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There is no epistemicly coherent method to differentiate between the experience of being a man who actually has the internal experience of a woman and being a man who mistakenly believes they have the internal experience of a woman but in fact has typical male internal experiences. The difference between the two interpretations of experience is purely memetic, as one of these interpretations leads to pathology it is a harmful meme. Taking hormones and mimicking the opposite sex is a behavior and esthetic decision and has no bearing on the person's sex. Just their presentation.
These are other memes and are nothing like actually transitioning from one sex to the other. In every one of these cultures this is a third state, usually of weaker men who could not provide being used by the other men rather than being simply killed.
You don’t transition because you have the internal experience of the opposite sex - you transition because you have distress at having the experience of your natal sex. You don’t need any exposure to the modern trans gender discourse to develop gender dysphoria, simply existing in a society with different genders is enough.
Trans people don’t believe they are actually changing their sex, which is which the term “transsexual” was abandoned in favour of “transgender”. But hormones are not purely aesthetic and feminisation/masculinisation of the brain is actually scientifically observable - not only on MRI scans but also on test scores, e.g. post HRT, visuo spatial ability is enhanced in FtMs, while verbal working memory is enhanced in MtFs (see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453020301402).
If anything, I’d say trans people experience distress at their internal experience not aligning with their desired gender and post HRT it does - many anecdotal reports of how your mental state changes on estrogen or testosterone, not only from trans people but cis people who also undergo HRT (e.g. men with low T who report increased energy, confidence, etc).
As someone who has dysphoria and tried many ways to deal with it, I have yet to see any treatment that’s better than transitioning - it’s the current medical consensus for a reason - but if you know of any, feel free to link them.
Shouldn't it be "MtW" then?
(This is not a semantic complaint, it cuts quite deeply to the tendency to mix-and-match sex and gender as is most convenient for the given situation; ie. changing the name of "Women's sports" to "Female's sports" would probably not generate an acceptable situation for those who think that male trans people should be competing in those.)
I saw yesterday that Matt Yglesias tweeted that maybe all these issues with transwomen in sports would go away if we just recategorized women's sports as "AFAB sports." I'm skeptical of this, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing it happen just to observe how things play out.
“AFAB sports” would be completely dominated by trans men and/or various people with intersex conditions that were originally assigned female at birth. You’d have to add more qualifiers (e.g. hormone level verification) and we’re back with a similar, if less ideologically charged, debate.
There are already rules against taking hormones if you are going to engage in high level competition though?
And aside from that, I'm pretty sure they'd be less dominated than if you allow trans women in.
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This both not at all universally the definition trans advocates use and in fact a minority opinion(see truscum discourse) as well as a phrasing that obscures more than it enlightens. What is distress? What are the experiences of a natal sex and how do you differentiate them from those of the complimentary sex having only experienced one of them(or in the case of prepubescent children neither of them)? Memes are powerful things, anyone in the wrong side of a social media pile on can attest to their ability to induce distress.
I was tempted to just respond to this part because it's all the is really necessary for the local debate. So why the push for trans women in women's sports? If we're all in agreement the males and females are and remain different and these differences are the obvious motivating factor for the different leagues(as well as the vast majority of the sex based discrimination tolerated and mandated in our societies) then what possible ground could you be standing on?
I do not contest that hormones have huge impacts on many things we care about. All the more reason to be careful with them. And to make my position more clear, I have no actual problem with consenting adult trans humanist practices, if men want to take hormones to be more feminine, bolt tits on any part of their body or hell, more exotic stuff, more power to you. What I reject is appropriating a place in society that was not carved out for you and the attempt to colonize my mind and the mind of my kin with your memes. It is not normal to do these things, and that's fine abnormality is fine, but there is such a thing as normal that should be maintained. It's the path most likely to lead to good ends, deviating from it should be done with full knowledge of the consequences and I am very unimpressed with the signposts.
There’s a lot of medical literature documenting gender dysphoria but I can tell you my own experiences: while I didn’t know what it was like to be female, I knew what it was like to gain the attributes of adult men by going through puberty, and that was a profoundly negative experience. I would constantly try to minimise those attributes by shaving every inch of my body, taping away my genitals, and fantasise about mutilating my penis so doctors would make me a girl. I had no awareness that transitioning was a thing; my body just felt wrong, and socially I was upset whenever I would be put into male roles. Whereas when I transitioned, the constant negative thoughts and obsession about the wrongness of my body traits slowly went away, and I could finally bear to look in the mirror without being absolutely disgusted.
