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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?
A) No I'd have no 'issues.' As long as you get proper, informed consent from a person capable of consenting then whatever they do is their business. I think some persons would still be mentally incapable of true consent and thus safeguards of some kind should exist.
B) Caveat. You may have created actual obligations (usually contractual in nature) to other persons that could be violated by transitioning. There may be persons who have an interest in you remaining a particular sex for the time being. You don't get to ignore those or assume them away, but it becomes an economic matter rather than a moral one.
C) In such a scenario, pretty much everything is on the table, no? Incest is fine since genetic defects are not a risk, STDs are presumably a thing of the past.
There is no reason for bestiality to be taboo as long as there's no 'cruelty' to the animal involved.
Pedophilia on two levels: because a grown adult can transition to look like a child and consent to sex, or because the purported 'harms' of sex with minors are obviated. No unwanted pregnancy, diseases, or lasting trauma just because a child has sex at an early age.
And even, I'll say this carefully, sexual assault would be a trivial concern, since forcing someone to have sex will not, in fact, cause them lasting trauma. So the rapist can get a slap on the wrist, the victim can take a pill to forget the worst parts of the experience, and everyone moves on.
So you can craft this elaborate scenario but you don't get to ignore the necessary implications of it. I put it to you. Is it a fair trade if people can transition freely and without stigma BUT rapists also walk free with minimal punishment? As long as we're challenging moral intuitions, that is.
D) How would you feel about the existence of a pharmaceutical drug that had zero side effects, was available over the counter, was non-addictive, and had one (1) and only one lasting effect: it makes the user identify extremely strongly as a hetero, cis, strict binary version of whatever their biological sex (at the genetic level) is?
That is, it made them feel so comfortable with the gender/sexual identity bestowed upon them at birth that it removed any and all motivation to transition, and they were well and truly content to remain as they are.
Because with the level of technology you're implying, we would ALSO have the means to 'cure' the trans issue once and for all by providing everyone with drugs that instantly and permanently resolve any gender identity issues they may be experiencing in favor of being happy to stick with their standard biological hardware and only deviate from it for cognizable and pressing medical/health reasons.
And if people make an informed, consensual decision to take this drug, and once they've taken it 99.99999% of them will never actually want to transition again, then eventually almost the whole population will end up composed of CisHets who are happy with their biological sex, and can't even 'imagine' a reason for wanting to change it. A STABLE equilibrium, in other words.
I daresay, under your described tech level, there is no possible medical necessity for transitioning, so trans issues are pretty much relegated to the same level of social importance as breast implants, liposuction, and other 'vanity' types of procedures, and not the 'lifesaving healthcare' type.
So seriously, even if we admit that transitioning freely would be 'allowed' if the technology reaches that fabled level, how could you argue that is a superior world compared to one where we used that same tech level to make it such that nobody wants to transition?
If we're to be the gods of our own destiny, you probably should try to make the convincing case why YOUR vision of society is the one we should go with when we have virtually unlimited ones to choose from.
In my honest view, a society where all of humanity has engineered themselves to fully accept their biological sex (assuming other issues like aging are also solved for) and to prefer committed monogamous relationships doesn't sound any worse than one where transitioning is common and accepted practice if not 'expected' and the majority of relationships are polyamorous and orgies are considered normal. And on a personal level, I might even be happier in the former society, although I could easily tolerate the latter.
E) I think even in your scenario there'd be actual value in keeping a population of baseline, heteronormative humans around as a, for lack of a better term, 'failsafe' where if we manage to engineer ourselves into genetic dead ends and screw up royally due to unforeseen implications of the technology, we aren't doomed to extinction (absent other X-risks arising). So I would still be VERY wary of 'social pressure' to transition, since you're not really free if the choice to NOT do the thing isn't looked upon favorably.
Feel free to contest or otherwise engage with any of the points above individually and ignore the rest.
Great question! Although I don’t agree with your reasoning about rape being okay in this theoretical world.
