If they say they were made trans by life circumstances, I would tell them that that is likely not true, but I would never dictate someone's gender.
I think it's worthwhile remaining open to this but not really valuable to trans people to like make it part of activism or anything. There are enough instances of people saying things like their sexuality has completely shifted for me to be open to the idea that what gender we're attracted to can change. I don't think we know enough about being trans to be certain one way or another, trans people however have a very understandable defensive reaction to this because we don't want it to be weaponised against us as "fake" or whatever.
My basic point is this: If it's inflictable, it's curable.
I for one knew my gender from about as young as I could talk (Edit: I repressed this for many years due to massive social pressures). I remember my assigned gender being inflicted upon me at a young age, when I did not immediately conform. If you asked me pre-transition but after I realized I was trans whether or not I would press a button and become cis in my assigned gender, I would say that that feels like losing a significant part of myself. If you were to ask me, if I could have pressed a button and become a cis in my actual, realized gender, I would have said yes and that it wouldn't have been a major loss of self at all. This is true pretty much my whole life. But I lacked the self awareness to realize this about my self, and that has changed, not my actual gender.
We are quite literally gaslit our entire lives in regards to our assigned gender. Usually, before one comes out, one tries to embrace their assigned gender only to find that they do not feel comfortable (i.e. dysphoria).
I don't reject people having fluidity in their gender or sexuality. The way I view it, there is a multidimensional spectrum and people tend to inhabit different areas of it. If they did actually change sexuality or gender, and not just discover it, due to fluidity, then they might inhabit an area that includes something close to or exactly their assigned gender as well as their realized gender.
The leading theory for what makes people trans, and gay for that matter, is hormonal fluctuations during critical moments in fetal development. In other words, we are born this way.
"Cure" is loaded language. Your gender doesn't need curing, your gender is what it is.
If it can be changed, then yes perhaps it can be intentionally changed. But what the mechanisms are for that to occur are absolutely not understood and any attempt to forcibly do so to anyone should be considered a violation of human rights.
I don't disagree with the reasoning everyone has for being extremely defensive about this possibility, I just also don't really rule it out as solidly as many others do. I get it though. I do understand why people have such a reaction to this and want it to be untrue. I feel like we don't really understand any of it though. We've barely scratched the surface.
I also think a lot of the research is trying to confirm the idea that people are born this way. IE working from the conclusion. Because the science is performed by those with a desire for it to be the outcome because it's the safest outcome for trans people. I'm not really convinced all of it is good.
I don't know. I've just seen a lot of change in myself in my life and am open to the idea that we're not as fixed as we believe. And of course that that's OKAY and doesn't change anything about how people should be treated or viewed.
Yes, my point in saying "cured" is that it is a loaded statement but is logically consistent with the idea being trans is inflicted upon you by something external, and that would lead to conversion therapy which has been shown to not work.
There does need to be more research. The current research supports what I've said, and future research could change that. However, at the very least some people are born trans, even if others somehow become trans in some critical early developmental milestone.
As for the idea that the research is seeking evidence of transness being inherit at birth: that is not the case, there have been many attempts to study so called "sudden onset gender dysphoria" or the idea that someone could suddenly become trans, and those studies can't find any evidence for that (other than one that asked TERF parents if it seemed sudden to them, who of course said yes). Other studies have shown that people tend to have a concept of their internal gender from about as soon as they can talk, which is the earliest we could possibly test, indicating that if it is not prenatal then very early in life.
I think this lacks an open mind. This reaction isn't that surprising though, I do get why you and other people are very invested in this. I think you're too wedded to gender overall though, I find the camp of trans people writing about the idea that eventually society will enter a post-gender phase to be the most compelling theory. If gender can be abolished then it can also change.
Gender abolitionism usually focuses on roles and rigidity surrounding it, not the idea that we will eventually have no actual genders. Gender is biologically real but all the social constructs surrounding it are not. If this is not what you have read, I'm interested in links.
But there is no world in which I am not a woman - but very much a world where I am happy to reject the social constructs built up around womanhood.
I still posit that anyone that can actually change their gender (not realize it and change presentation and potentially roles) was gender fluid in the first place.
This reasoning errs much too close to bio-essentialism for me, it's the same line of thinking that leads people to "you have to have dysphoria or you're not trans".