What places in society aren’t carved out for me? I’m fine with sports being segregated based on hormone levels (present and during puberty), but I see any attempt at sex segregation to be outright harmful. Sending trans women to women’s prisons or not should be decided on a case-by-case basis, a petite passing trans woman is going to get sexually assaulted and likely raped by going to a men’s prison, while a large natal male sexual criminal who’s not on HRT but self-IDs as a woman is a different case entirely.
What else? I’m generally opposed to making things like scholarships and awards based on identity rather than merit. Women’s shelters? Same as prison’s - and I’m not sure they’d let in a 6’ trans man with phallo so it’s not just about biological sex. Women’s bathrooms? Toilets should be unisex tbh, but a passing trans woman will look more out of place in the men’s than the women’s.
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“Getting a sex change” is also an old timey term for gender reassignment surgery, so I’m seeing more of a general move from sex towards gender when it comes to trans discourse. Definitions are generally fuzzy and shift over time anyway and nature doesn’t care for human’s need to categorise everything into neat little boxes.
Even sex doesn’t have an easy binary scientific definition (how do you categorise intersex individuals?) and so best to precisely detail what you’re saying. I personally think it’d be better to use terms like “chromosomal sex” and “phenotypic sex” - the former you can’t change, the latter you can to some degree. Then you have gender which relates to phenotypic sex but is mostly irrelevant to your chromosomes - we didn’t even know they existed until the late 19th century.
I don’t agree with some of the philosophy behind trans activism but our goals are largely aligned, and obviously I will be more sympathetic to an ideology that supports my existence than one that does not.
In what sense? I live in a European country and transgender HRT, along with many surgeries, are available through the public healthcare system. One of my trans friends got put on blockers and transitioned as a minor. Sure it’s not as easy as the US where you have informed consent, and the public healthcare system has hideous waiting lists (in general), but the medical consensus here is still to treat gender dysphoria with transition.
Thank you!! No worries, I didn’t find your questions nitpicky at all. Even if there’s… strong disagreements, I very much enjoy the fact that people here are at minimum willing to respond and have a discussion around trans issues, as opposed to other forums that would allow no dissenting views on either side of the subject. I’m quite happy to share my perspective, and also try to understand other people’s - I think it’s healthy to poke your head out of your culture war bubble and try to understand the other side beyond the caricatures your own presents, regardless if you lean left or right.
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+1 from me.
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I just wanted to add, that there is a clear binary "scientific" definition, but its not about the normal two possible outcomes its about the only two possible contributions to a single outcome (up to some very new IVF stuff).
The most binary definition of sex is with respect to sexual reproduction. The male participant in sexual reproduction (the male sex member) contributes the smaller and usually more mobile gamete. The female participant in sexual reproduction contributes the larger and less mobile gamete. Together the two gametes makes a zygote, and sexual reproduction has occurred. This definition of sex might be extend to members of the species who could in the future, currently are capable of, or have in the past been capable of contributing that gamete. Members of a species that reproduces sexually but are not capable of producing either viable gamete are not capable of sexual reproduction, and therefore do not have sex with respect to sexual reproduction.
Other definitions with respect to chromosomes, phenotype, etc. are down stream of the reproductive if you are looking for the most precise and binary definition of biological sex.
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Wait, now that I think about it, I heard something about Denmark, but what happened in Germany and the Netherlands?
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Overwhelmingly, they still function as either one or the other sex, and if you want to get philosophical, "both" is still a binary option.
The Cass Review, evidence reviews from Sweden, Finland, and Norway, accompanying policy changes stating that puberty blockers are only appropriate in the context of clinical trials, and statements from the French Academy of Sciences, and people working at it's Belgian equivalent (though no policy changes there yet).
I'm on mobile, so I can't provide links a the moment, but simply googling any of the countries I mentioned + "puberty blockers" should yield some articles about it.
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Well... it's not an entire continent yet, but give it a minute.
