Dept of Education declares that school must allow boy to shower with girls

[Admiral Yi]

Well to be fair to the Catholics ( ),  its a pretty obscure topic - I only heard about it in a social anthropology course in university ("Kinship and the Family", I believe).

The Dustin Hoffman movie "Little Big Man" featured one.

[Martinus]

for example, the "two spirited" were thought to have, basically, special ritual status and magical powers, which both gave them high status in some cases, but also exposed them to a lot of danger (if shit went wrong they were liable to be accused of causing it through bad sorcery).

So it's not different from the Western society after all. Of course our special ritual status mainly involves hosting Tonys and our magical powers seem to center around being able to tell eggshell from ecru.

Does that mean we ought to persecute you guys because you "caused" Eurovision? 

I'm afraid that shit has sailed long time ago.

[Malthus]

Well to be fair to the Catholics ( ),  its a pretty obscure topic - I only heard about it in a social anthropology course in university ("Kinship and the Family", I believe).

The Dustin Hoffman movie "Little Big Man" featured one.

Interesting. I haven't actually seen that movie.

[PDH]

Some Plains Indians had 4 genders.  It is often marginalized, but quite a few cultures have ritual gender fluidity at certain times.  The basic man-woman role is not fixed beyond culture, but defined within culture.

[garbon]

I think that since garbon and Marty are so emotionally and politically invested in this, they are ignoring what current medicine and science says about it.

Indeed.

The pro-transgender advocates do not want to know, said McHugh, that studies show between 70% and 80% of children who express transgender feelings "spontaneously lose those feelings" over time. Also, for those who had sexual reassignment surgery, most said they were "satisfied" with the operation "but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery."

"And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a 'satisfied' but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs," said Dr. McHugh.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/michael-w-chapman/johns-hopkins-psychiatrist-transgender-mental-disorder-sex-change

Ah yes, I would trust a man who stated these views. No bias:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._McHugh

McHugh believes that trans women who wish to surgically alter themselves to appear more anatomically female fall into two main groups: (1) "conflicted and guilt-ridden homosexual men" and (2) "heterosexual (and some bisexual) males who found intense sexual arousal in cross-dressing as females". McHugh, had several other impressions: First, "they [the transgender individuals] were little changed in their psychological condition. They had much the same problems with relationships, work, and emotions as before. The hope that they would emerge now from their emotional difficulties to flourish psychologically had not been fulfilled". Second, they expressed little interest in and seemed indifferent to babies or children (typically female interests). Third, they came off as caricatures of the opposite sex.

Also, I like the notion that I am emotionally and politically invested in this issue. It actually has no influence or effect on my life whatsoever.

[Razgovory]

I think Raz does believe homosexuality is a mental illness.

I think a very strong argument can be made.  It was essentially taken off the list of mental illnesses because it was thought the stigma of being a mental illness caused more harm then what little good they could do for it.  Essentially picked a morality over a purely scientific view.  It was probably the correct one.  It does demonstrate why science should be tempered with morals.  Consider this, if medical community reversed itself and declared it a mental illness would you regard garbon as mentally ill?

[Admiral Yi]

Ah yes, I would trust a man who stated these views. No bias:

Because he thinks transgenders are conflicted, you can't trust his opinion that transgenders are conflicted? 

[Razgovory]

Do you recognize this as a known mental illness as categorized by ISC and DSM?

Not so long ago, Martinus and Garbon would have been considered mentally ill.  Imho, it means the DSM is not infaillible.

No science is.  A science can be correct for the time but not correct at a later time.

[Razgovory]

I think it's a complex issue. I don't have a final view on this myself, but I get a sort of knee-jerk reaction to ignorance and bigotry.

[DGuller]

I get a sort of knee-jerk reaction to ignorance and bigotry.

Is that a complete list?

[viper37]

Do you recognize this as a known mental illness as categorized by ISC and DSM?

Not so long ago, Martinus and Garbon would have been considered mentally ill.  Imho, it means the DSM is not infaillible.

No science is.  A science can be correct for the time but not correct at a later time.

You do know that most psychological experiences can not be reproduced, right?

[Razgovory]

Do you recognize this as a known mental illness as categorized by ISC and DSM?

Not so long ago, Martinus and Garbon would have been considered mentally ill.  Imho, it means the DSM is not infaillible.

