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Notes -
Why not indeed? I don't think you understood my position, which is happy with neither the mainstream trans or anti-trans positions. I'm a transhumanist, I have libertarian leanings on at least this particular issue, and I do in fact consider it a grown man's right to get an artificial tail if he wants, just as much as artificial breasts or a nose piercing. Or some sort of melanin injection that changes your skin color, if it existed. Bodily autonomy means bodily autonomy. I fully bite that bullet.
However, treating all these things as personal desires should also logically mean that we stop medicalizing them. I think it's disingenuous of the trans movement that they simultaneously go for the bodily-autonomy line, which I respect, and want to keep "gender dysphoria" classified as a mental illness. You really can't have both. Wanting-sex-reassigment-surgery should not be classified as a mental illness any more than wanting-a-tattoo-really-bad. (You could certainly find biological women with self-image issues who were suicidal before getting cosmetic plastic surgery, but that doesn't make the surgery a medical intervention then, just an expense she has decided on of her own free will in pursuit of her happiness. We shouldn't treat the matter any differently if it's a biological man who elects to get the same procedure.)
There is, of course, a separate conversation about whether someone who makes himself disabled on purpose should get the same unemployment benefits etc. as someone who lost an arm by accident. But if a millionaire wants to cripple himself at his own expense, and can demonstrate that he's making that choice of his own free will after careful consideration, rather than in a fit of psychosis - then I don't see why that should be a crime. Hella weird, but it's not my business.
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