I believe all trans people. I do believe that all trans people have gender dysphoria (otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to transition) though many do not recognize it and believe they are trans (which they are) but do not experience dysphoria (which they do). Think of this in a pure motivation sense. One does not make major life changes without something informing that decision, which is what dysphoria is.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that aren't just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I don't think you can provide this, because gender abolitionists do believe people have an intrinsic gender (or rather, one may have an intrinsic gender, wrt agender individuals) they just don't believe that one's gender should be defined by someone else and that a lot of the roles and behaviors attributed to gender are regressive and need abolished. To which I agree. I am a woman but I am not gender conforming (rarely wear dresses or skirts, present relatively butch, and reject all gender roles).
Your rigid line of thinking here could easily convince someone that conversion therapy is a reasonable treatment for gender dysphoria, which it most certainly is not. Because why would it not be, if it could work? My answer to that is that my intrinsic gender is too much a part of me to rip out: you can't change my gender. I would not be me if you tore my gender out of me.
Frankly, I'm kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people, especially when they keep telling me I'm biased ("I know why you're so defensive about this"). I have a gender, if you don't then that is good for you, but you can't take my gender from me. Please genuinely consider that this is based on my life experiences, whereas your view is informed second hand on others' lived experiences, if you wish to continue this discussion with me.
You can't "believe all trans people" while also not believing the trans people who say their experience is not gender fluidity but an actual mid-life change in gender.
Ultimately you can only be one or the other.
As for those people without dysphoria, several of them will openly say they think they can choose one or the other, but prefer one, but don't think this is the same as gender fluidity. Are they wrong?
"I believe all trans people" while having a biological gender essentialist belief is not possible.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that aren't just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I don't think you can provide this
This is the basis for literally all cyberpunk and transhumanist takes on gender as the elimination of biological limitations turns the entire of sexuality into something of an avatar swap. If you've spent any time in VR, where some insight into behaviours of people and culture has played out, you start to get a sense for where this could go. What gender is that person with the smoke avatar? No gender. Which, for the record here, is a gender that a lot of people say they already are, which does not at all fit into the gender biological essentialism. You NEED to exclude people who say they have no gender at all (not non-binary, those with explicitly no gender) in order to fit this concept together.
Frankly, I'm kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people
I am not cis. Not sure why you've decided this, fucking disgusting response and the reason I waited days to bother responding to this tbh. The way this part of your response makes me feel is unlikely to ever go away when I see you elsewhere on this site, wtf were you thinking.
I believe all trans people.
I want to say, once again, that this is a platitude. It does not fit into the view that you're taking. You genuinely can't believe all trans people while having this view.
I think it's worthwhile remaining open to this but not really valuable to trans people to like make it part of activism or anything. There are enough instances of people saying things like their sexuality has completely shifted for me to be open to the idea that what gender we're attracted to can change. I don't think we know enough about being trans to be certain one way or another, trans people however have a very understandable defensive reaction to this because we don't want it to be weaponised against us as "fake" or whatever.
My basic point is this: If it's inflictable, it's curable.
I for one knew my gender from about as young as I could talk (Edit: I repressed this for many years due to massive social pressures). I remember my assigned gender being inflicted upon me at a young age, when I did not immediately conform. If you asked me pre-transition but after I realized I was trans whether or not I would press a button and become cis in my assigned gender, I would say that that feels like losing a significant part of myself. If you were to ask me, if I could have pressed a button and become a cis in my actual, realized gender, I would have said yes and that it wouldn't have been a major loss of self at all. This is true pretty much my whole life. But I lacked the self awareness to realize this about my self, and that has changed, not my actual gender. We are quite literally gaslit our entire lives in regards to our assigned gender. Usually, before one comes out, one tries to embrace their assigned gender only to find that they do not feel comfortable (i.e. dysphoria).
I don't reject people having fluidity in their gender or sexuality. The way I view it, there is a multidimensional spectrum and people tend to inhabit different areas of it. If they did actually change sexuality or gender, and not just discover it, due to fluidity, then they might inhabit an area that includes something close to or exactly their assigned gender as well as their realized gender.
The leading theory for what makes people trans, and gay for that matter, is hormonal fluctuations during critical moments in fetal development. In other words, we are born this way.
"Cure" is loaded language. Your gender doesn't need curing, your gender is what it is.
If it can be changed, then yes perhaps it can be intentionally changed. But what the mechanisms are for that to occur are absolutely not understood and any attempt to forcibly do so to anyone should be considered a violation of human rights.
I don't disagree with the reasoning everyone has for being extremely defensive about this possibility, I just also don't really rule it out as solidly as many others do. I get it though. I do understand why people have such a reaction to this and want it to be untrue. I feel like we don't really understand any of it though. We've barely scratched the surface.
