Is Transgender a symptom of Schizophrenia?

(I will preface this by saying this is my first post and i am on phone, so please forgive any formatting errors.)

So, i was sitting here drinking a few beers, strolling through ATS as usual, reading about the same topics as usual. Usually Trump, Immigration, and Politics these days, boring stuff but stuff that needs to be acknowledged and thought upon. Anyhow, when it came to the discussion of trans people, i see several arguments on why everyone should agree with it, why they should not, to what limitations should we agree with it, yet, i havent seen a single thread or comment discussing or debating the potential underlying principles on why or how it happens. Maybe i lack a lot of intelligence or critical thinking after a few beers... or maybe im on to something. So, i decided to make a thread, i feel this forum would be most appropriate and i hope i am correct. Now, my thinking is someone who is trans is pretty much schizophrenic.
By definition:

schiz·o·phre·ni·a
/ˌskitsəˈfrēnēə,ˌskitsəˈfrenēə/Submit
noun
a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation.

My thinking now is that someone who was born one gender yet “feels” they are another is technically schizophrenic because they have lost touch with reality and have fallen so far into a state of delusion that they have created and now follow another state of reality of their own making. It is fantasy. Their perception of how they were actually born and who they feel they are is faulty.

Personally, i dont have anything against the Lgbt++++ community. Some good friends of mine are gay. Majority of the gay and lesbian people that i know are some of the funniest people and have the absolute most amazing personalities. So this is definitely not a hate topic. I am just curious as to whether or not others have thought the same thing and those that see it in other ways and never thought of this way, does it make sense? Or am i the one thats not seeing things the right way?

At the very least i just hope to provoke some intelligent thought and debate.

Another way of putting it would be that they have lost touch with 'your' reality. They might have a different way of viewing the world and themselves to me or you, but that doesn't necessarily make them 'disordered' or 'delusional'.

I'm no professional, but in my honest and humble opinion, there is a screw loose somewhere in their brain.
I have seen some examples of one sex trying to look like the other that were just horror show material.

I'm no professional, but in my honest and humble opinion, there is a screw loose somewhere in their brain.
I have seen some examples of one sex trying to look like the other that were just horror show material.

My interpretation is that transgender people basically suffer from a lack of self-esteem. They cannot accept themselves as they are, and have become fixated on the idea that their lives would be better if they had born the opposite gender. Studies have shown that post-operative transgender people really aren't any happier than they were before. (For example, a while back Caitlin Jenner said she was thinking about becoming a man again.) It's because they're treating the symptoms, not the underlying issue.

a reply to: twfau

You have a point... but on that same note that can be applied to anyone diagnosed as schizophrenic... at which point schizophrenia would no longer exist.

a reply to: PhatalError

I do not believe so but anything is possible. At this point we do not know the cause of pretty much anything medical, on the grand scale of things.

Interesting thought though. It opens up the possibility to many other things being due to schizophrenia.

Imagine seeing a burning bush and hearing someone talk to you: schizo.
Imagine hearing god and talking to him through your daily prayer: schizo.
Seeing aliens and getting abducted: schizo.
Interacting with ghosts or hearing things in your house: schizo.

Etc...

Can you discount religion being started by schizophrenics and then it just caught on? None of us can, any more than Gay or Transgender people are schizophrenic.

Here is an interesting thought to me... being gay appears to be normal in the nature. Some 3% of the animals in hetero species still engage in gay sex. This does not help the species thrive but it still happens.

So at the very least, gay is normal and represented everywhere in nature, among many species and sub-species.

However, is there transgender in the nature? Will we ever know since animals can't talk to us? Does your male cat actually feel female? Does that female hippo wish she had a dong?

I think being gay is different from being a transgender person. Most gays don't want to change anything. Transgender people are dysphoric to the point of debilitation pushing them to change their physiology. From what I have read, once they change their physical body, the dysphoria may or may not go away. Suicide rates are very high in the trans community.

Anti-psychotic drugs don’t work on people with true gender dysphoria. It’s been tried.

It’s important to remember that people with gender dysphoria don’t suffer from any schizophrenia symptoms: no imaginary voices, no feelings of paranoia, no hallucinations or visions.

Science has not cracked the code on gender dysphoria yet, but more and more evidence is found that it is more a physical issue and less a psychological issue. The only psychological part is when the person feels distress at the incongruence between how the brain has developed verses how the physical body has developed.

I can imagine that someday, science will figure out what is happening here, and will be able to either change the brain to match the body, or be able to change the development of the body in utero to match the brain.

originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan
My interpretation is that transgender people basically suffer from a lack of self-esteem. They cannot accept themselves as they are, and have become fixated on the idea that their lives would be better if they had born the opposite gender. Studies have shown that post-operative transgender people really aren't any happier than they were before. (For example, a while back Caitlin Jenner said she was thinking about becoming a man again.) It's because they're treating the symptoms, not the underlying issue.

