[The full post is ~5300 words and way way too long for the Motte's 20k character limit but I'm posting as much as I can fit.]
If you've ever been curious about the etymology of cis and trans as prefixes, just know they're Latin for "the same side of" and "the other side of", respectively. These prefixes are widely used in organic chemistry to distinguish between molecules that have the exact same atoms with a different spatial arrangement. Notice, for example, how in the cis isomer below on the left, chlorine atoms are oriented toward the "same side" as each other, but on the "other side" of each other in the trans isomer.
[chlorine on hydrogen action too hot for the motte]
The dashed line is just me simplifying the geometric comparison plane (the E-Z convention is much more precise in this respect), but regardless, this is meant only to illustrate how talk of cis or trans is necessarily one of *relative positioning. *A single solitary point floating in space cannot be described as the same or other "side" of anything when there is nothing else to contrast it against.
Now this is just organic chemistry, not real life, but the cis/trans convention is applied consistently elsewhere. In the context relevant to this post, "sex" and "gender" are the two anchor points --- the two chlorine atoms in the dichloroethene molecule of life --- and their relative resonance/dissonance relative to each other is the very definition of cis/trans gender identity. To avoid any ambiguity, I use sex to refer to one's biological role in reproduction (strictly binary), while gender is the fuzzy spectrum of sex-based societal expectations about how one is supposed to act. If your sex and gender identity "align", then you are considered cis; if they don't, then you are trans. Same side versus other side.
But what does it mean for sex and gender identity to "align"? There is an obvious answer to this question, but it is peculiarly difficult to encounter it transparently out in the wild. For reasons outlined below, I will argue that the elusiveness is completely intentional.
More than two years ago I wrote a post that got me put on a watch list, called Do Trans People Exist?. The question mark was barely a hedge and the theory I outlined remains straightforward:
I'm starting to think that trans people do not exist. What I mean by this is that I'm finding myself drawn towards an alternative theory that when someone identifies as trans, they've fallen prey to a gender conformity system that is too rigid.
Two years on and I maintain my assertion remains trivially true. One change I would make is avoiding the "fallen prey" language because I have no idea whether the rigidity is nascent to and incubated by the trans community (for whatever reasons), or if it's just an enduring consequence of society's extant gender conformity system (no matter how much liberal society tells itself otherwise). If you disagree with my assertion, it's actually super-duper easy to refute it; all anyone needs to do is offer up a coherent description of either cis or trans gender identity void of any reference to gender stereotypes. But I'd be asking for the impossible here, because the essence of these concepts is to describe the resonance or dissonance that exists between one's biological reality (sex) and the accordant societal expectations imposed (gender). Unless you internalize or assimilate society's gender expectations, unless you accede to them and capitulate that they're worth respecting and paying attention to as a guiding lodestar, concepts like "gender dysphoria" are fundamentally moot. A single point cannot resonate or clash with itself, as these dynamics necessitate interaction between distinct elements.
The position I'm arguing is nothing new. The Oxford philosopher Rebecca Reilly-Cooper had already established the incoherencies inherent within this framework conclusively and with impeccable clarity in this lecture she gave way back in 2016 (website form). It's wild how her arguments remain perfectly relevant today, and if anyone has attempted a refutation I have not encountered it. And yet this remains a controversial position to stake, but not because it's wrong. Rather, I believe, it's because of how insulting it is to be accused of reifying any system of stereotypes nowadays.
In case it needs to be said, stereotypes can occasionally offer useful shortcuts, but their inherent overgeneralization risks flattening reality into inaccuracy. The major risk relevant to this discussion is when stereotypes crystallize into concrete expectations, suffocating individual expression with either forced conformity due to perceived group membership, or feelings of alienation due to perceived incongruence. The indignation to my position is also understandable given how the foundational ethos of the queer liberation movement was a rejection of gender normativity's constraints.
You're not obligated to take my word for this, but I do tend to feel an immense discomfort whenever I hold a position that is purportedly controversial, and yet I'm unable to steelman any plausible refutations --- a sense of "I must be missing something, it can't be this obvious" type deal. I did try to bridge the chasm of inscrutability when I wrote What Boston Can Teach Us About What a Woman Is. My plea to everyone was to jettison the ambiguous semantic topography within this topic and replace it with concrete specifics:
To the extent that woman is a cluster of traits, I struggle to contemplate a scenario where communicating the cluster is a more efficient or more thoughtful method of communication than just communicating the specific pertinent trait. Just tell me what you want me to know directly. Use other words if need be.
Because right now it's a complete fucking riddle to me if someone discloses that they "identify as a woman" or whatever. What, exactly, am I supposed to do with this new information? Suggesting that stereotypes are the referent is met with umbrage and steadfast denials, but if not that, then what? Over the years I've tried earnestly to learn by asking questions and seeking out resources, and what I've repeatedly experienced is a marked reluctance to offer up anything more than the vaguest of details.
