Comprehensive mental health treatment needs to be generally available in a non-threatening, universal, single-payer way. "Managed care" has an awful ring to it when you are mistrusting. I suspect that many cases being treated as gender dysphoria are actually other mental health disorders, such as self-loathing, borderline, schizoid personality disorder, substance abuse, or one or a combination of many others.
I personally believe that only a licensed, Ph.D. psychologist, or in some cases psychiatrist providing short courses of medicine, without pecuniary interest, is qualified to treat these kinds of non-gender dysphoria disorders.
Transgender medical care usually involves medicine, and the trans rights movement had a moment in the 2010s. I believe it inappropriate to use victim status to force others to provide an inappropriate treatment. It is also inappropriate to rush an inappropriate treatment because of the ticking clock argument.
I draw a comparison to how many people go to the emergency room, which cannot turn them away, because they do not have first-line care like a family doctor, or basic health upkeep such as not smoking and eating healthy food.
For clear or severe cases of gender dysphoria, early treatment is essential. Pharmaceutical and surgical. However gender transition only changes your gender! You still have to deal with whatever mental issues you had, integrate into society, and work hard to become a whole person.
The gay rights movement came of age around 1980 in my view, but everybody agreed that how inappropriate it is to attempt to treatment that medically, except for self-harm or AIDS.
I suspect that what we need is mental health to have its moment. Not "pride", or boasting about how many pills you are on. Maybe psychology programs need to be subsidized and promoted. We spent the past decade focusing on our smartphones, and I don't think it made us much happier. I suspect that we have the courage to turn some of that focus inward.
While I personally think gender related care is far too restricted in most places, I agree that comprehensive mental health treatment is the biggest priority. People will have a much easier time dealing with gender-related stresses and issues if they're not ALSO staring down a bunch of other problems in their lives without access to care.
It's also my understanding that trans and non-binary individuals tend to have other co-morbid problems going on, mental health or otherwise. This may be a data problem - the other problems being diagnosed more often because they go for treatment, etc - but from the specialists I've spoken to, it probably is an actual connection, induced by stress or otherwise.
I get the impression that she's/it's doing this from a place of pain and desire to lash out, and "the system" is an easy target for her to fix onto. Not out of any sense of morality.
That's an odd take but I'm getting old. Once you cross 30 its incredibly to spot when someone is an NPC laundering hate in the guise of reading minds. They're clearly young or angry, so you let it go.
The adjective is missing from your comment so I mean not sure whether you meant to write that it's incredibly easy or hard. I certainly do not presume to be a mind-reader, but I do have experience with gender dysphoria. Self-hatred is a hell of a drug.
She appears to have talent in connecting these data sources, but she's also in way over her head when it comes to motivation. On the world chessboard, she's a pawn. I can easily imagine that she's being egged on to do harm to the quasi-neutral but not isolated society that is now her life raft.
I happen to believe it is because God willed the universe into existence. There are more esoteric explanations, something about him being lonely, but we're not supposed to even start worrying about them until the age of 40.
That decline, was that in the public sector, where the security clearance process necessarily digs up that kind of dirt? Or did a private sector company actually investigate a candidate to the terms of their divorce?
Looks parve to me, since it's not from a cow. Cow proteins are not what make something milchig.
However there are still issues where it looks like milk, and someone could be confused, so the same precautions as for almond milk would need to be taken.
There are records here connecting my legal name to my deadname, not even on a court name change order. I had gone to lengths to keep things private. This is devastating. I want to cry.
Credit, bank checking (ChexSystems), and personal information aggregators like Lexis Nexis and Thomson Reuters Clear ought to be abolished or curbed indeed. I hate to bring trans politics into this. I'm sure that's the last thing anybody wants to hear about right now. However we are a class of people whose sexuality can be unfairly identified by these databases.
> I hate to bring trans politics into this. I'm sure that's the last thing anybody wants to hear about right now.
It bothers me sometimes if other people do that, it does not bother me at all if actual trans people want to talk about it. Thank you for sharing, that angle didn't occur to me.
Is the issue 'just' that they misgender trans people? That alone is already shitty of course. Or is the issue also that it makes later 'verification' by these agencies more difficult if the recorded gender does not match the apparent gender of the person?
The issue is that they have a field for prior names/AKA/aliases, and it's typically immutable. You can watch a person's face change as they read the report.
Whose face to you mean? The person being deadnamed, or the person reading the list of names and realizing the person opposite them is trans?
It seems to me that, for the purposes of understanding your legal history it makes sense to keep track of someone's deadname at such an agency. If someone accrued massive debt (or massive positive credit) under their deadname, then that still reflects on them. It sucks to have it recorded that one is trans, or to hear a deadname, but I don't see how it can be avoided.
Like the polite banker opening a checking account for me, or please see my other reply with anecdotes. It does also hurt for me to see that deadname and my thanks for knowing that term.
It is not one's legal history. It's a monster of a private industry trying to justify its own existence, which the world turned without for the longest time. There are many other ways that these reports have harmed non-trans people with false or outdated information.
