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Perhaps a more realistic hypothetical I have seen discussed before: Imagine a pill is invented that “cures” transgenderism, as in eliminates dysphoria and causes your gender identity to painlessly conform to your birth sex. Would leftists support this? It seems undeniably good, even if you support gender affirming care as it is the perfect treatment. But I have a hard time imagining leftists actually supporting this, which I think reveals that transgenderism is actually a preferred state tk cisgenderism
What do you mean by "support this?" I would think it would be a good thing for such a pill to be available. I'd support anyone who wanted to take it (which I think would be quite a lot of people). I would oppose it being forced on people and support people who wanted to undergo a more traditional gender transition as an alternative.
I’m not sure that that many people would want to take it; while there would probably be a lot of people pressured into taking it, I do not have a very charitable view of motivations for transgenderism and I don’t think it’s possible to field much evidence for a charitable view. The more conventional gender transition appears to be part of the draw, despite its obvious drawbacks.
Frankly, I think if your prior is "most trans people would prefer to undergo difficult, painful, expensive surgery to achieve middling results rather than take a cheap one time pill to be comfortable in their bodies" your prior is being guided by a very vocal minority.
I think this is more complicated, some trans people may take the pill, but others I am sure would have the same reaction that changing your mind fundamentally is a bigger change than your body. I have a friend who feels his medication "kills" him because the person he is on it is not his real self. If your identity is a core part of your mental conception of self, then there is an argument that changing how you think is bigger than surgery.
Like if many people here had a choice between having a hand lopped off, or taking a pill that dropped our IQ by 20 points or removed our contrariness, or enjoyment of 10,000 word comments on culture war esoterica. I think I might take the hand lopping off, because then I am still me absent a hand, whereas changing the way I think, may in fact erase this version of me.
I mean, jeez, just look at the autism community vs. Autism Speaks; the latter's mission has mentioned finding a cure for autism, which causes the former to understandably recoil in fear and horror.
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Sure, I know trans people with this perspective. That's why I said in my original reply I'd support them in transitioning as well. I'm curious, what fraction of the people who take the medication your friend does feel similarly, that it kills them, and what fraction are satisfied that the medication resolves their condition? I did not claim, and do not believe, that every single trans person would be ecstatic to take such a pill, merely that most quite a lot of them would be happy to.
I think more would oppose the pill, believing it would erase their self, but the number of trans people I know is low so it certainly isn't a robust determination. So I think "most trans people would prefer to undergo difficult, painful, expensive surgery to achieve middling results rather than take a cheap one time pill to be comfortable in their bodies" is an accurate description. But with low confidence.
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From a perspective that most of them have munchausen’s, however, that prior is extremely plausible.
And even if we go by the statements of trans people themselves, they want to be the opposite sex, through painful, expensive, difficult treatments. Not the same sex.
Only some of the treatments are painful, expensive, and difficult. SRS certainly is, but very few trans people actually get that. HRT is dirt cheap and painless, and that's the core of what most people would consider trans healthcare. I think for many of us taking HRT nowadays, it's not really such an imposition that we would be willing to risk a lobotomy to get rid of the desire to do it.
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What is the evidence that most of them have munchausen's? I'm also a little unclear what it means for them to have munchhausen's in this context. Do they not actually have gender dysphoria? Are they not really distressed by their bodies?
Given the small fraction of trans people who go through with both top and bottom surgeries this seems unlikely to me. Rather I think what most trans people want is to feel comfortable in their bodies and surgery is currently the option for effecting this change. I suspect most trans people would love to have a pill to fix their gender dysphoria.
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