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All things being equal, I don't think of being gay as strictly worse than being straight. According to some definitions of what "trans" is, it absolutely is worse than being cis, according to the very terms insisted upon by trans activists.
If one assumes that a prerequisite for being "trans" is suffering from gender dysphoria, it just seems obvious that not having gender dysphoria is preferable to having it. All other things being equal, I think pretty much everyone would rather feel happy with their bodies as they are, not experience a sense of profound distress when looking at their reflection in the mirror, and not feel any urge to hack bits of healthy tissue off their bodies.
Analogies with anorexia are no accident. Anorexia is a mental illness in which one experiences profound distress at the sight of one's body. It seems extremely susceptible to social contagion (particularly in female adolescents) and culture-bound (almost exclusively diagnosed in WEIRD countries). I want anorexic people to be treated with respect and compassion, and to get the best treatment available. I also think that being anorexic is obviously worse than not being anorexic in essentially every way, and it's irresponsible to promote or glamorise it.
You may be working off a definition of "trans" in which a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is not a prerequisite. This is long past the point at which the concept has completely collapsed into incoherence for me, so I can't really comment as to whether it's better, worse or indifferent to be trans (according to that definition) or cis. The "trans without gender dysphoria" cohort does seem to contain a disproportionate amount of vocal bad-faith actors, which is bound to colour my perspective.
I do agree that not having gender dysphoria is better than having gender dysphoria but I don't think having gender dysphoria is a prerequisite for being trans. Gender dysphoria is a common reason people are trans but probably not the only one.
And as I said, if "being trans" is wholly uncoupled from "experiencing gender dysphoria", then I'm not sure I even understand what it means to be trans. Maybe you're referring to "gender euphoria", which from context I can only infer is a euphemism for the sexual arousal that autogynephiliac males experience when performing femininity. All else being equal, I would likewise rather not be an autogynephiliac than be one.
I think of someone as being trans insofar as they have the requisite desire to change their sex. I'm agnostic on the ultimate source of that desire.
So in your view, is a person who "identifies as a member of the opposite sex/gender" but has no interest in medically transitioning a trans person?
I might need some more specification on what "identifies as" means but probably yes. I do not conceive of changing ones sex in the relevant way in purely physiological terms, maybe it would have been clearer if I had said gender.
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I agree that everyone would rather not have gender dysphoria.
That's why we treat gender dysphoria with medical and social transition, so that it goes away.
There's pretty much no other treatment for any other major psychological condition that's anywhere near as effective.
I don't have time for the back and forth research game, but why the conviction?
How did major international reviews find the evidence to be inconclusive and low quality but you state the opposite as fact?
Some studies that have been held up as gold standard such as the early Dutch puberty blockers studies have been shown to have major methodological flaws such as not accounting for the fact that people would transition in the pre/post survey instrument, thus rendering some of the items equivocal/unreliable. Recent studies have shown that even on its own merits it is inconclusive on showing improvement.
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From which it logically follows that not having gender dysphoria (and by extension not being trans) is strictly preferable to having gender dysphoria, and that if social influences play any significant role in developing gender dysphoria, it's irresponsible to raise awareness of or glamorise it.
Not necessarily. If raising awareness and making it acceptable increases prevalence by Y% but also means that social stigma is decreased by X% (meaning people are treated better) and the chances of treatment are increased by Z% (as it seen as worthy of investment in treatment) then it could still be responsible to do so.
That entirely depends on the numbers for X, Y and Z of course (if X were very high it could still be irresponsible for example), but you do have to factor in the positive impacts as well as the negative in that scenario.
Right. I don't have comparable figures to hand for X and Z, but the Tavistock Centre (the UK and Ireland's only dedicated medical centre for treating gender dysphoria in children) saw a 5,337% increase in referrals for female children in less than ten years, which I'm largely attributing to social contagion/awareness-raising campaigns/glamorisation.
I'd be quite surprised if X and Z are 5,000% combined. "Social stigma against trans people fell by 2,500%" essentially amounts to every trans person in the UK being treated like some combination of royalty and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which doesn't seem remotely realistic.
That of course would have to be part of the calculation, how much of that is social contagion vs people being willing to come forward with issues they would already have had but wouldn't have been able to get help with because stigma levels were too high.
For example with sexuality, I would suggest that skyrocketing numbers of people coming out, was down to a lot of people being more comfortable in admitting they were sometimes attracted to the same sex, rather than social contagion making people bi. I think it's likely with trans issues, because as you pointed out, they aren't treated as royalty still. The exact magnitude of each effect is difficult if not impossible to determine.
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