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Titan_Atlas

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No, but a professional can diagnose a person who's schizophrenic by talking to them and learning about their feelings and behavior, right? It's not a matter of believing them when they say they're believing followed, it's a matter of acknowledging that there's a reason they believe it.

"Mentally ill" is a loose term (and one that the American Psychiatric Association no longer uses to describe trans people) that encompasses a wide range of conditions that affect people in a wide variety of ways. It does NOT mean "this person is crazy and can't be trusted to answer questions about himself in order to make a diagnosis".

I'll ask you again to consider the studies that were done that showed that trans people's brains were different from regular people and that they reacted to a chemical scent differently than regular people. They did these tests on people that had been DIAGNOSED with gender dysphoria. If the people they were observing had not actually suffered from GD, then they wouldn't have gotten the results they did. Clearly the diagnosis process was doing something right, and it's beyond foolish to insist that we simply can't diagnose GD because "feelings" are involved.
The problem is objective measurements. Psychiatry likes to shift and water down the standards based on what seems like political reasons. It's a lot like women firefighters. If we have a set of objective standards and a woman believes she can accomplish them, that's great she has an equal opportunity to try. The minute for political reasons you go in a butcher those standards for feelings you have weakened the entire system. Everyone on these boards understands there are people with GD and that there is good science to back up the chemical differences. But if we are going back into the definition and redefining the classification for non objective reasons like political popularity, then we now have to question the classification itself.
 

Tanoomba

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The problem is objective measurements. Psychiatry likes to shift and water down the standards based on what seems like political reasons. It's a lot like women firefighters. If we have a set of objective standards and a woman believes she can accomplish them, that's great she has an equal opportunity to try. The minute for political reasons you go in a butcher those standards for feelings you have weakened the entire system. Everyone on these boards understands there are people with GD and that there is good science to back up the chemical differences. But if we are going back into the definition and redefining the classification for non objective reasons like political popularity, then we now have to question the classification itself.
I agree with all of that.

It just turns out that the best way to diagnose people who actually suffer from gender dysphoria is to talk to them about it. Is there a possibility people will lie to scientists for political reasons? I guess, but you can't change the thickness of your cerebral cortex with politics. We don't know it all, but we were able to pick out enough actual GD cases (by asking questions) to observe a pattern in their brain shapes.

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can pee on that will tell you if you suffer from gender dysphoria. So far, the people who do suffer from GD experience predictable behavior and thoughts over lengthy periods of time, which is what you find out by asking about it. Is it a perfect system? No, we're still learning about this. Do we suffer from a glut of GD false positives? Not as far as I've heard. To dismiss a method which has given us proven results seems silly to me, especially since the alternative seems to be "assume GD can't be diagnosed, thereby preventing people who do suffer from it from getting treatment".
 
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khalid

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Do we suffer from a glut of GD false positives? Not as far as I've heard.

I like the rest of your post, but I think you are too sanguine about false positives here. For example, how would we know exactly how many false positives are we getting? I am unaware of any statistics on people changing their mind, other than maybe something to do with the suicide rate (which could be for all kinds of other reasons than simply regretting the change).

Given the media climate right now, where the quickest way to get social capitol amongst some groups is to claim some sort of transgender issues, I would be shocked if we didn't have a significant chunk of people exaggerating their issues. I'm not claiming that they are lying, just being confused.


The science and culture around this issue is just a mess atm. Scientists are under immense pressure to make particular findings in this situation. We definitely need more statistics, but in this environment it would take a brave scientist (or a daring PhD student with a brave adviser) to wade into these waters.
 

Tanoomba

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Adebisi:
It's crazy how much Peterson has blown up.

We were there from the ground floor.
It's not crazy at all. We've seen this happen many times before.

When a large number of vocal fanatics use half-truths and misinformation to try to portray someone as a villain, that person ends up being seen as the victim by non-fanatics and experiences a boom in popularity, fame, support, and possibly influence and fortune.

See: Donald Trump, Anita Sarkeesian, Dr. Matt Taylor, etc.
 
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fanaskin

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It just turns out that the best way to diagnose people who actually suffer from gender dysphoria is to talk to them about it. Is there a possibility people will lie to scientists for political reasons? I guess, but you can't change the thickness of your cerebral cortex with politics.

nobody does a scientific test on a cortex to diagnose anything, stop insinuating that happens.
 

fanaskin

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also people don't have to lie to believe nonsense whole heartedly
 

Tanoomba

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you mention it every 2 seconds implying heavily it is
I implied nothing of the sort.

I said that the scientists who showed that trans people have different brains than regular people did so by studying people that had been DIAGNOSED with GD, as did the scientists who found that they react differently to certain scents. Clearly, we are more than capable of diagnosing GD with pretty decent accuracy if the people we diagnosed share biological characteristics that separate them from those who don't suffer from GD. Your claim that we can't diagnose GD because of "feelings" is flat-out wrong.
 
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fanaskin

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show me that test used on one person for a diagnosis and not some study
 

fanaskin

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They ask them questions.

how does the doctor know if the questions are genuinely diagnosing someone without doing a scientific test like this mythical cortex test you keep talking about
 

DickTrickle

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The research that was being talked about not being currently translatable to a test an every day doctor can do doesn't invalidate anything. If so, then plenty of shit that started out in labs and research should have been abandoned before it developed into to a more widely usable form. And, if indeed that scent study was able to differentiate GD versus not, then it's supporting the idea that the current diagnosis method actually has some merit.
 
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fanaskin

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so unverifiable and based on subjective response, got it.
 
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DickTrickle

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The scent study had a small number of people but if it had a much larger and broader population and the outcome was the same and it was repeated by other teams, I think it'd be hard to argue that a GD diagnosis isn't precise. It's an interesting data point for now, but the I think the concept of the test has validity as it relates to GD diagnosis.

Or are you just concerned that people are going to lie to get said diagnosis, not that truthful people can be accurately diagnosed?

It doesn't even seem like the diagnosis should be so political because that's not the real sticking point, it's what is to be done about people who do have GD (ie, treat it as a mental health disorder or start the transition path).
 

Tanoomba

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how does the doctor know if the questions are genuinely diagnosing someone without doing a scientific test like this mythical cortex test you keep talking about
You're still not understanding this.

It's not a "mythical cortex test". Doctors don't measure the cortex to determine if someone has GD or not. However, studying the cortexes of people who had ALREADY been diagnosed through established means found that there are likely biological factors that differentiate sufferers of GD from the general population. The cortex studies acted more as a confirmation that there is biology behind GD than as a diagnostic tool itself.
 
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