The ambiguity I'm referring to isn't absolute, however, and there are two notable exceptions worth briefly addressing: body modifications and preferred pronouns.
Sex does not only determine whether an individual produces large or small gametes --- an entire armory of secondary characteristics comes along for the ride, whether you like it or not. If a female happens to be distressed by their breasts and wants them removed, you could describe this scenario in two very different ways. One is that this person "identifies as a man" and their (very obviously female) breasts serve as a distressing monument that something is "off". The other way is that this person is simply distressed by their breasts, full stop, without any of the gender-related accoutrements. [These two options are not necessarily exhaustive, and I'm open to other potential interpretations.]
Is there any difference between these two approaches? The first framework adds a multitude of vexing, unanswerable questions (Does comfort with one's secondary sex characteristics require some sort of "affirmation gene" that trans people unfortunately lack? Is the problem some sort of mind/body misalignment? If so, why address one side of that equation only? Etc.) within an already overcomplicated framework. The other concern here is if the gender identity becomes prescriptive, where an individual pursues a body modification not for whatever inherent qualities it may have, but rather because of some felt obligation to "complete the set" for what their particular identity is supposed to look like.
The second framework (the one eschewing the gender identity component) would not dismiss the individual's concerns and would be part of a panoply of well-established phenomena of individuals inconsolably distressed with their body, such as body integrity dysphoria (BID), anorexia, or muscle dysphoria. The general remedies here tend to be a combination of counseling and medication to deal with the distress directly, and only in rare circumstances is permanent alteration even considered. I imagine there is some consternation that I've compared gender dysphoria with BID, but I see no reason to believe they are qualitatively different and welcome anyone to demonstrate otherwise. Regardless, I subscribe to maximum individual autonomy on these matters, and so it's not any of my business what people choose to do with their bodies. The point here is that preferences about one's body (either aesthetic or functional) exist without a reliance on paradigm shifts of one's "internal sense of self". If someone wants to, for example, bulk up and build muscle, they can just do it; it's nonsensical to say they first need to "identify" as their chosen aspiration before any changes can occur.
The other exception to the ambiguity around what gender identity* means* is pronoun preference. Chalk it up to [whatever]-privilege, but I concede I do not understand the fixation on pronouns. The closest parallel I can think of are nickname preferences, but unlike nicknames, pronouns almost never come up in two-party conversations, so it's difficult to see why they would be any more consequential. I personally accommodate pronoun preferences out of politeness (and I suspect almost everyone else does as well), the exact same way I would accommodate nicknames out of politeness. If I happen to refer to my friend using frog/frogs pronouns, it's not because I believe they're actually a frog; I'm just trying to be nice and avoid getting yelled at. Regardless of the intent behind them, pronoun preferences are a facile and woefully incomplete account for what we're warned are suicidal levels of distress around one's incongruent gender identity, so this can't be the whole story.
So on one extreme you have potentially invasive body modifications that are at least commensurate with the seriousness of the distress expressed, and on the other side you have the equivalent of a nickname preference that is relatively facile to accommodate. In between these two pillars, however, is a conspicuous vacuum of silence. My conclusion is that this missing middle is really just gendered stereotypes, but nobody wants to admit something so laughably antiquated out loud.
Well, almost nobody.
I've had this post sitting in my drafts for months largely because of an ever-present concern that I was unfairly shining a spotlight on the craziest examples from the trans-affirming community. My perennial goal with any subject is to avoid weakmanning, but with this issue I have no idea how to draw the contours and discern what arguments are representative and thus fair game to critique.
The lack of contours means I can't prove this next part conclusively, but I noticed a shift over time regarding which talking points were most common. The perennial challenge for this camp remains the logical impossibility of harmonizing the twin snakes of "trans people don't owe you passing" and "trans people will literally kill themselves if they don't pass". At least as late as 2018, there was more of an apparent comfort with leaning more toward openly reifying gendered roles and expectations. For example, in this Aeon magazine dialogue between trans philosopher Sophie Grace Chappell and gender-critical feminist Holly Lawford-Smith, Chappell uses the word script in her responses a whopping forty-one times.
But by far the most jaw-dropping example of this comfort comes from a lecture by Dr. Diane Ehrensaft, currently the head psychologist for the UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals' gender clinic. When a parent asked how to know if a baby is trans, Dr. Ehrensaft literally said that a baby throwing out a barrette is a "gender signal" the baby might not really be a girl, the same way another baby opening their onesie is a signal they might be a girl. Seriously, watch this shit.
