The issue is not with the gender or the sex, but from the discordance that exists between the two that comes from the body dysmorphia aspect of the gender dysphoria. The conflict between the biological sex and the internal gender causes the dysmorphia and anxiety, and that ranges across a large field from mild to extreme. There has yet to be developed a treatment that can align the mind to the existing body, at least not without causing further harm to the patient. In the end, the only real treatment is a management of symptoms. With milder forms, the trans person can get away with simply presenting to alleviate the GD. In other cases, the addition or removal of the breasts, depending on the specific situation, is sufficient treatment to provide that alleviation. It's only the more extreme cases that require the full SRS to alleviate the GD. Transgender people know perfectly well that they are not actually changing their biological sex. But the physical alterations to the body end up relieving that anxiety and dysphoria, at least to a point where the individual can function better in overall society.
Most, but not all, trans people have issues with their sex, not their gender, which is why some of them are willing to embrace SRS. Given the cost of SRS it is usually not undertaken lightly. The satisfaction rate is higher than for most other surgeries. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28366591/
The idea that there needs to be a conflict between the two is absurd. The connection between internal gender and biological sex is ultimately a social construct, isn't it? Of course the majority of society fit into one of two categories, where the one aligns to the other in a certain way, but there's no inherent reason to try to be like everyone else. Especially when it would necessitate extreme body modification. If I can use an analogy, imagine if virtually all dark skinned people had curly hair and virtually all light skinned people had straight hair, and both those dark skinned and light skinned people lived together in the same city. It would be absurd, wouldn't it, for a dark skinned person to think there was something horribly wrong with them because they had straight hair? This is the same exact sort of logic that pushes some gay people towards attempts at gay conversion, because their sexual orientation doesn't line up with their gender, well, not in the normal common way like the majority. There is nothing more wrong with a "transgendered" person who doesn't get hormonal-surgical treatment than there is with a gay person.
It is interesting that you mention that. I have been getting a lot of homophobia from trans people lately. And it is the same thing that the bible thumpers did. I started interacting in a space where trans people tend to congregate. I have been attacked (verbally) multiple times by trans men because I don't see them as men, and i won't consider them for partners. I don't like women I am gay. This happens to straight people as well. I see this as these people demanding others use their sexuality to affirm their gender identity. In fact this is my and most peoples' primary complaint with trans activism. Demanding I perform in their mental health is unacceptable. That is what the participation in sports is about. everybody else must accept a male as a female. Further I think this is what targeting kids is about as well. If they pretend everybody with a bit of discomfort is somehow one of them it makes them feel better.
Body outside of the mind is sex. So, this suggests gender and sex are deeply connected. the existence of body dysmorphia as connected to gender dysphoria can't be unless there is a deep connection between sex and gender. The fact that there is dysmorphia regarding sexual characteristics suggests gender is absolutely dependent on sex. A treatment for what. You can just identify as a woman or a man. Any medical intervention would be strictly to convince others. If you know your identity than what difference should your sex (body) make? Either it is deeply connected to the point of synonyms or it isn't. Sorry this all suggests sex and gender are deeply connected. Something that isn't connected to the way my body looks or how it is perceived sexual orientation. I don't have to shift my appearance for this identity, frankly I don't for many identities.
Then you have to ask yourself when the person feels they're the wrong sex. So the physical consists of breasts, vagina, penis, testicles, pelvic bone, testosterone and hormones, muscle mass, where hair grows, Adams apple, being able to reverse a car etc.. The mental is just the software in the brain. So someone feels they're the wrong sex and we have to accept that breasts, vagina, penis, testicles, pelvic bone, testosterone and hormones, muscle mass, where hair grows, Adams apple, being able to reverse a car etc.. are all at fault, and the only one item that's functionally correct is the software. Hmm. Now, it doesn't take an Einstein to work out where the transgender/transsexer problem lies.
That's still a misrepresentation. The premise to fix the "software" has been, to date, more damaging than altering some of the "hardware" to get the software to run better. That doesn't mean that we won't eventually manage to develop a way to correct the "software", but in the meantime, instead of letting those with the problem suffer, we do what does work to minimize the negative effects of GD.
Your grasp of the issue is, at best, superficial! What would YOUR life be like if YOU were FORCED to dress and act as the OPPOSITE sex for YOUR entire life? EVERYONE around you would TREAT you like you were the OPPOSITE to the gender that you KNOW you are inside. No, I do NOT expect you to grasp this analogy because MILLIONS of others don't either.
Being arrogant and proceeding to lecture everyone doesn't win hearts and minds. you should be concerned about that. You can't be. your sex is what you are no matter how you actyou are acting like your sex because that is your sex. there is no rigid prescription for how men and women act. Iam not a gender inside. i am not sure that even means anything. But a lot of men deal with this. a poster on another thread suggested that women have the appropriate amount of empathy and men are lacking in it. this poster was demanding people be more like the opposite sex. I believe that was you. Maybe they reject the analogy. you have to pretend you have some superior knowledge because you buy into something.
