How the healthcare industry has commodified the mentally ill
Up until relatively recently, both body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria were recognized as mental disorders. In 2019, the World Health Organization adopted a newer standard for the classification of these diseases—completely changing the game.
Before the 2019 revision, the classification of “Gender Identity Disorders” applied to both disorders of childhood gender identity, as well as the diagnoses of transsexualism and dual role transvestism. In the newly modified list, this section no longer appears as a mental disorder. Rather, it’s been renamed “Gender Incongruence,” and is considered to be prognosis-neutral.
Contrary to this new categorization, body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria are wildly similar. Both terms reference extreme feelings of being out of place in one’s own skin. Individuals struggling in this way are often willing to go great lengths to change their physique, with the hope of fixing what they perceive as incorrect about it.
However, both medical professionals and society at large treat those expressing symptoms of one disorder versus the other drastically differently. When someone believes themselves to be overweight despite being skinny, they are told to see a therapist. When someone believes themselves to be a girl despite being male, they are told to see a surgeon. Why are these approaches so different?
Though society’s buy-in to what has been deemed “woke ideology” certainly plays a part—as with many things—the real motivation is money.
If someone with body dysmorphia develops an eating disorder (ED), something obviously has to change. Therapists will recommend a treatment plan that targets their diagnosis. If a person with gender dysphoria expresses a desire for change, they’ll be encouraged to pursue “gender affirming care.”
While therapists certainly bring in good money, providing treatments such as these is substantially more lucrative. Yet there’s a difference in philosophies between the two.
Treatment for EDs recognizes the mental disorder— in this case body dysmorphia—as a negative thing. Its goal is to get the patient out of their destructive delusions and back to reality where they can live a healthy life.
In contrast, gender affirming care does not recognize any disorder whatsoever in the patient. Rather, it works to validate the illusory thinking, looking to sell surgeries and hormones that attempt to make a non-existent problem appear solved.
All this to say: there is a great deal of money to be made in treating those with body dysmorphia for their mental disorder. There is also a great deal of money to be made in perpetuating the mental disorder of those with gender dysphoria.
While gender affirming care does tend to make patients feel better temporarily, it has been shown over time that this strategy is only a band-aid on a bullet hole.
Chloe Cole, a well known detransitioner and advocate for children’s rights, testified before a House subcommittee saying that she was told “transitioning would save [her].” After spending years and copious amounts of money trying—and failing—to obtain this supposed salvation with gender affirming care, she had the epiphany that led to her detransition and eventual conversion to Christianity.
“All [treatment] that I went through did nothing to address my underlying mental health issues,” Cole said. “I needed to be given therapy to help me work through my issues, not affirm my delusion [that] by transforming into a boy it would solve all my problems.”
So how is it that the mental health industry—not to mention “big pharma”—provides care rooted in reality to those experiencing body dysmorphia, but also gets away with their so-called “medical treatment” of those with gender dysphoria?
Negative effects brought on by gender identity struggles are not as immediately tangible as those caused by body dysmorphia. For example, anorexia—one of the most common EDs—has the highest case mortality rate of any mental illness at 10,200 deaths per year.
The dangers of gender affirming care are rarely spoken about. Anyone that dares to question is immediately labeled a fascist. The scarlet letter-like effect of a title such as this scares many into silence, leading to a lack of awareness.
Sustaining our ignorance is exactly what allows treatment providers to capitalize off of the people—most often children—who need genuine help with a mental disorder. If they’re turning a profit, why wouldn’t they continue pushing their agenda under the trendy guise of “acceptance” and “living your truth”—even if it does exploit the mentally ill?
“I was convinced that living a lie was going to save me”, said Cole while speaking at a recent conference. “I didn’t need to be lied to… I needed to be loved.”
Grace Finan is a super-Sophomore politics and theology double major. She is secretary of UD’s YAF chapter.