If someone accrues massive debt, that's the bank's problem, to recover in collections, the court or with the sheriff, and not by giving someone a virtual scarlet letter. Maybe they shouldn't play this massive game of easy, crippling credit, points and cashback rewards. As to massive positive credit, I couldn't care less whether I have their favor.
> Like the banker opening a checking account for me who commented "OK, we can move past that," or please see my other reply with anecdotes. It also hurts for me to see that deadname and my thanks for knowing that term.
I don't see what the issue is. The fact that you previously used that name is a piece of factual information about you. Should anyone be allowed to suppress factual information about themselves because they're uncomfortable with it? eg. "10 years ago I racked up enormous amounts of debt. I'm shameful of that. Being reminded of that hurts me. I would like that information to be expunged."
>There are many other ways that these reports have harmed non-transgender people with false, misleading or outdated information.
This isn't really a convincing argument. You can make the same argument for the internet, ie. "there are many other ways that the internet has harmed non-transgender people with false, misleading or outdated information, we should ban it". What about the advantages? ie. banks being able to accurately assess risk, and reliable borrowers not having to pay for the credit risk of unreliable borrowers?
>If someone accrues massive debt, that's the bank's problem, to recover in collections, the court or with the sheriff, and not by giving someone a virtual scarlet letter.
If someone accrues massive debt and refuses to pay it, don't you think it's fair for the lender to tell other people of the experience?
> Should anyone be allowed to suppress factual information about themselves because they're uncomfortable with it?
Just because it's factual that I caught gonorrhoea from a prostitute while on holiday in Thailand, doesn't mean Equifax has a right to tell my boss, my landlord, and half a dozen russian hackers about it.
>Just because it's factual that I caught gonorrhoea from a prostitute while on holiday in Thailand
that seems to be an entirely different issue because the information is privileged/confidential. For the purposes of this argument I'll concede that information obtained under confidence shouldn't be able to be disseminated. That said, I can't really imagine "you didn't pay your debts" to be in the same category of secrecy as "caught gonorrhoea from a prostitute". That's even more true for something as public as your name.
Debt is created by the lender to make a profit. Saying that somebody's credit history is inherently public is the same as saying their work performance history is inherently public. Nobody is forcing lenders to make loans, quite the opposite; in fact there is a great deal of statutory law preventing predatory lenders (ie deliberately lending to those who can't repay) and the megabanks addiction to junk like car loans is also evidence of the rapacious appetite for lending.
Thus, credit history is for the lenders and by the lenders, all with the purpose of maximizing revenue for the lenders. How one concludes that permanent credit history is some burden all citizenry has to bear for their lifetime is beyond me.
Should anyone be allowed to suppress factual information about themselves because they're uncomfortable with it? eg. "10 years ago I racked up enormous amounts of debt. I'm shameful of that. Being reminded of that hurts me. I would like that information to be expunged."
Actually yes, given sufficient elapsed time. People change a lot over ten years.
If this helps, me and my team use LX and some product from TR and for our purposes sex by itself is not a strong driver for anything. That said, I absolutely agree with your initial statement. There is way too much information available just from those two sources and those should be restricted as much as possible.
As other users noted, I have personally zero issue when it is an individual case ( my personal misgivings start somewhere where it moves to a political wedge issue ).
Out of curiosity, what happens if you use a free credit card e.g Barclays? Does living in the EU zone protect you? Do they have access to your bank account information?
I'm not familiar with the Barclay card. MasterCard has a service called True Name that lets you put whatever you want on your card. It's proprietary but I don't know if they keep it between the two of you. European countries have much stronger privacy protections, though they might have social security numbers which contain sex as an even/odd digit, and it's difficult to change. Checking account numbers are listed in these systems. Banks guard client account line items closely, although in the US the government has blanket access without a warrant.
As a US citizen living in the EU. They don’t give two fucks where you live and will happily tell anyone anything that has your social security number. I’ve thought about trying to complain to them about the GDPR… but anyway, if you have a non-US card, the US credit checks won’t register it because the non-US banks don’t report it, even though they know you’re a US citizen. We have a non-US Mastercard and Amex, and they aren’t on our US credit reports. In fact, we no longer have any US debt but our credit scores are less than 500 for paying it all off. It may literally be impossible to move back and have the same quality of life we did when we moved away. Might just stay here forever.
> However we are a class of people whose sexuality can be unfairly identified by these databases.
Good perspective and thanks for sharing it. I am curious about your choice of words though. You said "sexuality" and not "gender identity". Is there some reason why? I've always thought of the term sexuality to be how you feel about others. Or is that what you meant here?
Gender identity falls under the umbrella of sexuality. I use less-polite terms to remind people that it's the most excruciatingly private details of my life on some bullshit report. One time while applying for an apartment, a boomer broker sarcastically exclaimed, "Well, THAT'S a valid life choice!" to me. Last year I encountered a professional whose mind was blown by this information and asked me if I've had surgery. It's wrong that this is at the mercy of a newish industry that exists to track individuals' merit in make-believe points.
