Is a Sense of Being Trapped in the “Wrong” Body Always a Delusion?

 

It came as a surprise to me to hear that Camille Paglia calls herself transgender, and more surprising that Ricochetti might be OK with it – more specifically, that there might be those who are OK with it when Paglia does it but not OK with it when others do it. It’s possible that what makes it OK for Paglia is that she’s not “gender dysphoric” – “She fully embraces her identity, both physical and mental,” and is “self-confident and passionate” about it, as @cm put it. This piques my interest, I admit, and in a way that goes beyond the merely academic.

If “gender dysphoria” is taken to mean “unease with the sex you were born into,” well, then I have a fair amount of experience being gender dysphoric. In my case, there now seems to be a reasonable explanation for it: a congenital defect whose severity would be considerably mitigated if I were born male – moreover a defect not identified until this year, so that I’ve spent most of post-pubescent life sensing (correctly, it turns out) that my body was somehow wrong and that being born female heightened this wrongness, while also having no socially-acceptable reason to give others for why I sensed this.

Had my 16-year-old self taken this quiz, for example, it would have told her “you have signs of Gender Dysphoria” and advised her to consult a professional. I imagine the prospect of an impressionable teen running across such a quiz and believing it is a frightening one for parents, especially conservative parents. Especially since “gender dysphoria” doesn’t just mean unhappiness with being the sex you were born into, but has been conflated with the positive desire to transition to the other sex:

I suppose most of us suppose that most youths can’t escape adolescence without having felt at least a little unease about their sex characteristics. Especially girls – there’s a reason the English-speaking world nicknamed the curse “the curse.” Yet when you look up “gender dysphoria” on Wikipedia, you read that people who have it aren’t just unhappy, they’re transgender.

Conservatives are quite reasonably suspicious of such a designation. How can it be that everyone who has been unhappy – even deeply unhappy – with the sex characteristics they were born into could be transgender? Of course it can’t be so. Indeed, the prospect is so absurd that it’s no wonder that some conservatives have become quite wary of profound unhappiness with this aspect of bodily life. A dissatisfaction that goes deep enough that ridding yourself of your genitals and sex hormones begins to sound appealing? Why, that must be delusional!

It’s not necessarily, though. And if we wish to get youths to listen to us when we try to talk them out of regrettable attempts to sexually re-engineer their still-growing bodies, we should be honest that unhappiness over sex characteristics so deep that ordinary people have difficulty relating to it, or even accepting it, does exist, and can have biological causes. It did in my case.

Even at 16 (well, before 16), I was a curmudgeon. So I doubt my teenage self would have heeded advice to “seek professional help” about being “gender dysphoric,” much less that I could have been persuaded to transition, rather than just joke about transitioning. But joke I did (perhaps I was unintentionally ahead of my time in edgy humor here), and of course the joke was straight gallows humor – about as funny as a heart attack.

Knowing how seriously I was joking, I can quite easily picture the risk that pressure to transition puts on youths who might otherwise grow out of their misery, or who might at least find some way of coping with it in the body they were born into. But I also know the pressure people face to dismiss what’s really happening to them and to their bodies as “delusions” just because it doesn’t fit in with people’s expectations.

After all, I had my young self convinced for quite a while that I was “delusional” for experiencing my body as my body really was. I was prepared to believe misery of the body was “merely” a manifestation of some misery of the soul. In my more hopeful moments, I could think of the misery as atonement for my sins – if not for sins of commission (of which, looking back, it seems I had fewer of than the typical teenager), then for sins of omission: I didn’t/wasn’t ________ enough, and so I deserved what I got. Perhaps it sounds strange to label self-accusing “I deserve this” moments hopeful, but consider the alternative: if the misery wasn’t atonement, what meaning did it have?

For this and other reasons, perhaps, I found in my youth that church – even the mainline, politically liberal church I attended – gave my life a structure my natural family couldn’t. Natural family (even an exemplary natural family) may fail as an organizing principle for someone whose only experience of the “gift” of sexual maturity is as a “curse.” The church family, fortunately, is not a natural family. You’re not born into it, but adopted; you don’t add to it through your physical fertility, but through other means.

