Finish the transgender argument

[Thorolfr]

The psychiatrists are treating people suffering from this issue by suggesting that they might get relief if they present themselves as they see themselves. I’m not blaming patients for wanting relief and being willing to believe that they actually are what they feel in spite of physical attributes to the contrary, including DNA. If I felt upset because I thought I was Cleopatra and everybody was treating me as if I were someone else and I went to a doctor and was told, “well, you’re upset because you actually are Cleopatra, but narrow-minded people can only see your outsides so they won’t believe you!” then of course I’d insist that what everybody needed to do was to come around and accept that I am and deserve to be accepted as Cleopatra. What else would I do?

I’ve been to psychologists and psychiatrists before, and although I can imagine them vaguely suggesting that someone could perhaps present themselves as they see themselves if they want to and if it makes them feel better, I find it hard to believe that any of them would ever be so direct as to say that a person who is biologically male is in fact a woman if they think they are. Most of the time, they are much more ambiguous than that and are rarely that forthright. Usually, from my experience, they tend to listen and try to help the patient sort out how they feel but don’t usually try to tell them what to feel or what to do, which can be maddening for people who want someone to tell them what to do.

And I’m glad you only used Cleopatra as an example instead of using another example I’ve seen here in CAF several times of someone who thinks they’re a fighter jet.

 

[PetraG]

I’ve been to psychologists and psychiatrists before, and although I can imagine them vaguely suggesting that someone could perhaps present themselves as they see themselves if they want to and if it makes them feel better, I find it hard to believe that any of them would ever be so direct as to say that a person who is biologically male is in fact a woman if they think they are.

Read the section on gender dysphoria published by the American Psychiatric Association.
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria
This is the definition they give: Gender dysphoria involves a conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify.

Scroll down to the “Definition and Pronouns” section. Notice that physical gender is not among the terms that is defined. They are very careful to avoid saying that someone has an objective physical sex or that sex and gender are directly related. The gender with which someone identifies is presented very much on an equal footing as the gender one is “assigned” based on their “genitalia and other visible physical sex characteristics.” In other words, “assigned gender” is not confined to someone whose sex is physically ambiguous. It also refers to people with a physically unambiguous sex–in other words, everyone has an “assigned” gender!! Gender is treated as if it were a social construct and not something that toddlers understand!!

In other words, you’re right: psychiatrists, who have all been to medical school, don’t feel they can be “forthright” enough to say what someone’s sex is. They are joining the pretense that is not possible for a physician to ascertain a patient’s gender by physical exam or any other physical test, no matter how thorough. Even a physician cannot know a patient’s gender until the patient chooses to disclose it.

The medical world has taken leave of its senses. Physicians are giving the medicine their patients want. I guess leaches aren’t the only thing from ancient medicine that is coming back into vogue.

What is concerning to all of us, of course, is that if we say gender is an objective fact about you that does not depend on your inner sense of yourself, just as the identity of your biological parents is an immutable fact that doesn’t depend on how you feel about them, we’re going to maligned as the enemies of love, tolerance, charity, empathy and so on.

 

[Thorolfr]

Gender is treated as if it were a social construct and not something that toddlers understand!!

Toddlers would probably accept anyone as a woman who looks like a woman.

 

[PetraG]

Toddlers would probably accept anyone as a woman who looks like a woman.

Actually, toddlers are better at sensing who’s a boy and who’s a girl than adults are.

 

[Thorolfr]

Thorolfr:

Toddlers would probably accept anyone as a woman who looks like a woman.

Actually, toddlers are better at sensing who’s a boy and who’s a girl than adults are.

And what is it that they sense?

 

[PetraG]

And what is it that they sense?

I have no idea. I remember the study was done and the results reported back when I was taking child psychology. Adults and toddlers met toddlers and babies they didn’t know and the toddlers had a better batting average when it came to telling who was male and who was female.

 

[Thorolfr]

What is concerning to all of us, of course, is that if we say gender is an objective fact about you that does not depend on your inner sense of yourself, just as the identity of your biological parents is an immutable fact that doesn’t depend on how you feel about them, we’re going to maligned as the enemies of love, tolerance, charity, empathy and so on.

I would have thought so, too, at one time, but the case of people with complete AIS really causes a problem for me in that regard. Is such a person male or female? I would have to say that they’re female even though their sex chromosomes are XY. How do we figure out objectively what their gender is? Do these people who grew up looking like women and believing they were women have male souls?

 

[Thorolfr]

People have generally up until recently simply thought of this subject fairly similarly to how they would think about hermaphrodism. And beyond that, didn’t think much else about it.

I am quite critical of the notion that extreme cases justify throwing away perfectly legitimate long-standing wisdom and understanding, particularly in this area. There needs to be actual justification for making such changes.

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The thing about unusual cases that don’t fit the norm is that they nevertheless make many people question the assumptions they’ve made. It really is difficult for me to say now that we can know for certain what someone’s sex/gender is based solely on their sex chromosomes.