As for the gender one: imagine you woke up in the body of somebody of the opposite sex tomorrow. Wouldn't you be in the wrong body?
My understanding is that the "wrong body" argument is actually not an accurate explanation of trans people's experience though.
Gender: I was talking about reality, not science fiction scenarios. Yes, by definition, in your example, you would be in the wrong body.
I think that's a good example of how people can be certain of their beliefs despite flying in the face of the evidence.
Yes, they're distressed because of this mismatch.
> But they are no more “evidence” than someone saying “god is love” is evidence that “god” is “love”, or that the speaker has any coherent notion at all of what those words could possibly mean.
You seem to be making an appeal to transcendental meaning - evidence isn't based on transcendental meaning or equivalence, it's based on observation of material reality. "gender" is a term created to describe the fact that trans people clearly have a mismatch between their sex and an internal property. That's all there is to it.
The internal property is called gender.
What is gender, in the sense of an internal property? How do we detect it?
Trans people are, and I'm generalizing here, people who feel their biology doesn't match up with the gender role they identify with. They often then want to align their physical presentation with that associated with the gender role, on the belief that societal roles are more important than biology. (It's very transhumanist, in a sense.)
I'll note a fairly easy example of sex and gender differing even in our society, which is intersex people. I.e. those whose physical expression lies somewhere between male or female (which isn't super-common, but certainly happens). They're ambiguous physically, and we historically make them pick (or pick for them at birth) what gender role they'll perform.
If you think that gender dysphoria is rooted in delusion, you should probably read into it. There's a reason trans people aren't treated the same as people with anorexia or schizophrenia - it's because trans people are normative outside of being trans. It's the same kind of situation as being gay.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20562024/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19341803/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477289/
http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2013-t...
But that doesn’t mean that the language that the patient attaches to the condition needs to be taken literally, or even that it has any meaning at all. A clinician treating an emaciated anorexic patient who insists that she is overweight (a real, well-known condition) may, as part of the treatment, interact with the patient avoiding, temporarily, contradicting the accuracy of the patient’s self-description. Her condition is real and “valid”; her self-description is just another symptom.
This is probably a dead end of an argument. I think you're making a value judgement about what could be possible -- you're entering the question accepting as an axiom "sex and gender are the same thing and cannot differ", and so naturally the person's reported experience must be incorrect. If you instead think "sex and gender are different things", you'd reach a different conclusion.
Basically, it's a set of socially prescribed behaviours and expectations based on sex. Men wear trousers and are strong, women wear dresses and are graceful. That sort of thing. There's a few different concepts mixed up in the idea of gender, but it's effectively the social aspects associated with sex.
If so, is your original “(1)” point entirely objecting to people saying “I feel I was born in the wrong body”? I, and I think others, were certainly reading it as “trans people aren’t a real thing”, with the implied policy implications that carries with it…
The argument isn’t that sex and gender are entirely unrelated concepts. Just that they’re not inherently equivalent.
You’d be free to argue that this isn’t an inherent property, I suppose, given initial probable-fluidity. But since it seems to settle into being a largely fixed part of your psyche before the point you’re likely to have permanent memories, I’m inclined to view that as a meaningless difference.
It’s at about the same level as arguing whether sexuality is an inherent property, I think? It’s another of those “it might be hardcoded or it might be early-development cultural, but it’s basically impossible to change it so…” things.
Edit: I think fundamentally, if you don't object to treating trans people decently like using their preferred pronouns and name, or getting surgery, I don't think it matters too much. I'm not an expert on the definitions by any means, my primary concern is opposing justifications to mistreat trans people, so if it's just a matter of terminology I guess my only suggestion is to read into what the relevant fields of study have to say if it's something you want clarity on.
Either way, some ideas are "heretical" for a reason: they lead to worse outcomes. You could argue under the same "trans are mentally ill" model that gay people are too. But we don't, because letting gay people live their lives (or more accurately, not oppressing them) leads to better outcomes. That's what it's all about. And it's the same with trans people - if they're accepted and allowed to present how they want, outcomes are better.
My position is mainly that unethical things shouldn't be advocated for. I think there's no good argument for stopping trans people for living the lives they want to live, and that people will rightly criticise you for being opposed to them exercising their freedoms. It's not that these things "can't be said" but don't be surprised if people criticise you for it. I think people calling this heresy are being melodramatic - being ratio'd on twitter is not the same thing as being burned alive at the stake.