This is such a blatantly asinine thing to say that it depresses me to no end that the auditorium didn't erupt in raucous laughter at her answer. I don't even know how to respond to it. Maybe it bears repeating that babies are dumb. At any given moment, the entirety of a baby's cognitive load is already stressed over having to decide between shitting and vomiting. Dr. Ehrensaft conjures up this tale about how dumb babies are able to divinate the eternal message that "dresses are for women" out of thin air (or maybe directly from Allah), and that same dumb baby also has the ingenuity to cleverly repurpose their onesie into a jury-rigged "dress". I'm not claiming that it's impossible for young children to notice and even mirror societal expectations, including gender-related ones. Indeed, research indicates wisps of this awareness can start manifesting very early on, with children reaching "peak rigidity in their gender stereotypes at age 5 to 6" followed by a dramatic and continuing increase in flexibility. But it remains a jaw-dropping level of projection and tea leaf--reading on display here by Dr. Ehrensaft; the simple explanation that a baby might open their onesie because they're a dumb baby is apparently not worth consideration.
Dr. Ehrensaft is illustrative of the intellectual rigor that is apparently expected from the lead mental health professional in charge of the well-being of an entire clinic's worth of young patients. Matt Osborne wrote a devastating piece about her very long history of dangerous quackery. My mind was blown when I found out that Dr. Ehrensaft happened to be at the scene in 1992 desperately trying to whitewash the Daycare Satanic Panic and the unconscionable misery the "recovered memory" movement caused. In response to some highly suggestive interviews by therapists, preschool children alleged bizarre and horrific sexual abuse by staff involving drills, flying witches, underground tunnels, and hot-air balloons. The notorious McMartin case resulted in no convictions, with all charges finally dropped in 1990 after seven years of prosecutions. Two years later in an aftermath report of the similar Presidio case, Dr. Ehrensaft notes how the children's abuse narratives often contained fantasy elements, such as devilish pranks and hidden skeletons. This should normally be grounds for skepticism, but Dr. Ehrensaft stridently refuses to question the veracity of the accounts, and explains away the outlandish aspects as simply the result of trauma management --- the kids were using imaginative fears as a protective barrier for their (according to Dr. Ehrensaft) unquestionably real trauma. Given her general credulity, it's no surprise why her writing on the topic of gender identity is a murky soup of pseudo-religious nonsense about "gender ghosts" and "gender angels".
What exactly is the explanation for trans-affirming professionals like Chappell and Ehrensaft explicitly encouraging the necessity of adhering to gender scripts? Were they misled? Did they get the wrong bulletin? How? Why aren't their professional peers correcting them on such an elementary and foundational error? So many questions.
You can't keep drawing from the well of gender stereotypes so blatantly without anyone noticing. My general impression of the field is people realized how idiotic they sounded when their talking points were solidly anchored upon the veneration of (purportedly antiquated) gender roles and gender scripts. The response to this inescapable criticism has largely been to subtly pivot into the realm of empty rhetoric. But because of the necessity to cling onto strands of the initial assertions (for reasons I'll explain further), the result is a strenuous ballet of either constantly leaping between the two positions, or uncomfortably trying to straddle both.
Dr. Ehrensaft gives us an example of the vacuous. Her onesie/barrette poem of an answer above is from a video uploaded in 2018, but here's how her website explains gender nowadays, except with one particular word switched out:
This core aspect of one's identity comes from within each of us. Flibberdibber identity is an inherent aspect of a person's make-up. Individuals do not choose their flibberdibber, nor can they be made to change it. However, the words someone uses to communicate their flibberdibber identity may change over time; naming one's flibberdibber can be a complex and evolving matter. Because we are provided with limited language for flibberdibber, it may take a person quite some time to discover, or create, the language that best communicates their internal experience. Likewise, as language evolves, a person's name for their flibberdibber may also evolve. This does not mean their flibberdibber has changed, but rather that the words for it are shifting.
Can anyone reading this tell me what flibberdibber is beyond that it's something inexplicably very important?
It's probably too much to expect philosophy to throw us a lifeline here, but even with those low standards, the response from the trans-inclusionary philosophers has been a complete fucking mess and followed a similarly strenuous pivot. For example, in the 2018 paper Real Talk on the Metaphysics of Gender, Yale philosopher Robin Dembroff argues for a more "inclusive" understanding of gender. But in doing so, Dembroff explicitly acknowledges the glaring contradiction between decrying a category as oppressively exclusionary while simultaneously petitioning to be included within it. The apparent solution on page 44 to this conundrum is rather. . . something:
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Notes -
I’m a trans person and I’m honestly tired of how politicised this condition has become. I’m going all-in on the hypothesis that’s it’s a physical condition caused by an endocrine abnormality. I highly recommend reading this post or any of Dr Powers’ posts on his subreddit.
All of this philosophising on the nature of transgenderism is like trying to psychoanalyse the cause of stomach ulcers (which is something clinicians did until they were revealed to be caused by bacteria). There’s clearly something physically abnormal with transgender people and their brains, and one of the manifestations of that is gender dysphoria and behaviour atypical of the patient’s birth sex.
