Why would anyone want to be something they are not? For example, if a black kid wishes he were white, thinks he actually is white at some level, then one day has surgery to appear white - is that OK or is that a sign of mental disorder? If a man thinks he is a polar bear, and demands to be referred to as a polar bear, is that OK or is that a sign of mental disorder? People have all kinds of thoughts, most of which are fleeting or temporary. Currently, if you are male but think you are actually female, it is considered fashionable for people to say you're right and you shouldn't give in to social pressure to the contrary. You harden in your view and see yourself as a noble warrior of some sort. Your brain is not female - you are a male who would like to be female, you are not a female. You will never be female no matter what you do, say, or what other people say, or what laws are passed. If you have surgery, you will be a mutilated male pretending to be female. In the black kid who thinks he is white example: a mental health professional would probably try to understand why he feels negatively about his own ethnicity, and try to resolve those feelings in such a way that he takes pride in being black. Maybe he had a skewed and limited idea of blackness and the solution is to expand his idea of what being black means. Likewise, men who wish they were women may benefit from realizing that men can be many things, not whatever stereotype they are trying to run away from. If mommy was nice and daddy was mean, the solution isn't to pretend you are mommy's sex, the solution is to realize you can be male without being the same as daddy. I don't even have strong personal feelings. I am a "live and let live" person. If an adult wants to live this way, OK, I won't harm him, and out of simple politeness, I will even call him "she" though it is untrue. My goal is never to upset people. But unless you change your chromosomes, you are whichever of the two sexes you were born as, and you will be every second of your life.