Many with stigmatized sexual and gender orientations speak of finding a community not based on the natural family that “adopts” them into its “family” when they find themselves unable to relate to their natural family. For me, that community was church, not so much church as a social outlet, but as a liturgical bond. (Having recently heard that transgender economist Deirdre McCloskey is also a Christian leaves me wishing I could ask her if church served as a similar sort of adoptive family for her.) Just knowing, for example, that the William Cowper who wrote so many of the hymns in my church hymnal was the same William Cowper who wrote the poem “Hatred and vengeance,—my eternal portion” helped church feel like home to me in a way the family home couldn’t. In church, I could hope that, even if “Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all / Bolted against me,” maybe God wouldn’t.

Of course, it’s widely supposed that Cowper himself was no more than delusional when he wrote that bit of verse. But I know now that I was not. Moreover, I now know that trying to explain away my discomfort in my own skin as mere “delusion” was not just unrealistic and unjust, but ultimately destructive. The meaning I got from continually hoping the misery was no more than some subconsciously self-inflicted (and well-earned) penance came at a steep cost. Losing that meaning is saddening, actually – I still miss it – but for me, the real delusion would be believing that what I felt obligated to dismiss as mere delusion was merely delusion when it wasn’t.

For that reason, I’m hesitant to dismiss others whose struggles with their body, though quite different from my own, still strike an unsettlingly familiar chord with me. It’s possible to avoid dismissing a sense of mismatch between the soul and the body’s sex characteristics as “delusional” while also urging youngsters who sense such a mismatch to wait and see if they can make peace with the body they were born with rather than re-engineering it at a tender age.

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  1. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Had my sixteen-year-old self taken this quiz, for example, it would have told her “you have signs of Gender Dysphoria” and advised her to consult a professional.

    It tells me that now! On the plus side, it would seem that I’m not a lesbian.

    • #1
  2. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    It’s possible to avoid dismissing a sense of mismatch between the soul and the body’s sex characteristics as “delusional” while also urging youngsters who sense such a mismatch to wait and see if they can make peace with the body they were born with rather than re-engineering it at a tender age.

    This. Exactly.

    • #2
  3. MLH Inactive
    MLH
    @MLH

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Had my sixteen-year-old self taken this quiz, for example, it would have told her “you have signs of Gender Dysphoria” and advised her to consult a professional.

    It tells me that now! On the plus side, it would seem that I’m not a lesbian.

    because you often wear work boots and think logically? It got me too but I didn’t tell it my genetic gender.

    • #3
  4. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    MLH (View Comment):
    It got me too but I didn’t tell it my genetic gender.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if failure to mark down a gender triggers a positive result.

    I know it’s possible to get negative results, even if you report some unhappiness – I did stress-test the quiz a little before I used it as an example in this OP. (I think you can accumulate about a dozen or so “gender unhappiness points” before the test triggers a “gender dysphoria” result.)

    • #4
  5. MLH Inactive
    MLH
    @MLH

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    MLH (View Comment):
    It got me too but I didn’t tell it my genetic gender.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if failure to mark down a gender triggers a positive result.

    I know it’s possible to get negative results, even if you report some unhappiness – I did stress-test the quiz a little before I used it as an example in this OP. (I think you can accumulate about a dozen or so “gender unhappiness points” before the test triggers a “gender dysphoria” result.)

    The changing the order of agree/disagree  is, I think, poor survey design and was likely done to get bias.

    • #5
  6. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    It’s possible to avoid dismissing a sense of mismatch between the soul and the body’s sex characteristics as “delusional” while also urging youngsters who sense such a mismatch to wait and see if they can make peace with the body they were born with rather than re-engineering it at a tender age.

    This. Exactly.

    I’d be curious on your take on where “church families” might fit in here, @katebraestrup. I don’t know how usual what I described regarding the role church plays is.

    • #6
  7. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    MLH (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    MLH (View Comment):
    It got me too but I didn’t tell it my genetic gender.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if failure to mark down a gender triggers a positive result.

    I know it’s possible to get negative results, even if you report some unhappiness – I did stress-test the quiz a little before I used it as an example in this OP. (I think you can accumulate about a dozen or so “gender unhappiness points” before the test triggers a “gender dysphoria” result.)

    The changing the order of agree/disagree is, I think, poor survey design and was likely done to get bias.

    Oh, it’s not a great survey, I agree.

    • #7
  8. Umbra Fractus Inactive
    Umbra Fractus
    @UmbraFractus

    Midge, I think you’re trying to make into a spectrum what is really a qualitative difference. To be blunt: At no point in your narrative did you ever claim to believe you were a man. The delusion is not being uncomfortable in your own skin; that happens to most people and for non gender related reasons too. The delusion is in denying physical reality and demanding that those around you do the same.

