Transgenderism should be considered a mental illness.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First off, Transgenderism is officially known as Gender dysphoria. “Gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder (GID) is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe people who experience significant dysphoria (distress) with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth. " Therefore, transgenderism already meets one criteria of the definition of the provided definition of mental illness( i. e. being known as a disorder). Now I will prove that transgenderism meets the other criteria for being a mental illness. One subset under the transgender umbrella terms is known as transsexualism. Transsexuals have the “desire to permanently transition to the gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including hormone replacement therapy and other sex reassignment therapies) to help them align their body with their identified sex or gender. ” It is a delusion to believe that you can change your sex by receiving surgery since the surgery is virtually genital mutilation. The type of surgery varies from being completely castrated to having your genitals inverted inside out. This does not change your sex at all whatsoever because biologically, every chromosome will still be the sex assigned at birth no matter what kind of surgery transsexuals would receive. The technology to change your body on a chromosomal level simply does not exist and is something that will likely be achieved quite far into the future from now. Classifying transgenderism as a mental illness would be the best course of action for society as it would promote awareness that transgenders need alternative methods of treatment that does not involve genital mutilation or hormone treatments. The reason why this point is important, is because according to a study, “between 70% and 80% of children who express transgender feelings ‘spontaneously lose those feelings’ over time. ” If transgender children were coaxed into following their passions by having surgery and other bodily treatment, then they would more than likely, feel regret later during their lives for having done so, and so they would suffer as a result of the feelings that made them want to be a transgender person. The term “suffering” in the context of my argument can be defined as: “. .. undergoing pain, distress, or hardship”. Reflecting back on the definition of a mental illness, “thoughts” and “emotions” are included as being the potential causes for “suffering to himself, herself, or other people. " Note that the definition of suffering includes “distress” just as gender dysphoria includes “distress” in parenthesis above. I took that quote out from the source as it was, without adding those terms in parenthesis to it. Therefore, transgender people feel distress as a result of their “thoughts” and “emotions” for being the gender they want to be. Even if my opponent argues transgenderism is a social construct, these definitions conclude that since transgenders do feel “distress”, they are essentially suffering. To elaborate further on this point: “. ..41% of people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming have attempted suicide sometime in their lives, nearly nine times the national average”. The thoughts and emotions of the transgender people caused them to adopt an abnormal mindset that made them want to attempt suicide. In other words, transgender people do cause suffering to themselves in response to their thoughts and emotions. In summation, transgenderism does meet the criteria of being considered a mental illness given that transgenderism is known as a disorder and how the thoughts and emotions of transgender people causes them suffering (e. g. distress). Sources: . http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... . http://www.cnsnews.com... . http://articles.latimes.com... . https://en.wikipedia.org...