Insularism and Contemporary Secular Views.
Your views on ‘homosexuality’ are at variance with all the principal United States Mental Health Associations who declassified ‘homosexuality’ as no longer a psychiatric disorder. The American Psychiatric Association withdrew ‘homosexuality’ from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM); in 1973. Two years later, the American Psychological Association passed a resolution supporting this action; in 1975. The American Psychiatric Association, sent a letter (13 June 2006) to the Pentagon (Department of Defence (DoD)), requesting the removal of ‘homosexuality’, from the status of psychiatric disorder. Thereby, your opinions, by your volition, are isolated from contemporary secular thinking.
“Mind”, “Desires”, and ‘Mistaken Identities’.
Your opinion that they (homosexuals) are “…mistakenly identifying themselves as the mind and desires” is an idiosyncratic collage groundless, of even reductionist assumptions, about psycho-neurophysiological facts. Precisely, who or what, are these ‘entities’, apart from the “mind” and “desires” that ‘mistakenly identifies’. Can you demonstrate your cognizance of the subject by mounting a deducible or defensible argument – free of editorializing – of these ‘entities’ in a contemporary psychological frame? Rather than referring to activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs’ (1825–95) antiquated “urning theory,” published under the title: Forschungen über das Räthsel der mannmännlichen Liebe) (“Research into the Riddle of Man-Male Love”)(1864-65).
‘Gender-Identity Disorder’ ( GID ).
The inclusion of the irrelevant topic: ‘transsexualism’ q.e., ‘Gender-Identity Disorder’ (GID), into your subject-matter concerning ‘homosexuality’, is particularly baffling. Diagnosed GID is, in an abbreviated, and generalized framework, an anomalous relationship between the brain (within the anterior pituitary gland q.l.), gender identity (within the hypothalamus stria terminalis (BSTc) q.l.)), and the anatomical-physiological principles of the genitalia i.e., the penis and vagina (with the limbic system within the rhinencephalon). Diagnosed GID, as I understand it, is unrelated to clinically diagnosed signs, and symptoms, of chromosomal aberrations; or established histories of psychiatric disorders. Quite clearly, it’s not a fact “…that they are not women trapped in men’s bodies”, but rather, they are sufferers of a diagnosable condition (GID) characterized by inappropriateness, and persistent discomfort, of their anatomic genitalia. ‘Gender-Identity Disorder’ and ‘homosexuality’ are as different as chalk from cheese.
You assert that:
“…homosexuals who say they feel like women trapped in men’s bodies are mistakenly identifying themselves [and that they] should appreciate the fact that they are not women trapped in men’s bodies”.
Your unqualified ‘diagnoses’ q.l., are based upon your own unschooled opinions, rather than from knowledge gathered from the scientific community; your opinions are based on false reasoning. This is not ‘mistaken identity’, as you ‘misdiagnose’, but rather a clinically diagnosable biological disorder, quite unrelated to the ‘theory of identity’, which belong to the field of psychology.
An approximate comprehensible explanation on this subject – from the biological perspective – as I understand it, suggest a rapid multiplication by Gonadotroph cells, that are released from the adenohypophysis for the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) for mature ova, and spermatozoa production in the testes. This, quite clearly, has no bearing upon ‘mistaken identity’.
Professor Louis Gooren, Ph. D., (Asian Journal of Andrology, (s.a.)), who specialises in Gender Problems and Psychoneuro-endocrinology, and who is the Netherlands’ leader in the field of endocrinology; suggests:
“The stria terminalis also appears to be indicated in gender identification. Studies have shown that male-to-female transsexuals tend to have female-normative cell proliferation in the central subdivision of the bed nuclei of the stria terminalis (BSTc), whereas a female-to-male transsexual was found to have male-normative BSTc cell proliferation. It is thought this is mediated by diminished and excessive androgen levels respectively in utero and neonatally” (sic.).
The Health Report, Gender Dysphoria
(ABC Radio National, 4 September, 2000).