No science is.  A science can be correct for the time but not correct at a later time.

You do know that most psychological experiences can not be reproduced, right?

You mean that is subjective?  Yes I know this.  I was talking about changes in science.  Take gravity. Newtonian physics were correct in 1825, but were supplanted by Einstein's relativity.  So they were no longer correct in 1925.  A decision made based on Newtonian physics in 1825 would be one in line with scientific knowledge, but one made using Newtonian physics in 1925 may be not be.  Now we know our current understanding of gravity is still faulty.  So eventually a new theory will develop to explain gravity better and it will be correct.  Well hopefully.  It's entirely possible that we never develop a new theory.  It may simply be impossible for us to imagine, or we may all die off, or in the future nobody will care anymore.

Psychology is a bit more spotty, but the same basic concept applies.  In 1950 garbon might be considered to be suffering from a mental illness.  Today he would not.  In the future, a quality you have might be considered a mental illness and you would be classified as insane.  We are all just one definition change from lunacy. Such is the price of progress.

[viper37]

Do you recognize this as a known mental illness as categorized by ISC and DSM?

Not so long ago, Martinus and Garbon would have been considered mentally ill.  Imho, it means the DSM is not infaillible.

No science is.  A science can be correct for the time but not correct at a later time.

You do know that most psychological experiences can not be reproduced, right?

You mean that is subjective?  Yes I know this.  I was talking about changes in science.  Take gravity. Newtonian physics were correct in 1825, but were supplanted by Einstein's relativity.  So they were no longer correct in 1925.  A decision made based on Newtonian physics in 1825 would be one in line with scientific knowledge, but one made using Newtonian physics in 1925 may be not be.  Now we know our current understanding of gravity is still faulty.  So eventually a new theory will develop to explain gravity better and it will be correct.  Well hopefully.  It's entirely possible that we never develop a new theory.  It may simply be impossible for us to imagine, or we may all die off, or in the future nobody will care anymore.

Psychology is a bit more spotty, but the same basic concept applies.  In 1950 garbon might be considered to be suffering from a mental illness.  Today he would not.  In the future, a quality you have might be considered a mental illness and you would be classified as insane.  We are all just one definition change from lunacy. Such is the price of progress.

tectonic movement.  When the theory was first presented, it was accepted. Then it became ridiculed.  And now, we accept it as scientifical facts.
Take nutrition science.  Fat was good once.  Then it's been bad.  Today, we're told eating fat ain't that bad and when you stop ingesting it you won't lose weight unless you reduce your calory count too.  Science is often back&forth, depending on the studies. 

Of course we should base our policies on scientific knowledge of the moment.  But psychology, it's a grey area, even more so than most modern social sciences.  There's a clear lack of correct statiscal studies unlike other sciences like finance and economy, they don't even care about mathematical models that could try to explain human behavior.

So, if you're talking about the opinion of some psychologists whose studies can not be reproduced in controlled environments and whose opinion of a single subject will vary widly from expert to expert, I take this kind of reasoning, that we should base our policies on the opinion of these people with a grain of salt.  Also, the DSM is only used in America.  I wouldn't be surprised if Atheism was in there
But seriously, there is this:

While the DSM has been praised for standardizing psychiatric diagnostic categories and criteria, it has also generated controversy and criticism. Critics, including the National Institute of Mental Health, argue that the DSM represents an unscientific and subjective system.[1] There are ongoing issues concerning the validity and reliability of the diagnostic categories; the reliance on superficial symptoms; the use of artificial dividing lines between categories and from "normality"; possible cultural bias; and medicalization of human distress.

And finally, there is the fact that the DSM does not cover illness, but behavior.  If Garbon or Marty were insecure about their sexual orientation, it would be covered by the DSM, but not their sexual orientation per see.   As others told you, it is the same with transgendered people, the anxiety they may suffer from their condition is what the DSM is concerned about, not the transgenderism in itself.

[Jaron]

I haven't the time to read all 14 pages, but transgenderism is wrong and the Lesbian-Bi-Gay trialliance would do well to distance themselves from self mutilators.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I would also take issue with the concept that a married couple bringing up children in a loving and caring home is "vanilla". It is sufficiently rare nowadays to count at least as "strawberry" or possibly even "raspberry ripple".