We used to treat mental illness with the goal of helping people. An apt example is how we responded to the epidemic of eating disorders that began in the 1970s and accelerated into the 1980s.
According to the Mental Health Foundation of the United Kingdom, “bulimia nervosa (commonly known as bulimia) is an eating disorder and a serious mental health problem.” The risks of anorexia are similarly concerning. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice observed, “Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a serious mental illness, characterized in part by intense and irrational beliefs about shape and weight, including fear of gaining weight.”
Writing in Psychology Today, Dr. Emily Deans observed, “Eating disorders in adolescents are strongly predicted by the earlier presence of depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety.” Her treatment recommendations include, “A personalized approach, based on treating underlying depression, anxiety, nutritional deficiencies, and teaching that our bodies deserve to be nourished with proper, whole foods can be surprisingly effective.”
But different illnesses affecting young people are treated differently. Many people today not only discourage treating the mental illness that underlies gender confusion in children, they deliberately exacerbate it. The differences between treating eating disorders and self-proclaimed transgenderism are staggering.
There is a minuscule percentage of people whose chromosomal sex is at variance with their medically observed sex characteristics. It is very real and demands substantial medical intervention. By contrast, most people claiming to be transgender suffer a mental disorder and are not being treated with the same care as those afflicted by eating disorders.
Transgenderism was classified by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder until 2012. But the behavior of transgenders mirrors the APA’s definition of delusions. According to the APA, delusions are “an often highly personal idea or belief system, not endorsed by one’s culture or subculture, that is maintained with conviction in spite of irrationality or evidence to the contrary.”
If a man maintains with conviction that he is a woman in spite of chromosomal, anatomical, endocrinological and other evidence to the contrary, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that man is delusional. This, according to a WebMD item reviewed by Dr. Smitha Bhandari, is “a type of serious mental illness called a psychotic disorder.”
The Cleveland Clinic advises treatment for delusions to include “psychotherapy (talk therapy) and medication,” further noting, “people with severe symptoms or who are at risk of hurting themselves or others might need to be admitted to the hospital until the condition is stabilized.”
The treatment for delusions parallels that of eating disorders, yet it is too often denied to people suffering from transgenderism. That’s because, unlike transgenderism, there is no political advantage in promoting eating disorders. People are not demanding construction of vomitoria for bulimia sufferers. We do not affirm the delusions of people with anorexia or tell them to embrace their warped body image while encouraging self-starvation. We do the compassionate thing and treat them, putting them on a path to good health and happy lives.
But because young people confused about their gender are politically useful, Leftists exploit them and dissuade them from obtaining the medical treatment they need. They instead force them deeper into mental illness by promoting the lie that they can simply alter natural law on a whim.
This cruelty is being perpetrated in pursuit of Marxism, and totalitarians have a long history of exploiting children. Vladimir Lenin declared a century ago, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted,” and Lenin’s philosophy continues today. This is not caring or compassionate. Transgender ideologues see these children as disposable, as collateral damage, in their quest to un-do the American founding.
Today’s events are reminiscent of China’s Cultural Revolution which destroyed millions of families and left millions more dead. While the United States is a long way from the mass murder committed by the Red Guards, the intentional family tumult promoted by the Revolution is eerily echoed by supporters of the LGBTQ agenda. It is designed to destroy what Marx called, “the bourgeois family,” and they do so by preying on the insecurities of adolescents and the innocence of younger children.
Eventually, the Cultural Revolution ended and so will our current chaos. When it does, I believe history will reflect on this era with tremendous shame and bewilderment at how we allowed it to happen. The guilt will be such that people promoting this agenda today will deny their involvement, but they cannot escape the ignominy of their actions.
Until then, we must continue to show compassion for those afflicted by this ideology. To truly, genuinely care about children deceived into believing their gender delusions is to recognize their illness and advocate for their proper care, just as we do for those suffering from bulimia, anorexia, and other mental disorders.
Sorry Scotty. Those afflicted with bulimia and anorexia are not picking up rifles and shooting up Churches.
The dems as a whole are normalizing the murder of Christians and Maga folks. So expect more of it, particularly from the trans crowd…..until normal people finally get enough of it.
Jane Fonda recently talked about the murder of pro-lifers on the View. Everyone just laughed it off….she meant it.
A Michigan leftist college prof said conservative on-campus speakers should be killed.
And Hogeson is blathering on about bulimia and anorexia trying to equate them with trans genderism.
You make good points. However, the way I read this article is not as Hogeson equating transgenderism with bulimia/anorexia. Rather, he is saying that people who are TRULY suffering from gender dysphoria should get the same kind of psychological help as bulimic and anorexic people because they both have a mental illness/disorder.
The “trans” movement of today has little to do with true mental illness. I refuse to believe that all of a sudden, they are everywhere when they used to be exceedingly rare just 30 years ago. It’s social contagion, profound delusion and pathetic attention-seeking at its worst. They are enabled by a seriously misguided medical community (follow the money!), by the educational system who thinks it’s OK to have men in drag read children’s stories to toddlers, and even by their own parents!
And look at all the “benefits” they get – men competing against women and winning medals (I don’t see the victory in that); preferential treatment, having all their demands met just because, going into women’s locker rooms and restrooms and sexually assaulting women, and the worst – the deranged ones who commit mass murder are somehow “excused” because the rest of us are supposedly “threatening their existence”..
To the leftist ideologues, they are useful idiots who are helping dismantle our society, our values, and eroding at our sense of what is “normal” and “abnormal”.
Isn’t it also true that the psychological associations and some state laws make it a career-ending offense for the psychologists or physician to do anything except to accept the deluded person’s assertion of being “trans”?
Liberal Environmentalism s mental disorder caused by watching Gore and DiCaprio’s two fake films after being raised on too many episodes of Captain Planet
100 percent in agreement until the second last paragraph … No, Scott, this will NEVER end … It won’t end any more than ‘gay rights’ or radical environmentalism will ever go the way of China’s Cultural Revolution … Sure, you can dream of a day where people will look back at all this and say “What the hell were they thinking?” but that’s never going to happen …
In other words, the inmates now control the asylum, perverts run the schools and entertainment industry and chicken-shit politicians run the government. What could go wrong?