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I might mildly dislike it, if it extends to me being forced to use neopronouns at the risk of social disapproval, because I resent being dictated to, but not enough to really care. I'm sure that most trans-sceptics would have a far more negative reaction.
If they look like a duck and fuck like a duck, I'll have no qualms about calling them ducks, but until then it'll only be a minor nuisance and my general desire to be polite means that I'd go along for the sake of people I otherwise respect.
Autistic people are overrepresented in both the Rationalist community and in trans people. I would wager that accounts for what you observe. Scott has written about that association, and wagers that it's likely due to Autistic people being more suggestible and also prone to interpreting their discomfort at the bodily signals neurotypicals take for granted and considering them a sign they're not expressing as the gender they actually are. Since Rats are also more open to experience, they might have been among the first on the bandwagon.
Wouldn’t therapeutics to simply cure gender Dysphoria or any underlying conditions be the straighter line from A to B from a technological point of view?
The idea of an “anti-Dysphoria” vaccine makes more sense than a totally lossless surgical gender swap.
I swear, bringing this up in the debate makes TRAs and their ilk more incensed than anything than anything I’ve ever written. I’ve gotten banned and sent viscous DMs for even suggesting it.
But in this theoretical, transhumanist future with shiny happy people is it not simpler and more likely that no one feels the need to transition at all due to high quality therapeutics than the 24/7 all you can eat Barbie doll body part swap meet that the medicalists seem to assume is going to pass?
FTR, my reaction to the idea of medically altering the identity bits is something like "Could you kill me in a less horrifying way, please?"
That said, my issues are more age than gender, and the mental aspect is a significant part of that (which only grows more ... perplexing... over time). The trouble though is that it's hard to define what fixing that would look like. If I'm imagining a magical mind-alteration solution, I like to include a daily "revert the alterations, reflect on how they work" period, because that crap is scary and I expect easier to get wrong than not. I have no idea how this could be accomplished in reallity, other than simulations. But I'm not sure much of mine could be resolved outside of simulations. Ugh. Reallity is better than not existing, but I still complain.
All of which is to say, I get the vicious reactions you get for suggesting altering it mentally rather than bodily. I'd prefer people not be so vicious about it (I'm here and not there for reasons), fwiw.
I think the “identity bits” is where, from my perspective, an alien morality gets smuggled in.
No one suggests that if you give someone suffering from eczema a lotion that they are committing “genocide” against the “eczema community”. But wave the magic identity wand around and everything becomes moralized.
If we could make gender Dysphoria disappear tomorrow, from the perspective of alleviating real suffering the answer should be a no brainer. The fact that answering this question causes any consternation is indicative of a bait and switch.
I’ve suffered and continue to suffer mental illness in my life, if I could make it go away and restore my brain to full function I wouldn’t hesitate. I’m not part of a “community”, I just have a condition. The fact that people build a wall called “identity” around their maladies is at best an understandable cope, at worse adding fuel to the fire.
I think the primary mission of medicine should be the restoration of natural function of a person. Much like “Free Speech” has a strict legal definition but also heavily implies a cultural attitude, same with the Hippocratic Oath; “First, do no harm.”
Helping people take care, love and accept their bodies should take complete priority over modifying a healthy, functioning body. If you have to modify, do so only with the goal to restore healthy, natural function.
To me that’s the expansive vision of the Hippocratic oath as regards to body modification, and I find it goes into direct conflict with the transhumanist / cyborg vision of (un?)humanity that to my mind, includes transgenderism.
Someone out there coined the term “trad-humanism” and that more or less seems accurate to describe my view on this.
If I'm suffering from eczema and you conditioned me to stop suffering while the outward symptoms are still there, am I cured?
What are the outward symptoms of gender dysphoria other than the suffering itself?
In this case, I can't name any. My point is, it's an insidious path to focus on fixing "how you feel about it" rather than the problem itself.
If "how you feel about it" is the problem itself, then I'm not sure how that's insidious.
Yeah, basically.
It’s a psychological problem. It’s generally best to address a psychological problem through… psychology. If that doesn’t work, add psychopharmacology on top, because then you know there’s a neurological element.
All of which has a goal of restoring healthy brain function.
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