Transneurosis--Seizing the power to define
When Helena Kerschner was age 15 she started using the blogging and social media tool, Tumblr. She has testified that she was reading a lot of messages that said that, if you’re feeling bad about your body, then you’re trans—automatically. At 15, she underwent a double mastectomy. Less than one year later, Helena realized that she had made a big mistake.
It is common for teens to be especially concerned with how they look. But, when teens decide to undergo radical, irreversible, body and mind-altering procedures, such as a mastectomy, then perhaps we need to create some new definitions that are appropriate to define the mental state, as well as the cause of that mental state, that would influence someone to go to such extremes.
In the case of those, like Helena, who choose to have mastectomies, it’s very, very easy to spot the external influence that caused them to go to such extremes: the gender identity/transgender movement which, as Helena has testified, has a powerful presence online amongst teens. I submit that that movement is responsible for creating what I will call transneurosis within those teenagers, male or female, who submit themselves to radical surgery in their hope to “trans” to the opposite gender.
Although I am not a medical professional of any type, it is instructive to simply take a look at a definition:
DEFINITION — Neurotic: Neurotic means you’re afflicted by neurosis, a word that has been in use since the 1700s to describe mental, emotional, or physical reactions that are drastic and irrational.
I can’t think of anything more “drastic and irrational” than the “physical reaction” of having one’s body parts surgically removed for the purpose of attempting to switch genders. Again: I place the blame for creating this neurosis squarely on the shoulders of the gender identity/transgender movement, not on the teens who are simply experiencing the normal stresses of teen life regarding how they feel about themselves, and, because of those normal teen feelings and the influence of the transgender movement, decide to adopt a “physical reaction” that amounts to the “drastic and irrational” decision to have body parts removed.
Any psychologist or psychiatrist may feel free to supply your comments concerning the validity or invalidity of my speculations. I speak, of course, as a layman.
Incidentally, the creation of labels, by non-professionals, to define what is perceived as some kind of psychological problem is done all the time—perhaps too much. For example, if I feel appalled at the idea that someone desires to trans to the opposite gender, then I will be called “transphobic,” as if I have some kind of mental disorder, or some kind of irrational fear.
I think this habit is much overused, and I strongly suspect that the reason it is overused is to attempt to muzzle dissent, even dissent that is rational. For myself, and I think for most people, from jump street the idea of someone undergoing radical surgery to “change” their gender elicits a natural, rational reaction of surprise and/or objection when hearing something so drastic.
But, there is danger in the overuse, especially by lay people, of terms that identify someone as psychologically ill, when, in fact, the person is having a natural reaction to something that appears highly irrational. Personally, I never use psychological terms to identify someone as whatever. But, in the case of the decision of a teenager, who is most likely going through normal teen emotional experiences, to have radical surgery to “change” genders, it seems appropriate to me to speculate on the possibility that that teen may be suffering from a neurosis, and, thus, may be “transneurotic", the neurosis, as I stated, having been caused by the transgender movement/ideology/religion/cult.
If we love our teens, then we must stop playing games and face the fact that the transgender movement is extremely dangerous. Go to YouTube and search on “transgender regret.” Read the stories of young people who attempt to transgender, and if you don’t come to tears, or close to it, I would be very surprised. Let’s stop accepting anything and everything just because its proponents feel that their ideology should be accepted merely because they holler and scream and intimidate louder and longer than those of us who should be ready to defend our kids, no matter the decibel level of the ideologues, and no matter their attempt to stigmatize us by referring to us as “phobic.”