Gender Identity Disorder? Yes, identifying with a gender is a disorder!

The details, whether the specific gender that one identifies with happens to correspond with the genes and/or organs of their body or otherwise, is irrelevant:
We are not a gender, so identifying with what we are not (in this case a gender) is indeed a mental illness!

I'd be happier if the contemplated surgery just altered the attraction to normalize it as appropriate for the external gender specific biology? And not brand new science!?

But reportedly already trialled in scotland in the seventies?

One can remove breasts or turn an internalised penis into a pseudo vagina and load up with artificially induced hormones to alter outward appearance, that sometimes comes with quite massive negative consequences?

But to date none of the far less intrusive reported surgical experiments, that as far as I'm aware, simply burn out the inappropriately firing sexual specific centres in the basal ganglia.

And given all that vastly more radical alterations currently supported and in vogue, is clinically and chemically possible?

What then of same sex marriage, if one partner appears to all observers as a well muscled bearded man!? Or alternatively, a woman replete with (surgically achieved) breasts, a vagina and inwardly relocated testicals?

Oddly, few in the gay community seem to want or welcome the normalization of their gender with what would be "normal" or straight, according their biology, or gender specific genitalia.

But have no problem, it would seem, with far more radical aforementioned procedures, that alter outward appearances only, rather than the tiny neurological, entirely autonomous, motor centres at the base of the brain, that control or decide all of it?

And no Dr Brown, I am not talking about shock treatment or aversion therapy, which is a very different treatment aimed a very different parts of the brain! And as such, less than worthless or effective!
Alan B.

Big Nana: McHugh, the psychiatrist from Johns Hopkins, to who you refer has been thoroughly discredited.

McHugh himself wrote in 'Psychiatric Misadventures', "It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it." These are not the words of someone who dispassionately collected, analysed and interpreted data, but rather those of an ideologue who worked from the conclusion back.

(Basically, he is a hard-core Catholic ideologue who wishes to impose his theocratic views on the unwilling. His so-called research is only able to be published in magazines sympathetic to those views, not peer-reviewed journals.)

Zhou and others followed up on the influence of hormones upon the foetus and sexual identity, and reported in 'Nature' during 1995, "Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones." Their study might have been the first, but it hasn't been the last.

Kruiver and others reported (J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041) that "The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions."

The more our ability to probe into brains advances, the more we see biology at work. Furthermore, the evidence on outcomes shows that transsexual people who receive sex reassignment surgery have much better outcomes that those who do not. Dhejne, Lichtenstein et al (Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016885) conclude "Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group." In other words, sex reassignment surgery helps those who need it. Yes, they have are high suicide rate than the population at large, but that suicide rate is lower than for those who did not have sex reassignment.

The author and ACL ilk just can't countenance the idea that some folks just don't fit into a couple of neatly-defined boxes of gender and sexuality.

Their instinct when encountering such ambiguity is to panic, and try to shoe-horn those who are different into one of their religiously-defined little mental boxes in order to relieve their own confusion.

Most of us never think about what our gender identity
is because it usually matches our sex at birth.
Most of us can't really begin to imagine what it must be
like to feel that we were born with the wrong sex.

A few years ago I read the book -"He Did It Her Way -
Carlotta - Legend of Les Girls." It was a fascinating
and often hilarious journey into her world as a performer
and transexual who started life as a Balmain boy and went
on to have one of the first sex change operations in
Australia. Candid, witty and irreverent - classic Carlotta.

It made me realise that transgender people risk social
stigma, discrimination and harrassment. It also made me
realise that despite the risks of being open about one's
gender identity and living a life that feels truly
authentic can be life-affirming and even a life-saving
decision.

Hey LisaM,
I just want to say that I personally take offense at being labelled or referred to as 'cis'.
In future as to not trigger me and cause anxiety and depression, I'd prefer you referred to me as 'normal'.

Your use of the word 'cis' implies that a man and woman together is 'not normal'.
The word is construct designed by people who don't consider themselves as falling into this 'normal' category, which is not people in the 'normal' categories fault.

I disagree with political correctness in that it's implied that I must change my behavior due to someone else's problem.