Where's the Love?

You can read about it in any number of news items, psychology/psychiatry papers, or medical sites. You'll even see it in "diversity and inclusiveness" literature. They will consistently use the phrase "diagnosed with gender dysphoria." I saw it the other day and wondered about it.

The first term, "diagnosis," refers to "the process of determining by examination the nature and circumstances of a diseased condition." That is, something is broken and a diagnosis determines what it is. So, in the cases we're talking about, someone determined that there was a problem, a malady, a dysfunction. Something is broken. They diagnose the problem and discover the second term: gender dysphoria. According to WebMD, "People who have gender dysphoria feel strongly that their gender does not match their biology." Dysphoria is the opposite of euphoria and refers to unease or dissatisfaction with life. In this case, the person diagnosed with this condition feels unease or dissatisfaction with their feelings of gender versus their physical biology. Got it. Clear and straightforward.

Here's where I ran into difficulty. "Gender dysphoria," WebMD says, "used to be called 'gender identity disorder.' But the mismatch between body and internal sense of gender is not a mental illness." Well, if it's not a mental illness, what kind of disorder is it? Worse, the website says of the treatment, "The goal is not to change how the person feels about his or her gender. Instead, the goal is to deal with the distress that may come with those feelings" and they go on to explain ways they try to change the physical nature of their bodies to match their misguided feelings. Now, hang on a minute. The treatment for this malfunction is to encourage it?

I know. Anyone these days who opposes "transgender" in any way is a hater. That's the popular position. And, to be completely honest, some might hate over it. But to me, I don't get it at all. We agree that there is a "disorder" and we agree that it requires a "diagnosis" and we agree that there needs to be treatment. Yet, the notion in today's popular culture is that the proper treatment when someone says "My gender doesn't match my biology" is to ignore the insanity of such a statement and encourage it. That's like saying, "We've diagnosed you with cancer, so we're going to start treatments to induce the growth of those cancer cells." I don't call it "insanity" to be mean; I call it what it is -- an outright denial of reality. We don't encourage the guy who thinks he's Napoleon to continue thinking he's Napoleon. We don't encourage the person with memory loss to "forget about it." We do encourage people who incorrectly understand their own sex to continue in it and even lie to them about changing their bodies to match. (Note: It's a lie because no male body can become a female body or vice versa.) What kind of crazy are we?

Where's the love, people? Why don't we care about their suffering? Why don't we help them? It has to be hard to be so confused that simple biology escapes them. It only makes it harder when you encourage them on down that path. Why don't we care about the "T" of LGBT? They're in trouble and we should be helping them. Instead, we're pushing them on down the road. "Be warm and fed" without giving them what it takes. How is that love?

At some point we decided that "love" meant "Encourage them to do and be whatever they feel like" even though we know that very likely won't end well. They feel like being lazy, so encourage it? They feel like being selfish, so encourage it? They feel like they're losers, so encourage it? No! We need to encourage people to be better than that. But when someone does it in this case, that person is the hater? I don't see it. Seems to me that genuine love would want to help rather than encourage the denial of reality. Where's the love?