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This is rather misleading. While it's true in the sense that even without exposure to the discourse, there will still be individuals exhibiting dysphoria (as proven by their documented existence prior to them being exposed in mass media), it's also true that exposure to the discourse absolutely dwarfs whatever factors make someone transgender absent the exposure, as shown by the massive increase in referrals to gender clinics, and the flip in age/gender ratios of people being referred there. The fact that we can observe something similar with other disorders like anorexia, multiple personality / DID, TikTok Tourette's, or outright delusions like recovered memories or alien abductions, would also indicate that this isn't merely a case of more people coming out due to increased acceptance.
That sounds plausible, and even detransitioners talk about it, but it's an open question what it all sums up to in the grand scheme of things. For example, how come it inevitably turns out that 90% of women in communities like this turn out to be trans? How come trans bros hardly ever show up?
Hormones aren’t magic and while they will nudge you some percentage towards the neurochemistry of the opposite sex depending on age, they can’t undo years of male/female socialisation or drastically change an existing personality. If I had transitioned as a minor, I probably would have ended up with more of a “typical” female personality and I’d be on tumblr/TikTok instead.
Socialization is kind of TERFy argument, and I simply don't buy it's much of a factor. Years of "more women in STEM!" initiatives have yielded basically no results. As for personality, I thought the whole point is that trans people fit better with the personality of the opposite sex. We simply shouldn't be seeing the kind of patterns I pointed out if that was the case.
Some trans people do fit in better with the personality of the opposite sex, but some don’t; there is indeed a cluster of trans women that are attracted to women, into STEM, have interests typical of male nerds and are generally not very feminine. But AFAIK they tend to be high IQ contributing members of society and if transition improves their life and mental health, what’s the harm? The dysphoria can manifest differently but be just as real, and it’s better that they transition early than later in life when they are married and have kids, which was the average situation for female attracted trans women back in the 80s and 90s (see Blanchard’s research).
To the extent there's harm being done, I actually think it's mostly being done to trans people, rather than by them. In my tinfoilier moments I think the whole thing is an active eugenics program to get rid of the autists.
But my point is that I just don't buy the "woman trapped in a man's body thing". I do believe in dysphoria, and I am in favor of accommodating people who suffer from it, but if this is just about helping people with a disorder to alleviate their suffering, it's also fair to set boundaries, like in spas, sports, prisons, locker rooms, etc. If there was no harm in having these things be mixed sex, we wouldn't have segregated them to begin with.
Would you have those boundaries be purely based on biological sex? If so, would you then have a 6’2 hairy muscular trans man like Mitch Harrison go into the women’s locker room?
Conservatives and TERFs often state that allowing trans women into women’s spaces allows any male sexual predator to access them by identifying as a woman, but if you go the other way and say trans people should go where there biological sex says, what’s to prevent a man from going into the women’s bathroom and saying he’s actually a trans man?
I think the middle ground of having people go where they pass as makes the most sense. A passing trans woman with fully developed breasts and SRS shouldn’t change in the men’s locker room - she’d attract very confused stares at the very least. But someone who’s only been on HRT for a few weeks should probably stick to the spaces of their birth sex regardless of what they identify as.
Getting rid of the autists would be a disaster for humanity tho, who would be crazy enough to obsess over computing or electromagnetism or breeding if it weren’t for autistic people? I don’t know what share of modern inventions we can credit to autistic obsession but it’s probably quite high :)
Well, it doesn't quite work the same way, right off the bat for prisons "hey I'm actually a trans man, send me to a female prison" is not going to work. Neither is it going to work sports. They might let someone through initially, but if they see them blow everyone else out of the water, the organizers can ask for proof they're female, or else have the person disqualified after the fact. Even in more informal spaces like locker rooms you at least have a way of resolving the dispute, even if the whole conflict will be awkward for everyone involved.
It might work, but doesn't that grant women in locker rooms the right to say "sorry, you don't pass well enough, try harder next time"? I don't know that this would go down well with the current batch of activists. And anyway, I don't think that will work for prisons and sports.
I'm tempted to say there might not be a good solution here one way or the other.
Yes, I think it will be a disaster. Half of our tech stack runs on trans women and furries.
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