I think you're missing the point. Your perspective is like an atheist demanding that Christians make sense and explain themselves to be allowed to be respected as persons. The Christian theology doesn't make sense... at all. But it's people's right to live as they wish and even believe as they wish so long as they respect other people's rights. As to gender and sex. Somebody with gender dysphoria has a brain that better matches the opposite sex. Someday we will likely be able to do brain transplants... which basically means getting a whole new body. If that body was not of the same sex as the one you previously lived in, would you consider yourself a man, a woman, both, neither? Would you feel motivated to change its appearance to match how you feel inside? If you imagine that situation, you can begin to understand where they are coming from. It is a mental disorder in a sense, but I don't mean that disparagingly. It's very unfortunate to have a pervasive feeling of being in the wrong body. They deserve our sympathy and respect, not pointless scorn.
That last bit is the part that makes this contentious. If people just live and let live there wouldn't be a problem. So much of this is about other people affirming their identity. nobody should need that and further nobody is entitled to it. i don't have to use pronouns i have the right to free speech. The Christian that demands to be respected for his faith should get the same middle finger as someone demanding respect for their gender identity. This doesn't make sense at all it is a belief I don't share. I don't see the point. If it was a mental disorder that would make it a behavioral issue. Earlier you tried to frame it as like a mix up at the brain factory, which would make it a neurological disorder. This shouldn't be necessary to say. mental disorders are common, many are temporary and many of us deal with them from time to time Then i would ask the activists to calm down quit trying to apply this gender crap to me. quit slurring me with terms like cisgender quit telling me that if i don't want to get with a trans man that I am transphobic quit calling women birthing people quit with the homophobia. Then i will show those people empathy. But if they are 6'4 with five o clock shadow, a deep gravely voice and is clearly not a woman and throw a fit because someone "misgenders" them i am going to laugh when they go viral.
Here's a good book for anyone to read - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy Maybe you're using a poor guide to the trans debate. Should the likes of paedophiles, schizophrenics etc.. get empathy as well, I mean, they can't help the problem that they've got. So should all mental ailments receive psychiatric help, or should transgender/transexuals be treated differently? If so, why? Someone diagnosed as schizophrenic, should we cut some parts of their healthy body off or help treat the mental side. Someone who feels trapped in the wrong body, should we chop off healthy body parts or treat the mental side? Consistency of Thought is a good trait to have.
Your argmentum ad absurdum FAILS because you are COMPARING molluscs to polar bears and making the FALLACIOUS assumption that since BOTH can survive in sea water that they MUST be IDENTICAL because of Constipated Thought or something similar. LOL!
Excuse you! Given how many of us males, cishet males at that, are on here defending LBGT+, that kind of statement and rant is a slap in the face to us. We have the empathy and caring to stand up against the broadbrushing against LBGT+ and then you go and pull a broadbrushing tactic as if you were a transphobe yourself! It's bad enough that you don't make arguments anywhere near as frequently as you ad hom. You are one of those who is actually doing more harm than good in trying to support LBGT+
Of course they should. That goes for all disorders What do you think transitioning is? It is the help, the aid, that the transgender needs to alleviate the GD. It is the procedure and process that has been shown to be the most effective so far, with a 44% reduction in suicidal ideation alone for just the SRS recipients. And with transitioning at its lowest form, or earliest stages, depending on how far it needs to go, being simply presenting, it all starts with the psychiatric help. Simply because you don't like it, that doesn't mean it's not true or what is needed. Schizophrenia, no. That's not part of the disorder. Body dysmorphia on the other hand, yes. In the extreme cases, that is exactly the treatment. Transitioning is not just a immediate jump to SRS. You work your way up to try for the least alteration to get the most alleviation of the GD. As it has been mentioned sever times already, there is not a mental side treatment that has been developed yet that doesn't do more damage than repair. So until such is developed, unless your solution is to let them suffer, then we go with what currently works
Thank you for CONFIRMING that there are EXCEPTIONS to EVERYTHING but those exceptions do NOT nullify the EVIDENCE regarding empathy. Once upon a time I was a cishet male defending women's abortion rights because UPHOLDING the RIGHTS of OTHERS is a CORE principle of how OUR rights function in society. I uphold the right of sane normal people to own guns too. I uphold YOUR right to post baseless ad homs like the one above. I was NOT doing it because of EMPATHY! I did that and will ALWAYS do that because it is the RIGHT thing to DO! YOU might be doing what you are out of empathy but I do it BECAUSE I understand that if I do NOT uphold YOUR rights my own are in JEOPARDY. Only ONE of us is posting puerile ad homs and I KNOW that it is NOT myself.
One cannot be in the "wrong" body. One can "feel" one is in the wrong body. Feelings are a mental state. Mental states can be modified in a number of ways. Modifying the physical body in response to a mental state may, and almost certainly will, create some other mental state. Such modification is not necessary in order to alter a mental state. Finding the way to alter an uncomfortable mental state an enter a more comfortable one is the goal of almost every human at one time or another. Doing so while incurring the least damage would seem to be a proper path.
That is an odd assumption. This discussion hasn't required me to empathize with anything. It isn't personal. Do you need empathy for something?
Indeed. But when we think about it, isn't this what transgenderism is all about? I mean if we listen to what they say, the entire point of altering their body really comes down to involving a social context, how they want to interact with others in society.