I don’t care one iota about my “gender identity”, following any gender scripts, or whether my interests are typical for men or women. I don’t “identify as a woman”, whatever that means. I would vastly prefer if pro-trans clinicians focused on actual clinical markers like improper methylation of testosterone, or the extremely high rates of PCOS in trans male patients, or MTHFR mutations. This is the kind of scientific research that would actually help our understanding of transgender people.
Instead we have this focus on babies turning their onesie into a dress. Anybody on both sides can write a lengthy essay full of navel gazing on the sociological basis of gendered behaviour that supports their pet theory, and turn being trans into a moral problem. You can debate endlessly about what is a woman, which is a philosophical problem. Or you can do DNA testing on trans patients and discover rates of certain mutations far in excess of the normal population, examine aromatase and sex hormone production, and look at correlations between gender dysphoria and other physical conditions.
Seems to be like the latter is far more useful. Plus, no one can have a political argument over DNA methylation patterns.
This was the existing accommodation and understanding of trans-sexuals. But the progressive social engineers, legal activists (out of a job after successful gay marriage laws) and the queer activists (a golem of post-modernism and a broken academia) took over (over-reached) and now 'the machine' has taken over. Now we've got social media disembodiment and cult dynamics, an acquiescent media, rogue pharma and surgeons and a cultural fashion that morphed into winning the culture war through hegemony. Self-ID now let's weird criminal males transfer to women's prisons.
The level of philosophy is just to satisfy oneself that one is not a bigot and that gender ideology is actually incoherent. Of course no one on the peak-trans side really cares about these ideas, it's about cultural power.
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100% on board. There exists a legitimate issue or collection of medical issues that cause distress in people related to hormones or brains or something sex related. It would be great if we could diagnose and treat these people in ways that decrease their distress.
There also exists a bunch of political nonsense about gender identities and sexualities and expressing yourself via some public identity that everyone you meet needs to know about, aknowledge, and treat you specially based on. Within this ideology, "trans" has become a cool trendy thing to identify as regardless of whether or not someone has the above condition.
Better science and unbiased application of it would allow us to accurately identify the former, give the appropriate treatment, while separately identifying the latter and... probably also giving them treatment based on their issues. Most trans-identifying people have some sort of distress that caused them to feel discomfort, even if it's not actual gender dysphoria, and if we had a clear and definitive understanding of real transgenderism we could rule it out for people who don't have it and then probe further to diagnosing and treating their actual condition (frequently autism, but not always) and get better treatment rather than using "trans" as a thought terminating cliche and sending them down the wrong treatment path.
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A bona fide medical condition implies a cure, which is really hard to imagine the medical community accepting to say nothing of the trans community itself… or the political mess this would cause with insurance. I believe we will be waiting a while.
Does cancer have a cure?
Different cancers have treatments of varying efficacy. The difference of course is that we don’t have cancer advocacy, cancer pride, cancer parades, cancer lifestyle TV shows, de facto mandatory inclusion quotas for people of cancer in every form of media, constitutional protection at large, and the White House hoisting a Cancer flag in lieu of the American flag as cause celebre.
Uh, yes, we do.
Cancer awareness? They even have different coloured ribbons for different types of cancer, just like the various pride flags!
Examples from the first page of the Google search results for "cancer parade":
http://bravothree.com/news/join-bravo-three-making-strides-san-diego-breast-cancer-walk-oct-19th/attachment/susan-g-komen-race-for-the-cure-st-louis/
https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/09/22/torch-race-to-mark-2021-breast-cancer-march/
https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2023/05/05/oaks-survivors-parade
I'm not sure what trans "lifestyle TV shows" you have in mind, but surely you are not suggesting that there are no TV shows or movies where cancer is a major plot point.
Are you implying that trans or other LGBT people have to be included in every TV show or movie? Because I am pretty sure there have been very popular TV shows or movies produced even in the past couple of years without any LGBT characters. There are certainly many that do have LGBT characters, but, as I said above, there are also many featuring cancer.
Maybe not "constitutional", but apparently laws protecting people with cancer from discrimination do exist.
Close enough. This is apparently an established yearly tradition now, even Trump did it.
Also, as far as I can tell, the pride flag was hoisted alongside two American flags, not in lieu of them.
P.S.: Your claim that a "bona fide medical condition implies a cure" is clearly false. There are many incurable conditions whose management is purely symptomatic.
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I was reacting to the statement that a medical condition implies a cure. It may imply that there could be one but it doesn't imply that there is.
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We've touched on it before but if it's a endocrine disorder and a simple and effective way to correct that disorder is found what are your thoughts on correction vs transition? I understand that it, as with all conditions that effect one's self conception, is touchy but I'm not actually sure how you'd answer it.
