Hey everybody sorry it's been a couple weeks since I posted. I took that covid shot and things got a little funky with it and I pretty much slept for a week. There there were a couple other unrelated issues after that which kept me off here. After my last post I started looking at the flow of my content and saw that it could be improved. Mainly it's the content that I already had written but not posted yet. I probably have about 40 pages of stuff that is pretty much an early draft that I could post. So my last post was Politics & Pawns part 4. In that post I talked about crooked politicians and then things in the Equality Act that I thought could be positive things. I then talked about one negative thing. I felt like that messed up the flow and should've been placed in another area. So I went back to that section and wrote something I thought would be more fitting. The Equality Act to my knowledge doesn't have squat about mental health issues so that's what I'm going to talk about today.
So those are a couple things that I think are positive that are in the Equality Act. Both are covered by other laws and don't necessarily need to be there but even so, they are positive things. There is another thing that is not in the Equality Act that I feel should be there. It may go in later but at this time it isn't there to my knowledge. This thing is funding for mental health issues. It doesn't exclusively apply to transgender people but it can apply to any vulnerable group. Mental illness has a really negative stigma attached to it and many don't like to talk about it. Due to the negativity surrounding it I feel many politicians are just too cowardly to bring it up. When people think about mental illness too many think about a really crazy person. Like someone running around naked throwing turds at people or some violent masturbator locked up in a padded cell. In most cases nothing could be further from the truth. There are times when good and intelligent people simply have issues they can't deal with and need help. There should be no shame in it. This shame is why many people that need help don't search it out and it needs to stop. I've had family members that needed counseling after the death of a parent. I was on antidepressants for a couple years as a teen. Transgender people have shown to be particularly vulnerable to different forms of mental illness.
A large study recently published by University of Cambridge's Autism Research Centre and published in the journal Nature Communications shows that trans people have higher rates of schizophrenia, depression, ADHD, bipolar disorder, OCD, and autism than the general population. According to the study they are 3 to 6% more likely to register on the autism spectrum. The attempted suicide rates are alarmingly high among trans teens. They are higher in males than females. According to a 2008 National Transgender Discrimination Study 45% of 18 to 24 year olds had attempted suicide in their lifetime. Other studies show that number vary from 28 to 52%. I mean I don't care how you personally feel about the people that number is horrifying. It doesn't matter who you are all life is precious. This is pretty terrible. That study doesn't even talk about the eating disorders seemingly tied to gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria of course refers to psychological distress where a person's perceived gender does not match their biological sex. To some it happens to later in life and others much earlier. Not all transgender people experience this dysphoria. This used to be referred to as Gender Identity Disorder. I think lately they are using the term Gender Incongruence. There's an ongoing debate about if it is actually a disorder or a sexual health condition. I'm just not going to wade into that one I think I'm just going to punt because for the purpose of this commentary it doesn't actually matter. Where the eating disorder comes in is the whole thing with body dissatisfaction. Someone might think that are too big or too little. They might try to lose muscle and that type thing to fit into a social norm of what they think they should look like to match their chosen gender. This is where gender affirming treatments like hormones and surgeries can come in and help these things. It's worth noting though that these gender reassignment surgeries don't always get those full healthy results that gets advertised. In terms of depression things do tend to improve but even after the surgery transgender people still suffer from depression at a higher rate than the general population. At the same time it isn't going to cure autism or any of these other illnesses. So continued counseling and therapy is a must.
This however, leads to something I have a huge issue with and not just here but everywhere. The problem is with the counselors and psychologists themselves. Basically in my opinion their strategy is flawed and unrealistic. When I look at these clinics and see these people talk all I hear is that we have to have these welcoming communities that are inclusive and diverse and how the world needs to change so that these folks can be happy and the suicide rate will go down. The problem is that is never going to happen. These doctors and so forth cannot control the minds of every living person in the world. I think it would be awesome to have these fictional utopias that they describe but it's just a fantasy and we all know it. You can't do what politicians are trying to do now and force something on a society against its will. You can make laws that people will have to obey but it will only build resentment that will manifest itself in more negative ways. Things will only happen when a society wants it to happen of it's own free will and will not happen until that time. Much of the depression and other issues trans people face are due to stress. This could come from abuse, bullying, disenfranchisement, or there could be problems in the home such as parents not accepting them. It could be a myriad of issues coming from being gender nonconforming. I imagine it can be pretty damn tough.