Your point about how with this level of technology we could go either way on trans issues is exactly why I posted this! I’m curious if people are against it for social reasons (aka being forced to submit socially to pronouns), health reasons (dangerous to kids, fertility, mental health), or if it’s a fundamental moral attachment to the two biological genders. I think it has actually been quite illuminating in that people here have a wide range of reasons for not liking trans ideology.
It's not 'okay,' it's just no longer the heinous and irreversible crime that (rightfully!) justifies massive punishment that it is now.
Indeed, the main reason we consider rape such a horrible crime is because it's typically big, strong, aggressive men perpetrating it against weaker, vulnerable women, and this warrants making said strong, aggressive men fear the consequences of exploiting the strength/size differential in this way.
If women are capable of defending themselves from rapists, that would present it's own deterrent.
In a world where one can switch between male and female at will, this justification falls flat. A male rapist could transition to female and suddenly she's much less of a danger. Or they choose to be a female 99% of the time, only switching to male to indulge in his penchant for the old Ultraviolence (Clockwork Orange Style). Things would just be weird, is what I'm saying.
Indeed, maybe the standard 'punishment' for the crime of rape in the high tech world is to force the rapist to switch genders and endure the same thing they inflicted on the victim. Eye for an eye and all that.
I think you hit on it, though. There's a difference between having something against trans people and being against trans ideology (i.e. wokism).
Similar to how someone who has utterly no problem with black people might oppose the BLM movement, if only on the grounds that it is deceptive, socially corrosive, and ultimately fails it's own objectives.
If the goal is to allow whomever wants to transition to be permitted to do so (again, with actual consent) I think you find much less resistance than if the goal is to undermine the very basic assumption of society that men and women are different, and that's okay, and it is normal to accept your birth sex and to be monogamous and heterosexual.
The trans ideology seems to suggest that the very concept of a gender binary, a traditional family, and heteronormativity are a danger to them, rather than simply admiting that there's nothing wrong with being cishet.
Funny you should say that. There's a real red-hot Culture War case of someone on death row appealing their sentence right now.
What grinds my teeth about that sentence? McLaughlin was not a 'woman' when he raped and murdered his victim. I'm not even willing to give ground that he is a woman now, even if he has 'transitioned' and is wearing hair clips just like a Real Girl.
There's the usual defence pleading of mental incapacity due to childhood abuse, and I hate being cynical enough to wonder if that is all bullshit. But say that it's true - say that McLaughlin should not be held guilty due to mental incapacity? Then how the hell is he capable of deciding that he is really trans? If he is a victim of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, how is his brain not damaged sufficiently that thinking he's really a woman is just evidence of more mental damage? If he can't be held responsible for murder because his brain is so traumatised, how can he be mentally capable enough of deciding about his gender?
Make your damn minds up: is the guy mentally together enough to know, decide and consent to changing his gender, or is he so deficient he isn't capable of understanding the full gravity of his crimes or of controlling his impulses? Because you can't have it both ways.
But by comparison with another transgender Real Woman, McLaughlin looks good (what the hell is going on in Canada?) McLaughlin is in Missouri, this shining example is in Ontario:
The newly-minted Real Woman is 68 years of age and going to have sex reassignment surgery (or gender affirming, or whatever they're calling it this minute), so that means it should be just fine to put him in with other women, right? I mean, just because their offence was murdering and raping a woman, it isn't that big of a risk?
What "in the future a male rapist could transition to female and be considered less of a danger"? We're living that right now. Maybe the solution is to build special transgender prisons so all the New Real Women can be housed together, away from those dangerous and violent biological males in the men's prisons. Just because they tend to be sex offenders, surely they won't pose a risk to one another? (England and Wales prison figures for 2018 - 63 sex offenders out of 139 transgender prisoners = 45%. Male prison population in general: "As at 31 March 2020 there were 12,774 prisoners serving sentences for sexual offences, which represented 18% of the sentenced prison population.")
And yet not a word about the victim or the crime in the article written after the perp put a wig on. "Intimate partner violence by men" vanishes from the narrative the second it runs up against a more powerful group. Incredible.
Also re. the death penalty discussion from the other day:
"Our own expert witness being a fraud should invalidate the trial and get our client off the hook" is one hell of an argument.
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