You're just afraid that people will use the excuse that you have a mental disorder to dismiss anything you say.
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Okay. Let's assume that my gender identity constitutes a mental disorder. It doesn't, and you cannot demonstrate that it does except by deliberately twisting the definition of a mental disorder, but let's assume for a moment.
Is your gender identity a mental disorder?
Firstly, your gender identity seems to be far more socially and psychologically detrimental than mine. It is hugely correlated with antisocial behaviour. People who share your gender identity are responsible for the overwhelming majority of violence and crime. They are far more likely to develop and exhibit antisocial personality traits, and far less likely to develop prosocial personality traits. They typically lag behind in the development of social cognitive skills like empathy. They struggle to form close friendships and fall easily into social isolation. They are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. They are more likely to successfully commit suicide.
Now, the obvious counter argument here is that these things are due to inherent sex differences, and therefore not gendered at all. However, it's clearly not that simple, most of these things have changed over time and vary depending on cultural context, which heavily suggests that even if there are inherent sex differences in the behaviour of men and women, these traits are moderated by social and cultural factors. It also doesn't match up with basic reality, even in my life I have met plenty of cis men who are individually capable of being gentle, expressive, caring and socially skilled. These deficiencies are, at least to some extent, gendered traits, rather than sexual traits.
Secondly, let's talk about autism. Hans Asperger, one of the key figures in the development of autism as a diagnostic condition, initially believed that it was only present in males. Although he later changed his mind, diagnoses of autism remains vastly more common in men than in women. This has lead to a theory in sexual difference research that autism itself represents an extreme variation on normal neurological sex differences, that autism represents an "extreme male brain" and this can explain a lot of the antisocial behaviour that men exhibit. This theory, to put it bluntly, is bullshit. It's based on an outdated and highly pejorative understanding of what autism is and how it manifests. However, it is based (however superficially) on the interpretation of the actual evidence. Certainly, many of the harmful traits commonly associate with autism are both far more present in men with autism, and also far closer to behaviour common among non-autistic men.
Every argument you could make to justify the claim that my gender identity constitutes a mental disorder could also apply to yours. They're weak arguments, but they were weak arguments when you applied them to me. There is only one argument (which as far as I'm aware noone has actually directly made so congratulations I guess) which actually justifies the idea that my gender identity is a mental disorder and yours is not, and that is that gender identity proceeds naturally or organically from anatomy, and thus that having a gender identity that does not align with your anatomy is in and of itself a lie or a delusion.
Now, you talk about the definition of a mental disorder, and in a sense you are correct. Gender dysphoria, for example, is a mental disorder. A mental disorder does not inherently imply an unreasonable or irrational response, only a response that is harmful in some way. However, the thing about gender dysphoria is that gender dysphoria can be cured without altering gender identity. In fact, doing things to affirm one's own gender identity is likely to strongly decrease feelings of gender dysphoria. Being trans or non binary is not an inherently precarious, hazardous or socially isolating experience, that depends very much on your life situation and surroundings, as it does for everyone. So again, we are left with this obvious conclusion. If these things are mental disorders, it's because they're based on delusion, a belief in things that are not real.
But is your gender identity real?
Think about everything I have said. Think about all the things that come with being male. Think about all the risks and harms to which a person exposes themselves by being male and ask yourself a simple question. Why would you ever assume that the entire progression of your life should be determined by the shape of your genitals? Why did you assume that the social position you occupy should be determined by something as completely meaningless as what you look like with your trousers off.
How is your irrational belief that it is normal or acceptable to base your identity on a few inches of meat
less delusional than my need to try and create an existence for myself outside of that? Why should the definition of mental health be based on subscribing to your beliefs? Particularly when your beliefs are not only deeply irrational, but also seem to lead far, far more actual societal and personal harm than mine do.
So given that, are you willing to accept that, by every possible metric by which you could describe me as such,
you are mentally disordered? Remember, it's not a bad thing apparently. Heck, we can all be mentally disordered together, along with every other human being on the planet
Maybe, and let me go out on a limb here, the whole idea that our identities are rational phenomena which need to be "ordered" is kind of a stupid idea. We don't choose our identities, they are the involuntarily product of our basic human need to make sense of our world and our place within it. They are always disorderly, because we are not ordered beings. Deep down, we don't have any control over who we are or what we want, and in that sense, ultimately, all our self-constructed identities are based on self-delusion. Maybe if we accept that, we can learn to be more generous and forgiving of ourselves and each other, and to worry less about whether our identities are in order, about whether we are meeting some standard of sufficiency in the performance of our self-constructed identities, and more about expressing who we are as individuals.