A great deal of this can come from society not affirming them. Basically, maybe a guy sees himself as a woman but society isn't buying it. Not knowing who you are can cause all kinds of psychological problems. So these politicians and others lecture society on how they must change and doctors talk to their patients about it and everything is about affirmation. Another word for affirmation would be validation. The quest for validation is the root of many problems in the world. These people get the validation they desire in the office then step out onto the street and get shit on. When that happens all that work goes into the toilet and always will but these damn psychologists keep using the same failed tactics. I learned a long time ago that you can't change people. Only those people can change themselves. I can change myself as well as the value I place on those around me in regards to their opinions. I would venture to say that many therapists make the situation worse by teaching vulnerable people to have a victim mentality. You treat them like infants then they return the favor by acting like it. They come to you to get that validation that they can't get from the big mean world outside. People get into so much trouble when they fail to understand that validation, or in this case, affirmation comes from within. Many therapists create an us and them tribal situations. These vulnerable people need to stop being told that their personal value is contingent on the opinion of others. That doesn't mean be delusional of course we all need to try and be better people every day and work towards it.
I have people that probably don't like me or even respect the things I say. That would upset some people but for me it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant simply because I don't give a shit what they think. They can be angry and I'll smile while drinking beer and playing video games. This of course will probably make them angrier, which in turn will make me even happier. It's always nice to have a loving environment. I used to watch television shows when I was younger and see all these shows about friends doing things together. I was a loner and didn't have any of that and would get bummed out about it. Through a lot of introspection and working on myself over the years I can honestly say I know who I am and I like myself. I feel like it's the best place to be. You don't need other people to affirm you. You cannot depend on other people for that. Now when I say this I'm not talking about the idea of self identifying that is something else I will get into later that involves compromises due to living in a multicultural society and that type thing.
I want to give you an example of something. Let's say you are a transgender woman and you've had the surgery and are post op. Let's say you are trying to live as a woman and someone is dismissive of you. They don't believe you are a woman, which biologically you aren't but you know what I'm saying. Anyway, you go into this tailspin after your experience with this person. In your mind this person was mean to you not believing you are a woman. Here is the thing. You could easily think to yourself," Well fuck that person" then go on about your day and not worry about it, but you don't. You see the truth is that you aren't upset because they don't believe you are a woman. You are really upset because deep down you don't believe you are a woman. My point here is if you think about this situation you actually have all the power. You looked to them to build you up when you really don't need it. Yes, I know it would've been really nice and it can eat at you but you really don't require it if you know yourself and you like yourself. I feel like this is the direction that therapy needs to go. I'm sure in some places it's happening but I know for a fact in many places it goes to opposite direction with the hybrid therapist/activist doctors that honestly condition you to believe you need to demand certain behaviors from people you cannot control instead of taking the power for yourself.
Earlier I mentioned an "us and them" situation. Let me explain what I meant by that. This really involves language more than anything else. So we talk about violence and emotional abuse that trans people deal with sometimes. While this is absolutely true it's also absolutely misleading. It's relativism at it's worst. It's that perspective of looking at one side of the dice and ignoring the other 5. You see I understand why people just limit the conversation because that is the topic you are covering. In what I am about to say my intent is not to be dismissive of violence against trans people in any way. I fully understand that with the many issues trans people are already facing that the negative effect of the violence they deal with can be heightened. With that being said let me explain my issue with only having that limited conversation. What it mentally infers consciously or subconsciously is that these things happen to trans people but not others. That is the way that it registers and gives a sense of loneliness as if it's just them being singled out. Makes them feel like they are on an island and dealing with things that no one understands. This however is false. Transgender people do get attacked for being transgender. Black people get attacked for being black. White people get attacked for being white. Women and Men get attacked for a myriad of reasons. Obese people get shamed. Old people get marginalized. Various people get attacked for various beliefs. We all deal with indignities in our daily lives. We don't deal with them for the same reasons but we deal with them nonetheless. You see you aren't as isolated as you think. I'm not trying to kick off some kind of debate on oppression Olympics here I'm simply saying that well meaning people can say things in such a way that could be adverse depending on how the frame it. Sometimes language can have unintended consequences.
There could be an entire series of books on this type of thing and it's surely a very wide topic but I need to call it somewhere and move on for now. In the end if you are going to put things in a bill to help trans people then funding for mental health issues needs to be in there and I find it odd that isn't not. It makes me feel the politicians are disingenuous on some level. It goes back to what I was saying in the very first part of the commentary about it being all for show. Ultimately I feel trans people are actually getting abused or at least used by the very people claiming to want to help them. You have politicians who used them for political gain and to slander the opposition. You have these so-called medical professionals who are enabling and exacerbating the problem by giving you useless advice that will keep you coming back to them but won't ever cure you. You also have activists whose identity is not a gender but instead it's activism itself. Without activism they wouldn't know who they are either so they use trans people as food to build their personal savior identity without any benefit to trans people directly. Sadly trans people get used as pawns further someone else's narrative. There is a lot to this whole thing so I'm going to break it into different parts for the convenience of you, the reader. I've talked about some good things in the Equality Act and one big good thing that seems to be omitted. I'm going to end this here but trust me there's a great deal more further down this rabbit hole. Hopefully you'll follow me down there and we'll check it out.