred facepalm" gif? I could really use it right about now.

There are so many issues with the DSM that i wouldn't use it to get your point across.

And let's not forget that Ken Zucker worked on the DSM-5, and what a kettle of fish that is.

Yeah that was a mess.

Honestly I don't care how they tag it, trans, futa, yuri. But here's thoughts, yuri tagging rule is there must have no penis in the story(who doesn't agree?) oh and futa is female with dick not male with vagina, so if you insist transwoman(with dick) is female then futa is even more closer to female.