I’m fine with both transition and correction being available. I doubt there will be a 100% effective way to correct gender dysphoria at any age - from Dr. Power’s preliminary research, T suppression in potential FtMs works only if started in early adolescence (and there’s currently no pathway for MtFs), and the individuals still remain gender non-conforming.
I’m favouring the “mosaic brain” hypothesis of gender dysphoria where certain brain structures are improperly feminised/masculinised to varying degree, starting in the womb. So if you wanted to be sure to prevent gender dysphoria, you’d have to start monitoring foetal conditions. This is actually a promising path, there’s potential evidence that ties folate supplementation to increased estradiol production in the womb in certain mothers, which would be linked to increased rates of autism and gender variance. I wouldn’t have any opposition to this kind of “prevention”.
In my case I feel like trying to correct gender dysphoria at puberty might have already been too late - by the time male puberty arrived, my brain had developed enough to feel incredibly not only emotionally traumatised but intellectually against the very concept of growing up to be male. So transitioning needs to remain an option for those that wouldn’t be able to get the endocrine abnormalities treated in time.
As an aside, I find the idea of being unwillingly born into a sex that defines so much of your life, socially and physically, with no choice to opt out or change or try other options, to be morally abhorrent and the equivalent to a dystopian caste system. While dysphoria is an unfortunate condition, I’m actually very grateful for having had the opportunity to explore possibilities beyond straight and cis-gendered norms, and I think gender variance is a net positive for the world - the ideal human takes the best of both masculine and feminine traits, rather than rigidly adhere to either box.
I addressed this in my post at length. It sounds like the issue you have is with the societal expectations so I don't understand how transition "solves" the issue. How is your position distinguished from how Iran deals with gender noncomformity?
I can’t change society or social expectations for men, but by transitioning I can be perceived and treated as a woman and that certainly solves my problem. Plus, it alleviates my physical dysphoria - a topic which you didn’t really address in your post. Even in a perfect pansexual non-gendered utopia, the latter would still remain - I’m not transitioning because I want to wear a dress or put on make-up or any other superficial trappings of femininity. I’m transitioning because being physically male is psychologically painful for me and I couldn’t stand any further masculinisation. Now of course there’s social benefits which are a motivating factor, but again, I can’t change society, I can only change myself.
Some trans activists do encourage gender stereotypes - I assume this is why you brought up Iran’s approach, which has no room for gender non-conformity (or homosexuality) and just allows you to transition between two rigid boxes. I am very much against that, I believe you should be able to pick and choose which aspects of femininity and masculinity you want both in yourself and in a partner. I don’t even want to be a feminine woman; so I fail to see how my transitioning is enforcing gender roles.
I don't claim to have any unique insights into physical gender dysphoria, so there's not much more for me to say except to acknowledge the distress is real and to advocate treating the condition the same we treat other types of physical dysphoria. I've already conceded that body modifications are not necessarily reliant on stereotypes.
You're right that our ability to change society and its gendered expectations is virtually nil. But what you described as the equivalent of a "dystopian caste system" wasn't the caste system itself, but rather the inability to change castes (Imagine if we applied that standard to actual dystopian caste systems, like India's, where the first line of criticism is decrying the inability for Untouchables to self-identify as Brahmins).
Based on how you describe "opting out" of sex, it sounds like you're using 'sex' to mean 'gender role' rather than referring to gamete size like I am. Correct me if I'm wrong but if so then I would be very curious to know what exactly you mean when you say that you had "no choice to opt out or change or try other [gender role] options". What exactly did you want but were unable to have prior to transitioning? What exactly were you able to gain only after transitioning? I'm very curious to know!
While I am certainly unhappy about the enforcement of gender roles, I’m also unhappy about being born into a physical sex without having the ability to change it. There’s a number of physical differences between men and women, the biggest being the reproductive system and physical characteristics.
My primary motivation for transitioning was purely physical dysphoria; HRT is a tremendous help and it does let me be closer to the opposite sex hormonally and physically, even if it’s not magic. I assume you’re more interested in the non-physical motivations though?
So the biggest one would be relationships. I wasn’t comfortable dating gay men or masculine-attracted bisexual men; many didn’t understand my dysphoria and were attracted to parts of me I hated. I disliked the general “vibes” of the gay dating scene, the focus on casual sex and the lack of desire for romance and long-term commitment.
But as a trans woman, I’ve dated feminine-attracted bisexual men and get treated completely differently. I’ll admit I do enjoy the gender roles when it comes to relationships; I like masculine men who know how to flirt and seduce me, who take me out on dates, make me feel safe and protected, find me attractive as a feminine person, and want to have sex with me the way a straight man wants to have sex with a woman.
I did try to have that without transitioning, but it felt like swimming against the current; I actually was dating feminine attracted bisexual men before as a youth and discovered the gender roles I liked that way. But as a man, I felt inadequate, and knew the kind of man I wanted would be wayyy more attracted to me in if I was a woman.
