Transgenderism is a severe mental illness
Ben Leo said:
“I'd argue transgenderism is a severe mental illness.”
The presenter frames this as a logical extension of the anorexia comparison he has been building, and some viewers will know that gender dysphoria does appear in diagnostic manuals, which can make the leap to 'mental illness' feel like a clinical statement rather than a value judgement.
The World Health Organisation made a formal decision on this in 2019: being transgender is not a mental illness, and gender incongruence was moved out of the mental disorders chapter of the international diagnostic manual entirely. The American Psychiatric Association and the Royal College of Psychiatrists take the same position. What diagnostic manuals do describe is gender dysphoria, which is the distress that can arise when someone's identity and their assigned sex are at odds, and the distinction matters enormously, because the distress is not the identity. That distress is also, critically, substantially reduced by appropriate care, which means framing trans identity as a mental illness does not just misread the evidence, it actively discourages the very thing that helps.
What I said at the time:
“You are way behind. I don't see any difference. You don't well, then I think you're extraordinarily unkind.”
Trans people of all ages who are told by a broadcaster that their identity is a severe mental illness, reinforcing stigma and discouraging them from seeking healthcare.