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When we were struggling to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, a child born with cystic fibrosis had little chance of seeing their fiftieth birthday. This was not an inherent, unalterable law of the universe; it was the result of our not yet having discovered the three ___caftors.
When the United Nations was founded, almost everyone contracted measles before they reached adulthood. This was not an inherent, unalterable law of the universe; it was the result of our not yet having developed the measles vaccine.
When the first airplane flew, infected wounds were often terminal conditions. This was not an inherent, unalterable law of the universe; it was the result of Mr Fleming not yet having invented antibiotics.
When the first telegraph cable was laid across the Atlantic, that events in Halifax could be known to Dubliners within the hour, anyone bitten by a rabid animal had no possibility of survival. This was not an inherent, unalterable law of the universe; it was the result of M. Pasteur not yet having developed the rabies vaccine.
Our inability for someone born with small-gamete-producing organs to produce large gametes is not an inherent, unalterable law of the universe; we just haven't figured out how. (Yet. Growth mindset!)
"For every problem the Lord has made, He has also made a solution." --Thomas Edison
And if a frog had wings, it wouldn't bang its arse on the ground.
You can't always tell what gamete-producing organs someone had at birth. If you saw this woman in a crowd of women, and were not previously familiar with her, I highly doubt that you could clearly identify her as the one individual among them who was born with small-gamete-producing organs.
I will quote myself:
What constitutes a sensible course of action varies depending on a society's current tech level. You are correct that we can treat medical conditions now that we once could not. But don't you agree it would be phenomenally irresponsible to go back in time before the invention of the telegraph and urge a small child to play with a dog that was visibly foaming at the mouth?
If and when it becomes possible to transplant ovaries and uteri from female donors into male recipients such that trans-identified males can actually get pregnant and bear children, that technological development will surely have dramatic ramifications for our society. But that day hasn't arrived yet, it seems profoundly unlikely to arrive in either of our lifetimes, and I can't rule out the possibility that it never will.
I think it makes sense to promote policies that will produce the best outcomes for our current tech level, not the hypothetical future tech level a few decades away. If you went back in time to the pre-telegraph era, urged a small child to play with a visibly rabid dog, and the child contracted rabies and died – I can't imagine the child's parents would be mollified by your assertion that a reliable treatment for rabies is just around the corner, even if that's true. By the same token, perhaps in the future medical technology will advance to the point that people born male can literally become female (and vice versa) – but they can't now, and it's foolish to act as if they can and design policies on that basis.
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No, I can't always tell. I have never denied the existence of androgynous people. But hard cases make bad law, and I maintain that >95% of the time one can accurately tell from a cursory glance what gamete-producing organs a given person was born with. It therefore follows that, 95% of the time, a person demanding that people respect their privacy and not make inferences about their gamete-producing organs is making an unreasonable and quixotic request.
And, obvious point, but the fact that Nicole Maines looks passably female in a closely framed still image with a full face of makeup and flattering lighting does not remotely imply that I wouldn't clock them in person.
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Two words for you: Wishful thinking.
At least for the forseeable future, men can in fact not become women.
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