I also like getting gendered female, and avoiding getting male stereotypes assigned to me; no one asks me to lift heavy objects, or assumes I have any interest in sports, cars, fighting, women, or other stereotypically manly things. Lazy perhaps, but a plus for me.
Ok? I'm unhappy that we can't fly, that we age, and that we can't eat and talk at the same time. In the context of decrying the sex-change limitation as "morally abhorrent and the equivalent to a dystopian caste system" you make it sound like an artificial man-made limitation rather than just a reflection of reality's limitation. I find this particular thread confusing.
I appreciate the insight into your experience here. I had a trans friend describe her motivation for physical transition as an exercise in signaling — the equivalent of a hat that says "please be patient I have autism" but for her it communicates something like "speak to me in a softer and less rowdy tone". It sounds very similar to what you're describing here. There are gender roles that you find yourself drawn to, but they're not adequately communicated to others if you presented as a man. Accordingly, your feminine appearance serves as a billboard-size instruction manual to others on how you prefer to be interacted with in the context of relationships.
Is that a fair paraphrasing? As a masculine presenting male, I can still empathize with this experience and the difficulties it may generate because I also prefer typical gender role dynamics. I enjoy being assertive and dominant in my dating relationships and tend to date feminine women. It's very easy to advertise my preferred approach given the way I look. I imagine if my preferences were more submissive I'd probably would want it reflected in my expression somehow (though that wouldn't explain to me wanting/needing to identify as a completely different gender).
Well, humans being upset that they couldn’t fly is what led to the invention of the airplane. And you should rightly be upset at ageing, there’s far too many people many excuses for what’s the #1 killer out there; if it can be even just slowed down, the quality of life of many would significantly improve. I find ageing abhorrent and cruel in the same way I find forced gender roles and sexual biology to be.
Fairly spot on assessment to be honest.
There’s no “rational” psychological motivation for the physical gender dysphoria, it’s more of a neurological/endocrinological problem from what I’ve been researching. There it’s more of a visceral reaction of disgust towards your own body; like if you saw yourself as physically deformed.
But on the social side, you can imagine that being a feminine male is inferior to being a normal woman, both in terms of personal safety, how others treat you, your dating options, and the very way you have sex. A lot of the thoughts can be “ah, if only I was a real woman, I wouldn’t have X issue”.
I don’t personally “identify” as a woman, I just like it when I happen to pass well enough that people assume I’m one. As I’ve said before, I don’t care about whatever an internal sense of gender identity means.
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Your comparison's rhetorical force depends on the reality of actual caste systems, which are cruel and unjust specifically because they are essentially arbitrary - there are no meaningful physical differences between a Brahmin and an Untouchable, I very much doubt one could identify one on sight, or from an X-ray, or a skeletal record. This is, to put it mildly, not the case with sex. It's not like Bob and Alice are functionally physically identical aside from their chromosomes, but we're arbitrarily choosing to treat them completely differently on the basis of chromosomes alone. Bob and Alice's bodies are completely different, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and we treat them differently on that basis.
(Or to put it another way: if the average Untouchable could physically overpower and forcibly impregnate 99% of Brahmins against their will, while no Untouchable ever had to fear becoming impregnated and no Brahmin can impregnate someone else, I think segregating Untouchables and Brahmins in certain contexts would be perfectly reasonable.)
I mean, yes, Bob didn't choose to be born male. He also didn't choose to be born a human, and yet no one would seriously entertain his desire to be treated as something other than that.
So given that we can't change our sexes (and this is unlikely to become a possibility in your or my lifetimes), complaining about this "dystopian caste system" seems a bit like complaining about the laws of gravity. Yeah it sucks that if you fall off a tall building you'll go splat when you hit the bottom, but complaining about it won't change it. Or as Monty Python would say, it's meaningless to say that Loretta has the "right" to have babies when he physically can't.
Complaining about the state of nature won’t change it, but humans have over and over been able to overcome what was previously an inevitable law of nature. You don’t have to splat when you jump from a tall building if you have a parachute (although BASE jumping is still very dangerous). Women don’t have to fear becoming pregnant against their will to the same degree when there’s birth control (obviously this doesn’t help with the trauma of being raped, I’ve been sexually assaulted by a male myself and it’s an awful experience regardless of the pregnancy risk). With regards to gender and sex, we’re not all the way there yet, but I’m grateful that HRT exists and I can bypass some of my male biology.
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I would be all in favour of your proposal. Do you know who wouldn't? The loudest trans activists out there.