    • #8
  9. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Umbra Fractus (View Comment):
    Midge, I think you’re trying to make into a spectrum what is really a qualitative difference. To be blunt: At no point in your narrative did you ever claim to believe you were a man.

    No, just of being trapped in a body that was somehow “wrong”.

    In order to sustain the delusion that’s often described as such by conservatives, people would have to be extremely literal-minded. Is there any reason to suppose those who become desperate enough that they gamble on various transitioning strategies are all that literal-minded? That level of literal-mindedness seems unlikely to me.

    • #9
  10. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Well according to this test I have gender dysphoria.  Who knew.  I suspect my answers to their test are different than they expected.

    • #10
  11. doulalady Member
    doulalady
    @doulalady

    I think gender dysphoria is probably a stage that many go through in the usual Gaussian distribution. The more aware/sensitive one is, the more introspective, the more likely one is to struggle with these normal adjustments to maturing. The more insensitive the more dismissive one is likely to be. In the middle one probably waits it out. The left just wants to win another constituent.

    • #11
  12. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    being trapped in a body that was somehow “wrong”.

    We are sympathetic to the difficulties you faced because of this, and it had to have triggered occasional emotional rollercoaster experiences when you were a teen.

    But there now appears to be a useful medical diagnosis that, in fact, there is something medically wrong with your body.  There is a “congenital defect” that is the root of the sense of wrongness, and not only did it trigger discomfort but it also led to other symptoms.  I am sorry for your many years spent undiagnosed.

    But this seems to me to confirm the conservative attitude towards gender dysphoria.  If you feel like you are so out of touch with your body that you think you belonged in a body of the opposite sex, then you should be looking hard to find a medical cause.  Every medical test should be tried, specialists should invent new tests if nothing is found.  There will be a cause.

    If there are no errors in the body; if all the sex organs and endocrine glands are intact, healthy and functioning normally, then the error is in the mind.  It is possible to have congenital defects that are solely mental.   Hence, “delusional.”

    • #12
  13. TG Thatcher
    TG
    @TG

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    No, just of being trapped in a body that was somehow “wrong”.

    Hmmm.  It seems that almost any chronic unwellness would tend to drive the sufferer to grasp for explanations and/or believe that “one simple change” would make everything better.  Especially a sufferer lacking in life experience.

    about that quiz:  from the reports of the small number of Ricochetti who thus far report taking it, it appears to be … what’s the word?  Oh, that’s it:  useless!

    (and worse than useless, because “transitioning” is such a drastic step that it really ought to be a final resort)

    • #13
  14. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    Every medical test should be tried, specialists should invent new tests if nothing is found. There will be a cause.

    Perhaps specialists should invent new tests if nothing recognizable is found, but it can be unrealistically optimistic to expect that they’ll happen to stumble across the right new thing in one’s own lifetime. At some point, some combination of acceptance and palliation, rather than “solving the problem” seems the most realistic way forward, no?

    MJBubba (View Comment):

    It is possible to have congenital defects that are solely mental. Hence, “delusional.”

    Do you think every congenital mental defect is a delusion?

    • #14
  15. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Kate Braestrup (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: Had my sixteen-year-old self taken this quiz, for example, it would have told her “you have signs of Gender Dysphoria” and advised her to consult a professional.

    It tells me that now! On the plus side, it would seem that I’m not a lesbian.

    Tsk, tsk.

    • #15
  16. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    TG (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    No, just of being trapped in a body that was somehow “wrong”.

    Hmmm. It seems that almost any chronic unwellness would tend to drive the sufferer to grasp for explanations and/or believe that “one simple change” would make everything better. Especially a sufferer lacking in life experience.

    Well, my own experience was that I fairly easily talked myself into thinking it was hopeless, just the way things were, and it would just have to be borne?…

    It was only later, in my early twenties, that I seriously entertained the thought something could – indeed had to – change. The first plausible guess was something that could be cured. Actually, what it is is something that mostly has to be borne, can be palliated a little, but now I have the satisfaction of knowing it’s “hopeless” in a sense but at least I’m not crazy :-)

    about that quiz: from the reports of the small number of Ricochetti who thus far report taking it, it appears to be … what’s the word? Oh, that’s it: useless!

    (and worse than useless, because “transitioning” is such a drastic step that it really ought to be a final resort)

    Given that not all counselors are evil morons, I’m pretty sure “you might want to talk to a professional about this” hasn’t quite yet become identical with an order to go forth and transition :-) It seems only reasonable for counselors to end up counseling a lot of people people, especially younger people, that transitioning is likely to invite its own host of problems without solving whatever it is their client hopes to solve. That said, obviously some counselors do sometimes counsel a client to transition at some point – and those are of course the cases we hear about.

