I think trans people deserve safety and equal rights. But I am challenging the oft repeated claim that a “transwoman is a woman” or “transman is a man”. I can see the existence of a third gender, as has been the case in some cultures that have historically identified and acknowledged the existence of trans persons. But the push to reclassify existing genders as “cis”, or erase the existing genders, or conveniently switch between gender and sex when suitable, or erase female spaces like sports, all seem like forced views that are only being heard because of aggressive suppression of any dissenting thought.
I never understood how people are having that discussion. What gender a trans person is comes down to how you define gender and there's a clear divide between people defining it as more of a social thing and others defining it as a mostly biological thing.
Saying "trans women are women" is really just saying "I don't think chromosomes and genitals are the main thing that defines gender. So ultimately this comes down to a disagreement about a words definition, which is utterly pointless (unless you're specifically looking at it from a language perspective I guess, in which case it's probably quite an interesting debate).
One way or another, this has nothing to do with whether gender dysphoria is a delusion or not.
Why?
How are they not living a delusion?
Do people with other physical dysphorias not live in delusion? Such as when you feel like your arm doesn’t belong to your body and you want it cut off?
The answer that is politically incorrect, but completely obvious to anyone, is that of course those situations are analogous, and if you can reasonably say that one of these groups is deluded, you can say the same about the other one, too.
Except in one situation we employ physical therapy, and in the other mental therapy.
I’ve yet to receive a single explanation as to why this is, other than “experts know better”. No, that’s not good enough.
That likely is because asking these questions of a general forum of people who are highly unlikely to be qualified to speak on the subject are highly unlikely to have an informed answer. But you’re conflating, confusing, and distorting two completely separate ideas here.
What you described is called Somatoparaphrenia, which is not a dysphoria at all, but classified explicitly as a delusion. And while we can certainly agree that physical intervention is not the right strategy, at the behest of the individual suffering from the disorder, they would also be physically impairing themselves were it to be carried out.
Transitioning does not produce such impairments, and in fact leads to a significantly improved quality of life, reduction or complete remission of depression, and overwhelmingly thus produces a better overall mental health in most cases.
And again, I’m speaking from _experience_ on that.
> Transitioning does not produce such impairments, and in fact leads to a significantly improved quality of life, reduction or complete remission of depression, and overwhelmingly thus produces a better overall mental health in most cases.
> And again, I’m speaking from _experience_ on that.
I’d argue that your personal experience is irrelevant, precisely because there’s no way to establish that it’s not delusional. Could you even tell the difference between a genuine improvement of the underlying condition, and simply feeding someone’s delusions to the point where we’ve changed both them (physically), and society (to make them feel less disparaged)?
Amputation often makes individuals with BID feel better too, yet it is extremely controversial, even among experts.
My belief that the only difference is politics has not yet been shaken.
Edit: since it seems like I’m unable to reply further, let me just add this. No, I don’t believe the above poster is delusional, I’m asking whether there is a way to even establish such a thing, and if not, where the ethical difference vis a vis treatment for BID lies. Again, the poster completely sidestepped these questions.
Note the figure above. 1 in 300 (while small) can be a lot more people in your life than you think, but if you are the type to share opinions like that in public rather than solely in pseudonymity, they know better than to mention it to you.
Not to mention that authorities are regularly wrong, e.g. lobotomies.
And yes, we as a society shall discuss precisely that, whether activists and elites with fashionable ideas like it or not. Which brings us back to the biggest bookstore on the planet...