Twenty years ago, gender dysphoria was understood as a rare and unfortunate medical condition which caused intense distress among those suffering from it, who deserved respect and compassion. Nowadays, trans is seen as something wholly unrelated to any medical condition (never mind a psychological disorder) and to suggest that only people who have been formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a qualified mental health professional are "really" trans is a form of essentialist gatekeeping. Hence all the navel-gazing about what a woman "really" is: if it was put down to a simple binary choice "do you have gender dysphoria yes/no", then some of the most vocal trans people out there would be forced to concede that they aren't really trans at all. On some level they must know that they would not pass a diagnostic test for gender dysphoria with flying pink-and-blue colours: they don't have stereotypically feminine/masculine interests, they don't experience distress looking at their naked bodies in the mirror, they haven't undergone gender reassignment surgery (nor have they any desire to), in many cases they aren't taking hormones and have no plans to. All they really want is to be treated socially as a woman, and perhaps gain access to women-only spaces.
I think saying "instead of navel-gazing about what a woman really is, we ought to be investigating the underlying biochemistry behind gender dysphoria" is sort of missing the point. The current state of the discourse (and, more importantly, the current state of legislation) in the Anglosphere admits no intrinsic relationship between the transgender community and gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is now a condition incidentally suffered by some, but far from all, trans people, where before it was treated (more properly, in my view) as a rule-in criteria for membership of the group: being a trans person without gender dysphoria would be like being a vegetarian who eats meat. Before we can even begin to shift focus towards investigating the neural substrates of this medical condition, we need to roll back ten years of dualist nonsense about an "internally felt sense of gender identity" and acknowledge that self-ID, wherever implemented, is a fantastically ill-thought-out piece of legislation.
Unfortunately vocal anti-trans activists are just as bad as the vocal trans activists you described. A relatively moderate trans medicalist perspective as you described would be just as vilified by either side.
Also, I’m not necessarily in favour of strict gatekeeping of trans identity when it comes to medical treatment, especially for adults, for the same reasons I’m not in favour of strict gatekeeping for ADHD. You’re incentivising whoever is most motivated to get through the gatekeepers, and those aren’t necessarily the ones that would benefit the most from the treatment. See this excellent post by Scott Alexander.
Although in the case of the trans activists you mentioned, it wouldn’t be a problem as they’re not interested in medically transitioning at all, so removing gatekeeping when it comes to HRT and surgery would have no effect on them. If you’re not actually dysphoric and pursue transition, it will give you reverse gender dysphoria - so having the gatekeeping be the medical treatment itself is self-correcting to some extent.
I am a transmedicalist. Unfortunately, if you ask me to choose between the virulent insane pro-trans group and the virulent insane anti-trans group, I’m going to pick the virulent insane anti-trans group, because that at least returns us to a more coherent system of social organisation. Anything to avoid the mangling of language, and generating the group of acquaintances I have with neopronouns and genders listed as anything from “genderfluid” to “centipede”. (I also happen to really hate the weird contracted cutesy names people of this persuasion tend to pick for themselves. It sounds extraordinarily fake and performative.)
Which is really unfortunate, because I think the actual medical condition extreme-distress-with-birth-body people do exist, and we should be sympathetic and accommodative towards them (within reasonable limits, and assuming that they are also reasonable and accommodative towards society).
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I agree with Yassine that adults can do whatever they want with their own bodies. I suspect that I'm far more of a bodily autonomy absolutist than the average person, and if an adult male wants to have their penis fashioned into a crude neovagina, then that's their business, more power to them, and the fact that they haven't been diagnosed with gender dysphoria should be no object (although I don't think the state should pay for the procedure, any more than they should pay for boob jobs or whatever the Bogdanoffs did to their faces). In the context of adults who want to take hormones and undergo gender reassignment surgery, I don't think there's any real ethical dilemma: adults are allowed to make choices about their own bodies, even ones they may later come to regret. The burden of proof is much higher for children and teens, for obvious reasons.
Do you think there should be legal gatekeeping? That is, should anyone be entitled to change the sex on their birth cert or driver's license, or only people who can demonstrate that they suffer from gender dysphoria?
I am generally in agreement with you, but I have had scenarios thrown in my face that I don't know how to answer. I would like to hear your opinion.
You and I both say that it's an adult's personal business what they want to do with their bodies, but when does it become someone else's business? When they want you to call them a specific pronoun? What about if you're hooking up with them? What about if you're in a long term relationship with them? Do you think that it's a man's business if his wife is actually an mtf, or is that solely the wife's business? What about if an mtf goes out to a bar looking for a man to bang, would the fact that they're not really a woman be the one night stand partners business? I don't know the answer. I love to think of things as people's personal business, I really do, but then there are all these edge cases that everyone I know wants to have encroach all the time.
None of these scenarios need to be thought of as unique to the trans experience. What if someone wants you to call them a specific nickname and you don't? What if someone wants you to refer to them as Doctor and you don't? What if you go home with someone thinking you're about to have sex but they introduce their husband and try to rope you into a threesome? What if you meet someone from an online dating app and they look nothing like their photos? Etc etc.
