Transgenderism is a mental illness

Thank you, Con. Here are my rebuttals of his arguments.IntroductionCon argues that gender is connected to sex and that a sex change will not change your biology, but this is irrelevant to the resolution he set up. This can easily be thrown out because of this. Despite this, I would like to address the statements he made here.First, let's examine the difference between sex and gender. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "[g]ender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men" [1]. Sex is biological and it is what you are born as (male, female, and intersex). There is one major difference between these two: gender is socially constructed, but sex is not. Gender is connected to sex in the sense that one's gender identity typically lined up with their biological sex, but biology doesn't completely control both. There are biological links to gender, but that relates to transgender people having a similar brain structure to their gender identity [2], proving that transgenderism isn't a mental illness.I will give my opponent one thing: sex changes will not change your biology. However, that isn't the reason most transgender people get a sex change. Most do it feel comfortable with their body. It is why transgender people take medicines to induce the production of more estrogen or testosterone, why they get plastic surgery to "pass" as their gender, and why they choose to modify their genitals to correspond with the opposite biological sex. Yes, the biological sex they were born as will never change, but that doesn't mean that transgender women aren't women or transgender men aren't men.QuestionsI. Suicide RateMy opponent states that the national suicide rate of transgender people is very high. He doesn't use any citations and ignores the causes of these rates, but I digress. He asks for the causes, and I will gladly show them.The causes of transgender suicide rates are not due to their identity, but to outside factors like sexual assault, physical abuse, harassment in school, and job loss [3]. All of these are most due to discrimination against transgender people."Those who expressed a transgender identity or gender non-conformity while in grades K-12 reported alarming rates of harassment (78%), physical assault (35%)and sexual violence (12%); harassment was so severe that it led almost one-sixth (15%) to leave a school in K-12 settings or in higher education" [4].II. Hormonal Treatment for ChildrenI must ask my opponent one thing: how does this relate to the resolution? Where are the citations? He show no sources to prove the instance of the child in Australia or the "fact" that children grow out of their gender identity. I would like to see the sources before addressing this point. III. No Evidence of Decreased Suicide After Transition This is yet another case of my opponent providing no evidence. However, I do want to address this because I think it advances my case. Firstly, my opponent fails to understand that correlation does not equal causation. Just because suicide rates may not decrease after a sex change (which he hasn't proven) doesn't mean that it is a result of being transgender. The statistics I presented earlier show that transgender people are often victims of harassment, assault, and violence. All of these are proven to cause psychological distress. Can't these lead to suicide? What if they have a mental illness (depression, bipolar disorder, etc.)? That can result in suicide. No one knows the exact inner-workings of another person's mind. Say one does face these issues shown in the statistics. These are not resolved with a sex change. Memories of possible sexual violence, bullying, and assault will not disappear or change because of surgeries or hormone therapies. Citations[1]http://www.who.int...[2]https://www.google.com...[3]http://www.marieclaire.com...[4]https://www.google.com...