    • #16
  17. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    Camille Paglia isn’t transgender, she basically a chick with the personality of a dude. Plus she was a rebellious girl growing up in a time that was oppressively conformist. Doesn’t mean she thinks she’s a guy, she just didn’t conform to the gender roles that were around during the time she grew up. Perhaps I’m lucky I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s but as a chick with the personality of a dude I never felt that I was born in the wrong body or anything. I just liked guys and could relate to them and get along with them better than girls. I think that is Camille’s deal but she grew up in the 50’s and didn’t have the same freedom

     

     

     

     

     

    • #17
  18. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Mate De (View Comment):
    Camille Paglia isn’t transgender, she basically a chick with the personality of a dude.

    I was surprised to hear from anyone that Paglia would call herself transgender – it was certainly news to me! And yet they replied she had.

    Perhaps she was just doing it to be provocative?

    • #18
  19. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    Mate De (View Comment):
    Camille Paglia isn’t transgender, she basically a chick with the personality of a dude.

    I was surprised to hear from anyone that Paglia would call herself transgender – it was certainly news to me! And yet they replied she had.

    Perhaps she was just doing it to be provocative?

    I’ve been a huge fan of Ms Paglia for a while and have read most of her stuff and watched any available interviews of her that are on YouTube. Camille has massive blind spots, imho, and I think a lot of it has to do with her reverence for the 1960’s. In the 90’s she never claimed to be transgender, in the 90’s she was bisexual not a lesbian. She almost uses the identities to protect her from the leftist backlash to her cultural criticism, much in the same way Milo does now. Not to say she isn’t sincere, I’m sure she believe everything she claims but I’ve noticed she does have these blind spots

    • #19
  20. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    Don’t get me wrong Camille Paglia is one of my intellectual heros, I admire her immensely

    • #20
  21. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    MJBubba (View Comment):
    Every medical test should be tried, specialists should invent new tests if nothing is found. There will be a cause.

    Perhaps specialists should invent new tests if nothing recognizable is found, but it can be unrealistically optimistic to expect that they’ll happen to stumble across the right new thing in one’s own lifetime. At some point, some combination of acceptance and palliation, rather than “solving the problem” seems the most realistic way forward, no?

    MJBubba (View Comment):

    It is possible to have congenital defects that are solely mental. Hence, “delusional.”

    Do you think every congenital mental defect is a delusion?

    No.

    If the mind is definite that it is stuck in a body of the wrong sex, and there is nothing wrong with the body, then there is a problem in the mind.

    That is not necessarily clinically delusional at all, but close enough to lay language that I am not inclined to say that anyone who does say it is a delusion is a hateful bigot, which is how conservatives are portrayed by mass media.

    • #21
  22. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    MJBubba (View Comment):

    MJBubba (View Comment):

    It is possible to have congenital defects that are solely mental. Hence, “delusional.”

    Do you think every congenital mental defect is a delusion?

    No.

    Glad to hear it.

    If the mind is definite that it is stuck in a body of the wrong sex, and there is nothing wrong with the body, then there is a problem in the mind.

    That is not necessarily clinically delusional at all, but close enough to lay language that I am not inclined to say that anyone who does say it is a delusion is a hateful bigot, which is how conservatives are portrayed by mass media.

    My focus here is not on how conservatives are portrayed by the mass media, but on the fact that conservatives have an interest in getting their youth to come to terms with something at least vaguely resembling traditional gender roles. I also presume any soul of good will would naturally be saddened at the prospect of youths making difficult-to-undo artificial changes to their body and then regretting it.

    In light of that, and in light of the fact that all this weird newfangled gender terminology conservatives love to mock does at least occasionally describe real oddities of lived experience, I am not sure how helpful the “delusional” label is. Certainly, it’s the sort of label a lot of self-respecting people tune out – if they don’t tune it out, one might have to wonder if their problems stem from lack of self respect!

     

    • #22
  23. TG Thatcher
    TG
    @TG

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    … come to terms with something at least vaguely resembling traditional gender roles. …

    Wait a second, please.  One of the problems many of us have with current “fashionable thinking” about transgenderism is the apparent rigidity of  views on “gender roles.”  What we see looks very much like telling a tomboy that she is actually a boy; that a girl can’t like playing with trucks – or telling a boy that if he likes playing with dolls, or likes pink, that he is really a girl.  Who is rigid about gender roles?

