Meta now lets users say gay and trans people have ‘mental illness’
Meta now lets users say gay and trans people have ‘mental illness’
Meta rolled out a number of changes to its “Hateful Conduct” policy Tuesday as part of a sweeping overhaul of its approach toward content moderation.
Meta announced a series of major updates to its content moderation policies today, including ending its fact-checking partnerships and “getting rid” of restrictions on speech about “topics like immigration, gender identity and gender” that the company describes as frequent subjects of political discourse and debate. “It’s not right that things can be said on TV or the floor of Congress, but not on our platforms,” Meta’s newly appointed chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, wrote in a blog post outlining the changes.
In an accompanying video, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company’s current rules in these areas as “just out of touch with mainstream discourse.”
In tandem with this announcement, the company made a number of updates across its Community Guidelines, an extensive set of rules that outline what kinds of content are prohibited on Meta’s platforms, including Instagram, Threads, and Facebook. Some of the most striking changes were made to Meta’s “Hateful Conduct” policy, which covers discussions on immigration and gender.
In a notable shift, the company now says it allows “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird.’”
In other words, Meta now appears to permit users to accuse transgender or gay people of being mentally ill because of their gender expression and sexual orientation. The company did not respond to requests for clarification on the policy.
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I'm trans. I do have mental illness. It's because society keeps sending me signals that I shouldn't exist.
For what it's worth, I am hereby sending you the official signal that you should absolutely exist, that you have every right to be yourself, and that your continued existence is important and meaningful for yourself and others in similar situations especially. I hope you will forever be gifted with the courage to be yourself, even when the world is challenging you on it.
It's the village, not the individuals. Our society is fucking sick. I'm straight, but it (the intolerance and violence towards people who are different) makes me sick.
This person gets it.
Thank you.
You listen to society? They're the ones that invented gender characteristics and stereotypes. If you listen to them there's a chance you'll get caught up in their bullshit instead of just being what you'd be if there was no other human on earth.
Kind of hard not to listen to society when you're a part of it. It's like saying to try to not listen to the music while you're at a nightclub.
I'd like out of this nightclub. Maybe move to a different, more pleasant nightclub.
I understand that are trying to be nice, but it's kinda rude tbh. Because you are making it seem like the problems they have aren't actually real. They might not have an alternative nightclub to go to because all of them are shit, or they can't go to another nightclub.
Is gender dysphoria not considered a health issue?? Legit asking. Like I thought the whole point of transitioning is that that is the treatment for it. That's not a BAD thing, but it is A thing. Calling gay people mentally ill is obviously non sense. Calling ALL trans people mentally ill I don't think is accurate... if they've actually transitioned lmao. Then they're not sick anymore ?? Plz let me know if that take is incorrect. Feel like having pre-transition gender dysphoria compared to other mental illnesses like anxiety/depression/etc is a positive thing because it normalizes it to a degree.
Big difference between them being... there IS actually a cure to gender dysphoria compared to many other mental illnesses that can only be treated. Arguing with a right winger about this shit, he said he felt bad for trans people and that they were mentally ill. My response was "yeah no shit, you realize the way to reduce their risk of suicide is by letting them get the care they and their doctors deem necessary. It's straight cruelty to acknowledge that it is something they need help with yet demonizing them for seeking help."
Guess the people saying shit like the headline aren't doing so with nuance in mind, and for them anyone trans at all = weird/mentally ill/sick.
The whole thing with trans health is that being trans is not considered a mental illness but gender dysphoria still has a diagnostic rubric and has health problems associated. So saying trans people who have transitioned aren't sick anymore isn't quite accurate because they were never considered sick in the first place. One of the ideas behind this way of thinking is a trans person's issues aren't caused because they are trans, it's caused largely due to the lack of acceptance and support in the society around trans people. Framing transness as a mental illness also ignores the flipside of dysphoria - gender euphoria which is a very specific joy experienced by trans people expressing themselves healthily, it's not simply from lessening pain around dysphoria, it's basically something mostly unique to the trans experience that is overwhelmingly positive.
Also there's not a one size fits all response to dysphoria. Some chose to physically transition and others choose to use other management techniques to help. There isn't a "cure" to gender dysphoria. There are limits to what can be achieved through physical transition even if one goes all the way. One can have dysphoria around stuff like not having periods and child bearing capabilities even if they are fully transitioned or there are things that are irreversible if the transition happens too late. Being trans can be a kind of complicated state of being where one needs to learn and implement how best to be supported. Framing it not as an illness removes the stigma of looking at the experience entirely clinically as something to be solved. The fix isn't to be "less trans" as it is when one approaches something as a disorder to be removed and minimized.
You pretty much have it right. Many-to-most trans people will suffer from or experience gender dysphoria to varying degrees, which is treated with hormone replacement therapy, transitioning, surgery, talk therapy, etc.. Once trans people are at a state where they feel comfortable with their bodies (or achieve a congruence between their inner and outer selves), then gender dysphoria is technically no longer present, but may return if the body or the mind changes and are no longer congruent.
Medically, this means that trans people can have an official diagnosis of gender dysphoria and get treatment for it. Gender dysphoria then goes away (hopefully) and preventative treatment like HRT continues.
Trans people can obviously also have mental disorders unrelated to being trans.
It's our current iteration of society that shouldn't exist.