I also think a lot of the research is trying to confirm the idea that people are born this way. IE working from the conclusion. Because the science is performed by those with a desire for it to be the outcome because it's the safest outcome for trans people. I'm not really convinced all of it is good.
I don't know. I've just seen a lot of change in myself in my life and am open to the idea that we're not as fixed as we believe. And of course that that's OKAY and doesn't change anything about how people should be treated or viewed.
Yes, my point in saying "cured" is that it is a loaded statement but is logically consistent with the idea being trans is inflicted upon you by something external, and that would lead to conversion therapy which has been shown to not work.
There does need to be more research. The current research supports what I've said, and future research could change that. However, at the very least some people are born trans, even if others somehow become trans in some critical early developmental milestone.
As for the idea that the research is seeking evidence of transness being inherit at birth: that is not the case, there have been many attempts to study so called "sudden onset gender dysphoria" or the idea that someone could suddenly become trans, and those studies can't find any evidence for that (other than one that asked TERF parents if it seemed sudden to them, who of course said yes). Other studies have shown that people tend to have a concept of their internal gender from about as soon as they can talk, which is the earliest we could possibly test, indicating that if it is not prenatal then very early in life.
I think this lacks an open mind. This reaction isn't that surprising though, I do get why you and other people are very invested in this. I think you're too wedded to gender overall though, I find the camp of trans people writing about the idea that eventually society will enter a post-gender phase to be the most compelling theory. If gender can be abolished then it can also change.
Gender abolitionism usually focuses on roles and rigidity surrounding it, not the idea that we will eventually have no actual genders. Gender is biologically real but all the social constructs surrounding it are not. If this is not what you have read, I'm interested in links.
But there is no world in which I am not a woman - but very much a world where I am happy to reject the social constructs built up around womanhood.
I still posit that anyone that can actually change their gender (not realize it and change presentation and potentially roles) was gender fluid in the first place.
This reasoning errs much too close to bio-essentialism for me, it's the same line of thinking that leads people to "you have to have dysphoria or you're not trans".
I believe all trans people. I do believe that all trans people have gender dysphoria (otherwise there wouldn't be a reason to transition) though many do not recognize it and believe they are trans (which they are) but do not experience dysphoria (which they do). Think of this in a pure motivation sense. One does not make major life changes without something informing that decision, which is what dysphoria is.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that aren't just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I don't think you can provide this, because gender abolitionists do believe people have an intrinsic gender (or rather, one may have an intrinsic gender, wrt agender individuals) they just don't believe that one's gender should be defined by someone else and that a lot of the roles and behaviors attributed to gender are regressive and need abolished. To which I agree. I am a woman but I am not gender conforming (rarely wear dresses or skirts, present relatively butch, and reject all gender roles).
Your rigid line of thinking here could easily convince someone that conversion therapy is a reasonable treatment for gender dysphoria, which it most certainly is not. Because why would it not be, if it could work? My answer to that is that my intrinsic gender is too much a part of me to rip out: you can't change my gender. I would not be me if you tore my gender out of me.
Frankly, I'm kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people, especially when they keep telling me I'm biased ("I know why you're so defensive about this"). I have a gender, if you don't then that is good for you, but you can't take my gender from me. Please genuinely consider that this is based on my life experiences, whereas your view is informed second hand on others' lived experiences, if you wish to continue this discussion with me.
You can't "believe all trans people" while also not believing the trans people who say their experience is not gender fluidity but an actual mid-life change in gender.
Ultimately you can only be one or the other.
As for those people without dysphoria, several of them will openly say they think they can choose one or the other, but prefer one, but don't think this is the same as gender fluidity. Are they wrong?
"I believe all trans people" while having a biological gender essentialist belief is not possible.
This is the basis for literally all cyberpunk and transhumanist takes on gender as the elimination of biological limitations turns the entire of sexuality into something of an avatar swap. If you've spent any time in VR, where some insight into behaviours of people and culture has played out, you start to get a sense for where this could go. What gender is that person with the smoke avatar? No gender. Which, for the record here, is a gender that a lot of people say they already are, which does not at all fit into the gender biological essentialism. You NEED to exclude people who say they have no gender at all (not non-binary, those with explicitly no gender) in order to fit this concept together.
I am not cis. Not sure why you've decided this, fucking disgusting response and the reason I waited days to bother responding to this tbh. The way this part of your response makes me feel is unlikely to ever go away when I see you elsewhere on this site, wtf were you thinking.
I want to say, once again, that this is a platitude. It does not fit into the view that you're taking. You genuinely can't believe all trans people while having this view.
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