    • #23
  24. TG Thatcher
    TG
    @TG

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):

    TG (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    No, just of being trapped in a body that was somehow “wrong”.

    Hmmm. It seems that almost any chronic unwellness would tend to drive the sufferer to grasp for explanations and/or believe that “one simple change” would make everything better. Especially a sufferer lacking in life experience.

    Well, my own experience was that I fairly easily talked myself into thinking it was hopeless, just the way things were, and it would just have to be borne?…

    It was only later, in my early twenties, that I seriously entertained the thought something could – indeed had to – change. The first plausible guess was something that could be cured. Actually, what it is is something that mostly has to be borne, can be palliated a little, but now I have the satisfaction of knowing it’s “hopeless” in a sense but at least I’m not crazy :-)

    about that quiz: from the reports of the small number of Ricochetti who thus far report taking it, it appears to be … what’s the word? Oh, that’s it: useless!

    (and worse than useless, because “transitioning” is such a drastic step that it really ought to be a final resort)

    Given that not all counselors are evil morons, I’m pretty sure “you might want to talk to a professional about this” hasn’t quite yet become identical with an order to go forth and transition :-) It seems only reasonable for counselors to end up counseling a lot of people people, especially younger people, that transitioning is likely to invite its own host of problems without solving whatever it is their client hopes to solve. That said, obviously some counselors do sometimes counsel a client to transition at some point – and those are of course the cases we hear about.

    And it’s probable that a fair number of the cases we hear about required some “therapist shopping” to find one who would recommend the full transition.  In which cases, obviously, the person “shopping” would have been personally committed to the idea of transition prior to finding a therapist who would agree.  But the prior emotional commitment of that “patient” does not mean that the decision is automatically the healthiest choice.

    • #24
  25. EJHill Podcaster
    EJHill
    @EJHill

    I’m a Major League All-Star, a .340 hitter trapped in the body of slightly overweight photoshopping television technician. Does that count?

    • #25
  26. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    TG (View Comment):

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake (View Comment):
    … come to terms with something at least vaguely resembling traditional gender roles. …

    Wait a second, please. One of the problems many of us have with current “fashionable thinking” about transgenderism is the apparent rigidity of views on “gender roles.” What we see looks very much like telling a tomboy that she is actually a boy; that a girl can’t like playing with trucks – or telling a boy that if he likes playing with dolls, or likes pink, that he is really a girl. Who is rigid about gender roles?

    Exactly. On the one hand, they bray that there’s no difference between the sexes, that it’s all “social constructs.” Then out of the other side of their mouths, they use wanting to wear pink and play with dolls as proof positive that the boy was born in the wrong body and was obviously meant to be a girl. I for one do not believe society should be bowing down to these leftwing idiots let alone passing legislation to please them.

    • #26
  27. kelsurprise Member
    kelsurprise
    @kelsurprise

    I found the quiz and its laughable “you show some signs – see a professional” conclusion for me rather surface and silly.

    Also, so completely rife with typos that it seems to have triggered a severe case of grammar dysphoria — hoping a brief counseling session with some of the proofreaders on duty here at the Deathstar will fix me right up.

    • #27
  28. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    I took the test. I’m a zero! Which didn’t surprise me since I’ve never been able to understand this. I have a friend from growing up who lives as opposite sex in NYC. And isn’t interested in surgery. I saw her a couple of years ago at her father’s funeral. I still will always remember her from childhood with warm memories, still consider her a friend, but have no understanding.

     

    • #28
  29. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    kelsurprise (View Comment):
    I found the quiz and its laughable “you show some signs – see a professional” conclusion for me rather surface and silly.

    Also, so completely rife with typos that it seems have triggered a severe case of grammar dysphoria — hoping a brief counseling session with some of the proofreaders on duty here at the Deathstar will fix me right up.

    The fields of psychiatry and psychology have been commandeered by the Left. My brother-in-law the psychiatrist, had he lived to see this, would have had steam coming out of his ears.  Their long march across the world has demolished academe and the sciences and tarnished the Nobel Prize. When will we stand athwart them yelling “Stop!”?

    • #29
  30. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Thank you, Midge, for sharing your life situation. Your description of your difficulties is very helpful in illustrating the complexities of the human mind and body, and how challenged we might be in coming to terms with what and who we are. I hope that you continue to find peace.

    • #30
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