I think there are times when all of us believe that I am happy or unfulfilled because of .......(fill in the blank). I think some of these people believe that this gender change will fill that emptiness. Some people think if they had more money, some if they were more attractive, the list is endless. It's an attempt to fill the void.

I do think there are some that have hormone imbalances as well, but I suspect more feel it will make them feel ok about themselves. I doubt that it ever does.

a reply to: PhatalError

Some people argue that schizophrenia doesn't exist, as no-one has been able to convincingly identify any particular biological mechanism that is responsible. There may be shared perceptual and attentional symptoms and some cognitive impairment among people but none of that is actually a physical 'thing'.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

That makes tons of sense.
I would agree with that.
Maybe that sort of “shock treatment” where you are forced to face reality could work for varying levels of schizophrenia.
Maybe its as you said, the lack of self esteem and being faced with a permanent option, people tend to choose the less drastic route... but then again going back to my original point, many people who are schizophrenic(at least early on), from my understanding do have long bouts of general “normality”. So scheduling the appointment to make it permanent could have been in a deeper “episode” of schizophrenia. Opting out could have been done in a state of “normality”

a reply to: queenofswords

Exactly. It's really extremely short-sighted to lump homosexuals and transgender people together. For gays, the issue has always been lack of societal acceptance. For transgender, the issue is really about personal acceptance, and not chasing after a mythical idea that the other sex has it better than you do. It's really the polar opposite of the issue homosexuals face.

a reply to: skunkape23

there is a screw loose somewhere in their brain.

exactly, but we don't know enough about the human brain to fix it...so we have to stick with what we do know, modifying the body... to enable a mental disorder.

originally posted by: Mahogany


Here is an interesting thought to me... being gay appears to be normal in the nature. Some 3% of the animals in hetero species still engage in gay sex. This does not help the species thrive but it still happens.

So at the very least, gay is normal and represented everywhere in nature, among many species and sub-species.

However, is there transgender in the nature? Will we ever know since animals can't talk to us? Does your male cat actually feel female? Does that female hippo wish she had a dong?

Sweet by your amazing logic, Murder Rapes Incest are ok they are just natural things that happen maaaaaan.

Granted IDGAF about someones sexuallity, I just think your logic is hella flawed.

The whole premise of if it occurs in nature it must be great is stupid.

Heres a fun one for ya, spotted Hyenas and their pseudopenis.

a reply to: PhatalError

Wait a second, you don't have anything against the lgbt++++ community but you want to submit them to SHOCK TREATMENTS? To turn them back to normal?

Why not leeches?

Why not lobotomy?

I don't think you represented your view accurately in the OP. It looks like you do have a problem with it.

I would ask all your gay friends what they think. Maybe they have a solution for you.

originally posted by: Lysergic

originally posted by: Mahogany


Here is an interesting thought to me... being gay appears to be normal in the nature. Some 3% of the animals in hetero species still engage in gay sex. This does not help the species thrive but it still happens.

So at the very least, gay is normal and represented everywhere in nature, among many species and sub-species.

However, is there transgender in the nature? Will we ever know since animals can't talk to us? Does your male cat actually feel female? Does that female hippo wish she had a dong?

Sweet by your amazing logic, Murder Rapes Incest are ok they are just natural things that happen maaaaaan.

Granted IDGAF about someones sexuallity, I just think your logic is hella flawed.

The whole premise of if it occurs in nature it must be great is stupid.

Heres a fun one for ya, spotted Hyenas and their pseudopenis.

Are you sure you wanted to quote me? Because I said nothing of that sort, you're just making stuff up.

Can I have some of what you seem to be smoking?

Google likes to put this article at the very top if you look them up haha;

Penis means power. The dominance of dicks and those who have them isn’t a coincidence, or the unavoidable consequence of Big Patriarchy keeping women down—rather, it’s a case of simple biology. In most mammalian embryos, the genital tubercle forms very early, later developing into either a penis or a clitoris, subject to a complex cocktail of influential hormones. Androgens like testosterone stimulate penile growth and are also associated with aggression, so the relationship between actual dicks (penises) and figurative dicks (aggressive jerks) is axiomatic. But amazingly, in the case of female-dominant spotted hyena societies, those boss bitches have actually evolved a sort of penis of their own.

Who doesn't love pseudopenis?
Maybe Kayla and crew can get some new avatar ideas hahahaha.

No most certainly not.

Do you even know anyone who is trans?

a reply to: Mahogany

Sure I'm not stingy, but it doesn't circumvent what you said.