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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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There used to be a futurist transhumanism strain here that was more optimistic and trans-positive that has either been driven off or converted to conservative trad thinking, which is a shame.

Futurist transhumanist here. I have no objection to gender transition in principle. If I lived in The Culture and could switch literally at will, I'd probably try it for a while despite being quite comfortable as a straight, gender-conforming (nerd subtype), cis male.

However, the reality is that medical transition at the current level of technology is dangerous, expensive, irreversible, often unconvincing, and can have life-altering side-effects like sterility or permanent dependence on elaborate medical intervention. Medical transition flows from trans identity. Against this dark background, promoting the concept of trans identity, rather than simple acceptance of gender non-conformity, is irresponsible. Promoting this concept to minors as if cis and trans are just two equal choices (or trans is even better — braver, more special, etc.), is wildly irresponsible.

The fact that such a large fraction of people who present at gender transition clinics have serious mental health conditions should be a huge red flag here. A lot of people will likely choose to be thinner in a transhumanist future, but that doesn't make me want to celebrate bulimics as transhumanist pioneers.

On top of this, we've got the social demands of the trans movement. The insistence that e.g. someone who appears male and has male-typical physical abilities must nonetheless be recognized in all social respects as female doesn't fall out of technological transhumanism. I would go so far as to say it's at least somewhat at odds with it. Technological transhumanism is deeply materialist and concerned with physical intervention in the human condition. The primacy the present trans movement places on some inner essence of self-identity, incongruent with physical reality, doesn't sit comfortably within such a framework.