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Health & Fitness

What does Lady Gaga have to do with a blog about mental health?

Can something which can be cured with surgery be a mental disorder? More about wisdom of a Two-Spirit and points to ponder when considering the struggles of a transgender person.

Can something which can be cured with surgery be a mental disorder? Wisdom of a Two-Spirit is a  point to ponder when considering the struggles of a transgender person.

Standing midway up Montara Mountain to appreciate the rising of a particularly bright full moon, my friend earnestly asked me, "Can something which can be cured with surgery be a mental disorder?" I was in grad school at the time earning a master's in counseling at San Francisco State University. All the wheels in my head started spinning as I pondered this question.

This is the issue every transgender person, like my friend, faces. Gender Identity Disorder and Transvestic Fetishism are the two diagnoses people in my profession give to transgendered people.

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On top of that, in the U.S., a person cannot have surgery to correct their gender (sometimes called Sexual Reassignment Surgery or SRS) unless a mental health professional signs off on it, verifying that the person has been living as their identified gender for two years, and is making a solid rational decision. That may seem like a good idea, but usually we’re talking about something the person has known since they were in kindergarten. Would you want your physical health decisions to be controlled by a mental health practitioner? Do you think you’d bring your true self to the relationship, or would you try to act in a way that would achieve the desired outcome? How would it affect your relationship with that practitioner, if you knew the one thing you wanted most was in their hands, not yours?

At every opportunity I had in school, I wrote about this topic and gave presentations on it. I conducted a research project in which I extensively interviewed four transgender people - two who identified as female-to-male (F2M), and two who identified as male-to-female (M2F). I had very interesting results. My sample was small and shouldn't be generalized to the bigger population, but nonetheless the information begged for further exploration. Here’s an excerpt.

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"All participants experienced loss of friends due to transition, sought counseling and support groups which they found helpful, and experienced anxiety and depression. Three of the four participants do not currently have partners and indicated they used drugs/alcohol prior to transition. The age range at which they first realized their body and spirits were not aligned was 3-5. The M2Fs lost members of their immediate families due to their transition while the F2Ms did not. The age range at which each began to identify as transgender was 19-35. The age range at which they sought medical intervention was 24-43."

I’m currently involved in a much larger research project of survey research in which transgender people are reflecting on their experiences in adolescence. More on that another time…

Along the way my friend asked me another excellent question. “Does one of the smallest groups of people deserve the protection for basic rights that the majority take for granted?” Hmmm…..I read that transgender people are 17 times more likely to be murdered than any other minority group. We’re not talking about being shot. We’re talking being beaten to death in a violent hate crime. That outrageous statistic just boggles my mind.

But wait a minute! If the person could just save up the money for the $50,000+ worth of surgery, they’d be cured of Gender Identity Disorder and cross dressing, and maybe they wouldn’t be 17 times more at risk of being gruesomely murdered than the rest of us.

Have you ever heard of We’Wha? She was a Zuni princess ambassador who spent six months in Washington, D.C. and even met President Grover Cleveland in 1886. It turns out she was considered to be a “Two Spirit”; no one ever suspected she was a biological male. Over 155 Native American tribes have a term for “Two Spirit” people; this term has now become one that many transgender people appreciate because they see themselves as having a spiritual journey. By the way Wikipedia describes transgender as people who were assigned a gender, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who feel that this is a false or incomplete description of  themselves.

Having a transgender friend taught me that there is no way anybody would pick this road willingly, because it is such a difficult and dangerous one. Plus you are likely to lose your spouse, if you have one, because this requires sexual fluidity in a partner who may not be particularly appreciative of this change.

As a mental health practitioner, I can appreciate that this topic is a toughie. As a human being, I find the murder rate of transgender people deplorable, and am determined to do whatever I can to help change this statistic. My transgender friend is thoughtful, caring, wise, amusing, talented, artistic, funny, hard-working and a parent to grownup children. I would hate to lose her under any circumstances. Heaven forbid a senseless hate crime would take someone I love.  

I’ve only recently discovered Lady Gaga, and her newest song, “Born This Way” is darn catchy (to watch the video, see the media box to the right of this post). The chorus is:

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way
Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track baby
I was born this way

It occurs to me that Lady Gaga is on the right track in putting this message forth and is doing her part to change those statistics, too. She and I are on the same page on this issue. Turns out Lady Gaga, in my humble opinion, is a surprising and refreshingly noteworthy advocate for a blog about mental health issues and advocacy.

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