West Filly wrote: ↑Fri May 04, 2018 9:43 pm
You're seeking to define trans people by a specific condition of the brain rather than the reported prolonged experience of dysphoria?
Medically, the experience of dysphoria has already been enough for a medical pathway to be carved out. It's already enough for doctors to feel comfortable in offering informed choices to their patients. The issue isn't the medical definition, but the intervention of politicians in access to those pathways. Altering the medical pathway just to make it more palatable to politicians seems a step backward rather than a step forward.
I'll admit, I haven't really read up on gender dysphoria itself or its documentation. When I came across the whole thing about transsexuality being rooted in one's neuro-anatomy, I didn't need more convincing than that and that the same has proven true for some other people. Something I've become convinced of is that people give hard biology greater authority than psychiatry. I'm
guessing it has something to do with people believing that psychiatric and mental disorders in general can be treated or cured with medication and/or psychotherapy. If one is arguing that a person cannot help that they are trans, pinning this on the structure of the brain gives it firm ground to stand on.
So yeah, if the goal is to have a compelling argument, this biological angle is proving quite effective.
West Filly wrote: ↑Fri May 04, 2018 11:33 pm
The research is interesting and I'm not questioning its findings. I'm not qualified for that.
I'm questioning the idea that the onus should be on trans people to have an indisputable biological reason to exist rather than the onus being on ordinary people to not be butts, particularly people who can make decisions that'll impact on the lives of trans people. Why should trans people have to prove that there's a good reason to have a place in this world when for most else it's just a given?
Also, to completely misuse this phrase: knowing is half the battle. Just because someone knows that doctors could, say, prevent diseases using a certain newly found genetic procedure, doesn't mean they agree that it ought to happen. That's the case no matter how obvious it would seem to use this knowledge. If it were widely known and accepted that the size of a part of the brain effectively indicates your feelings about your gender, and that such is immutable, it still doesn't tell someone in indisputable terms how to act when a trans person is in front of them. That's the case no matter how obvious it is to us that you act in accordance with their gender identity.
As stupid as it would seem, even with this new understanding people could still say "well even if your brain is a certain way that doesn't mean we ought to let you in the womens' restroom". They'd be morally wrong in what they're suggesting, but they wouldn't be scientifically inaccurate. That's why I want the onus to be on "don't be a butt" not "prove this thing exists". And where is it that people find their morals? It's society. It's the people around them, the things they read, and the experiences they live inside of the society which may shape that experience.
I agree that these findings may act to win people over, but I don't agree that this needs to come at the expense of pressing the angle of societal norms. The societal side of this has much more of an impact on signalling to people how to act to one another in ordinary situation than science ever can.
People for the most part are butts if we're going to use that term. Butts have always been around and they always will be. This is why it's important to be prepared to push them back. As for it being a given that most else have a place in this world, I'm rather skeptical about that. To really get ahead in this world, one important thing to do is to prove to everyone that you are indispensable. A person who is difficult to replace in whatever they do is a person with a lot of bargaining chips on their plate.
At least in my experience, when others understand that people of whatever identity do have valid reasons to exist, others will try to figure out how to properly interact with these people. It'll be a rough learning curve, though.
I've no doubt that it'd be wonderful if people can just live and let live but again, these butts are out there and have to be dealt with. We need to have the more effective argument here. So really, I would say that telling people to play nice without making it unequivocally clear that trans people cannot help but to exist would simply be putting the cart before the horse. Making it clear and with no uncertain terms that trans people are here to stay gives us a rock-solid foundation to build upon and gives us that much more leverage to push further. I guess what I'm trying to say is that going this route makes strategic sense and can better guarantee results.
Again, making an indisputable argument for the existence of trans people gives us more leverage to push on the societal front.