You can't attack other users like that here, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again.
Also: it looks like your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. We also ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for, because it destroys the curious conversation this site is supposed to be for. I'm not going to ban you right now because you've also posted good things, but we need you to be aware of this rule and stop that pattern. More explanation here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
I just restated what the user themselves admitted. I don't believe that qualifies as an attack.
Ideological debates are more likely to get someone to login to respond anyway. And throwaway accounts exist because holding a controversial opinion gets you downvoted automatically. If your intention is to shut down any kind of debate, curious conversation just won't exist here at all.
The intention is not to "shut down any kind of debate". This is about comment quality. Your comment was obviously below the bar—it was rude, personal, and added zero information. Please don't post like that here—we're trying for a different kind of conversation.
Btw, repeating someone else's self-deprecating remark can absolutely be a form of personal attack; especially if you then pile on, as your comment did. That's not nice at all.
> “Coronavirus made me realize that in the US, if you’re not a member of the moneyed elite you’re left to fend for yourself with virtually no help from the federal government,” he said.
Most poignant quote in the article.
I am a US citizen and my passport renewal came up during the pandemic. I thought that's fine, I'm not traveling anyway. Well I am also a US citizen with the complexity of a sex change in my distant past. I've had the right passport decades ago.
After I sent in my routine renewal, I got a letter back saying that the US Department of State lost my old passport in processing. They wrote that I would need to send in seven pieces of identification, an explanation of why my passport was lost(!), have somebody come in person and vouch for me, in addition to a letter from a doctor confirming specific, very personal details of my sex change. I don't even have a doctor or health insurance, or seven IDs. It went back and forth in a humiliating, kafkaesque nightmare until I wrote them a letter saying I'm not sending anything more. My senator did not even give me the courtesy of a reply (bite me, Chuck Schumer, I bet your party will still talk about how you are God's gift to LGBTs).
> "I wish you the best of luck getting rid of that passport. Good riddance."
That was written by somebody below in this thread. I was trying to keep mine. Somebody told me that State Dept. has a backlog of a million passports. The American government, and administration, is utterly failing. Citizens at home cannot get basic services, meanwhile Biden is getting ready to play army in Asia again. I guess he never watched The Princess Bride.
Did they really ask for seven forms of ID? Exactly seven? In addition to your passport, you said they just lost it, did they say this in the letter? Did what they wrote say "7 ID's" or "seven ID's"? Not the same thing. Government-issued IDs right? Dual citizens only have six, they wanted your library card, your bus pass, like what are we talking about here? Did they give any examples of what you could provide? What do you propose they're trying to do, break a tie between the IDs of each gender (not kidding)? And you don't have a doctor. Or health insurance. But you're trans. Do you take no hormones then? You know what, as for the specific, very personal details of your sex change, I ask nothing.
> "I wish you the best of luck getting rid of that passport. Good riddance."
I wrote that. I thought of editing what I wrote for clarity. It doesn't mean what you think it means. Not good riddance of the passport. Good riddance of you as a citizen. Well I guess both. It's not pejorative, it's win-win. You don't want to have that passport, and I don't want to stick up for you if you won't stick up for the team. I'd like to but it's too much liability, I have to help only people who would in principle help others too. Evidently you don't care about that. And you wrote a letter telling them you're not sending anything more? And you're insulting a senator for not writing back, publicly? Did you vote for that senator from abroad or did you vote against him, did you not vote? Do you think the State Department will be more helpful now?
How can I interpret what you said in the best possible light, like where to begin? Just make two pieces of the puzzle fit together. I generally believe people's stories regardless of whether they're lying. I think it's good for people to be believed, even if it's by one person, just for a little while, just to know someone can trust them. Later I reevaluate and maybe change my mind.
I personally believe that only a licensed, Ph.D. psychologist, or in some cases psychiatrist providing short courses of medicine, without pecuniary interest, is qualified to treat these kinds of non-gender dysphoria disorders.
Transgender medical care usually involves medicine, and the trans rights movement had a moment in the 2010s. I believe it inappropriate to use victim status to force others to provide an inappropriate treatment. It is also inappropriate to rush an inappropriate treatment because of the ticking clock argument.
I draw a comparison to how many people go to the emergency room, which cannot turn them away, because they do not have first-line care like a family doctor, or basic health upkeep such as not smoking and eating healthy food.
For clear or severe cases of gender dysphoria, early treatment is essential. Pharmaceutical and surgical. However gender transition only changes your gender! You still have to deal with whatever mental issues you had, integrate into society, and work hard to become a whole person.
The gay rights movement came of age around 1980 in my view, but everybody agreed that how inappropriate it is to attempt to treatment that medically, except for self-harm or AIDS.
I suspect that what we need is mental health to have its moment. Not "pride", or boasting about how many pills you are on. Maybe psychology programs need to be subsidized and promoted. We spent the past decade focusing on our smartphones, and I don't think it made us much happier. I suspect that we have the courage to turn some of that focus inward.