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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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For the folks here who talk heatedly about trans issues - I want to pose a thought experiment. Let's say it's the year 2300, and people can quickly, cheaply and painlessly switch their sex from male to female, and vice versa. There are no long term side effects, and it's as simple as going to buy a pill from the corner store.

On top of that, fertility issues have been handled, babies are grown/raised by artificial wombs and many different types of family structures are available with parents being able to choose what works best for their preference. Gender and sex can play a role if needed, but only for those who wish to have traditional families. It is not socially stigmatized to raise a family with two women, or two men, etc.

If this all were the case, would you have issues with people transitioning genders/sex still? If not, at what point along the line do you think it becomes okay to freely switch?

If this all were the case, would you have issues with people transitioning genders/sex still?

No, I wouldn't have a problem with it.

If not, at what point along the line do you think it becomes okay to freely switch?

What do you mean by "okay"? I think it's okay for them to switch already in that I don't think they should be stopped, but I'm not going to treat them as having truly transitioned and I'm going to feel uncomfortable around them.

If they can pass well enough that there aren't jarringly inconsistent signals about which sex they are, then I would feel comfortable around them. If they can pass and reproduce sexually, then I would feel comfortable dating them and would be okay with my children transitioning. If they can transition without risking severe negative health effects, then I would feel comfortable with society condoning it in cases other those where the gender dysphoria is causing severe psychological distress that can't be treated by other means.

I think a more interesting question is what happens in a world where sex truly is a spectrum because people can adopt whatever biological traits they want.

I think a more interesting question is what happens in a world where sex truly is a spectrum because people can adopt whatever biological traits they want.

Including, one assumes, the 'biological trait' of being completely comfortable and content with the body one has lived in since birth and feeling no desire to transition whatsoever.

Imagine if it became widespread consensual practice to engineer ourselves to just never want to transition and to stick largely to the gender binary, aside from like 2% of the 'weirdos' of the population who just enjoy flouting norms, and are permitted to do so. Seems, arguably, just as plausible as OP's suggestion.

If you can freely biologically alter your preferences, that opens a whole can of worms. Can one legitimately complain about poverty or slavery if one can have a medical procedure causes one to not mind living in the gutter or being enslaved? What if one person engineers himself to be sadistic while another could engineer himself to enjoy being tortured? Who should be required to change his preferences?

I think this gets towards the importance of having some grounding in tradition and culture as some kind of guardrail against falling into inescapable pits like that.

We may have a varied and complex set of values, but there are some values that MAYBE we can agree to intentionally minimize since for reasons that may not be understood they simply did not survive through our own evolutionary history.

Which can likely be done whilst still recognizing the individual's freedom to dissent.