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My comment was about medical transition specifically, and I agree that numerous other components of trans activism do not fall under "it's my body and I can do with it as I please". Nonetheless, I'll try to answer your question.
I completely agree with Jordan Peterson that no one should be legally compelled to address someone by their preferred pronoun. Knowingly failing to do so may be rude, but it isn't "hateful". I try to use people's preferred pronouns as a courtesy, but fortunately it doesn't come up very often.
If you go home with someone and discover that their genitalia are different from what you had presumed, you are perfectly entitled to leave. Doing so does not make you transphobic or bigoted one iota. When trans rights activists accuse people of not being "straight" but simply having a "genital preference" my response is yeschad.jpg - that's what a sexuality is. It's perhaps a little dishonest for the trans person in question not to disclose it upfront, although on the other hand I don't think people should be socially expected to disclose every potentially germane fact about their bodies to a prospective one-night stand e.g. that one episode of Friends where Chandler dates a girl with a wooden leg. I don't think people with prosthetics should be expected to disclose that upfront up everyone they're interested in going to bed with, even though many people are (understandably!) put off by prosthetics.
What if you can't tell visually? I've heard that surgeries of this sort these days produce a very realistic looking vagina, even if it doesn't feel realistic, such that you may only know by actually sticking your penis in. And even then, many people may not even know what a fake vagina feels like, they may assume something else is up.
I am very sceptical.
Even in the unlikely event that their neovagina didn't tip you off (visually or tactilely*), a hundred other things would. The width of their shoulders, the narrowness of their hips - there are loads of cues which are difficult enough to mask with clothing and makeup, and effectively impossible to mask in the nip. The likelihood of you going to bed with someone without realising they're a trans woman is so low as to be functionally nil. It's not a possibility that you should devote any time or energy into avoiding.
*Or even (and I feel kind of dirty even pointing this out) olfactorily.
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How do you demonstrate that you suffer from gender dysphoria though? I guess it could be accessible to anyone who has transitioned for more than X time. But what’s the real point of having your gender marked on your driver’s license or birth certificate? On the driver’s license it should be obvious from the picture, and if it’s not, what is adding F/M going to do?
Mostly, I’m generally against dividing and discriminating anything by sex - it’s just as discriminatory as dividing by race or other physical characteristics, although I am aware of the impractical reality of removing some gender based discrimination (e.g. prisons). To me, any solution is a compromise until we reach a transhuman utopia where bodies can be changed at will and sex stops mattering. Probably won’t happen in my life time, but advances can still be made in that direction.
Diagnosis by a qualified mental health professional. "Gender dysphoria" is a condition in the DSM with clearly defined diagnostic criteria, just like major depression or schizophrenia. I think there would be far less kerfuffle about e.g. trans women in women's prisons if the person in question could demonstrate that a psychologist trained in gender issues believed they met the diagnostic criteria for said condition. It would head off a lot (but by no means all) of accusations of the person being a Karen White- or Jessica Yaniv-style malingerer.
(Yes, there will be false negatives. Yes, there will be false positives. This is still a better arrangement than self-ID. Policy debates should not appear one-sided.)
I used to think this, but not anymore. The physical differences between any two people of different races are almost exclusively slight and a matter of degree, and I cannot envision any scenario in which direct racial segregation is actually warranted based on these physical differences. The physical differences between the sexes, on the other hand, are huge, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Anyone claiming that men aren't faster, stronger and more resilient than women (for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with socialization) is either being dishonest or wilfully ignorant, deliberately ignoring the evidence of their own eyes - precisely why trans women competing in female sports events is so contentious (and why it's so telling that there's no symmetrical controversy about trans men competing in male sports). We are a sexually dimorphic species in which one half has legitimate cause to fear being forcibly impregnated by a member of the other half. This is never going away in our lifetimes - it is a state of affairs with no analogue in the differences between people of different races, heights, weights, eye colours etc. Up until about five minutes ago, female prisoners could be confident that, no matter how unpleasant their incarceration might be, they did not have to fear being forcibly penetrated (or even impregnated) by a fellow inmate's penis: self-ID has robbed them of that certainty. Maybe you don't understand why a woman who had been raped by a male person would feel uncomfortable (or even triggered) by a gynecological exam conducted by a male person, but I do understand, and I think this kind of sex discrimination is perfectly reasonable.
Well, yeah. It's called politics.
This might be an incomplete solution, or at least complete only to the extent that the education or self-selection of gender-specialist psychiatrists aren’t actively trying to wave as many through as possible. But it’s still better than self-ID.
Yes, it's a "garbage in, garbage out" situation, where the strength of the proposal depends entirely on employing psychologists who can approach claims of gender distress with a sceptical eye and not automatically rubber-stamp each and every such claimant. The more progressive-minded the psychologist in question, the higher the rate of false positives. Nonetheless, imperfect gatekeeping which only keeps out the really overt bad actors is better than no gatekeeping at all.
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