A stinging report finds that the majority of patients with gender dysphoria had at least one psychiatric Axis I comorbidity, the most common being major depressive disorder (33.7%), specific phobia (20.5%), and adjustment disorder (15.7%) [a].
Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis of depression. Yet being identified as a transsexual or diagnosed with gender dysphoria often stands in the way of getting a proper diagnosis of the comorbid or underlying psychopathologies.
Depression and Axis 1 disorders can be treated properly with psychiatric medication in conjunction with effective talk therapy. No change of gender is required.
Yet gender change pushers in the medical community continue to steer patients toward gender change as the first and only treatment. They don’t look for comorbid disorders in the transgender patient. They don’t consider that by pushing patients toward gender change they are preventing them from being diagnosed and treated for another disorder that, according to this study, is likely to be present in two-thirds of patients. For patients undergoing gender change, this can be a quick trip to suicide. For example, for the ones who suffer from major depressive disorder, when they are not diagnosed and treated for the depression, suicide is a highly likely outcome.
Suicide among transgenders seems proof enough: 1) that they are suffering from undiagnosed mental disorders and 2) that gender change is not effective treatment for the Axis 1 disorders present in the majority of patients.
A physician who works with transgenders makes some great points:
We have so many reports of so-called co-morbid disorders in transsexuals. We need to now ask, do transsexuals have co-morbid disorders or do transsexuals have one disorder (mental illness) with just a fabricated CO-DIAGNOSIS of gender dysphoria?
Has the medical profession concocted a new name for old psychiatric disorders? Have they given major depression, dissociative disorder, and so on a concocted CO-DIAGNOSIS called transsexualism, transgenderism, GID, Harry Benjamin Syndrome, gender dysphoria or whatever new label fits the social political climate?
Could gender dysphoria not actually be a disorder but just a symptom of a disorder, either of a) mental illness or b) an endocrine problem?
Just look at the features of the disorder major depression (DSM IV as used in the article)-
This disorder is characterized by the presence of the majority of these symptoms [b]:
- Depressed mood a majority of the time
- Markedly diminished interest
- Significant weight loss or weight gain
- Fatigue or loss of energy
- Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
- Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation.
The symptoms of depression sound a lot like those of gender dysphoria because “dysphoria” is defined as dissatisfaction with life; hence, transgenders are a depressed population, which is further evidenced by suicides.
In my view, the gender change pushers are actively preventing proper care of transgenders and facilitating in their suicides.
Walt Heyer
Ref:
[a] Psychiatry J. 2014;2014:971814. doi: 10.1155/2014/971814. Epub 2014 Aug 11.
Psychiatric Axis I Comorbidities among Patients with Gender Dysphoria.
Mazaheri Meybodi, Hajebi, Ghanbari Jolfaei
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25180172?log$=activity
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