> This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want to be another gender. But I think there's some interesting parallels to be observed here, and discounting that based on "moral virtue" or "denying hate speech" or whatever i'll be attacked with is just moving the target.
I feel you're grossly misrepresenting the issue. It means nothing if you believe people can be re-educated to cease to identify as a specific gender or repress their sexuality throughout their whole lives. That's completely irrelevant. You can also argue that you can re-educated men to be ok with being impotent or be bald or not need glasses, but somehow the conservative side of society is perfectly ok with having whole industries devoted to pumping out erectile disfuncion pills to circumvent natural health issues.
So you have to ask yourself why do you feel it's ok to repress whole segments of society because they don't feel comfortable with who they are, while you are perfectly ok with other segments pulling nature's cheat codes to achieve the exact same thing.
This is exactly the point: the authoritarian motivation behind repressing minorities, and the hate speech that goes along with it.
> It means nothing if you believe people can be re-educated to cease to identify as a specific gender or repress their sexuality throughout their whole lives. That's completely irrelevant. You can also argue that you can re-educated men to be ok with being impotent or be bald or not need glasses, but somehow the conservative side of society is perfectly ok with having whole industries devoted to pumping out erectile disfuncion pills to circumvent natural health issues.
I don't understand this. The core problem with gender dysphoria is that you feel significant discomfort with your biological sex. If it were possible to legitimately "re-educate" oneself to not feel this discomfort, that would be considerably cheaper, less invasive and less problematic overall than trying to change one's sex. All surgery carries risk of death after all, and lifetime of hormone therapy is annoying to say the least.
Being bald is not just a feeling of discomfort with having no hair, it has real consequences. Baldness is generally considered to be less attractive, and attractiveness impacts career and dating prospects, for instance.
Being impotent also has real-world consequences. It impacts dating and also impacts your ability to conceive.
Arguably, being trans also has real-world consequences as well, so if a solution became available that could eliminate the gender dysphoria without changing your sex, I would be very surprised if plenty of trans people wouldn't choose that option, and not just because of social stigma.
The resistance to such a solution comes from two understandable directions: a) terrible gay conversion therapy that doesn't actually work, and b) the (mistaken) notion of mind-body dualism that many people internalize over their lives, that their identity, their mind, is separate from their body and has more primacy.
> I don't understand this. The core problem with gender dysphoria is that you feel significant discomfort with your biological sex.
Indeed, and that's why you see people undergoing medical treatments to address that problem.
Why anyone in their right mind would be against people seeking medical treatments to address their health issues is beyond me.
> If it were possible to legitimately "re-educate" oneself to not feel this discomfort, that would be considerably cheaper, less invasive and less problematic overall than trying to change one's sex.
You're desperately trying to avoid the point.
I repeat. You can reeducate an impotent man to stop worrying about his erectile dysfunction. You can reeducate a man to stop bothering with being bald.
Why is that somehow not targeted by this authoritarian belief that you're entitled to force upon others to undergo reeducation camps to accept an outcome they don't want nor feel comfortable with?
Why is that only minorities vilified by certain religious conservative pressure groups should have no say in what they can and cannot do regarding their health and personal well-being?
I feel you're grossly misrepresenting the issue. It means nothing if you believe people can be re-educated to cease to identify as a specific gender or repress their sexuality throughout their whole lives. That's completely irrelevant. You can also argue that you can re-educated men to be ok with being impotent or be bald or not need glasses, but somehow the conservative side of society is perfectly ok with having whole industries devoted to pumping out erectile disfuncion pills to circumvent natural health issues.
So you have to ask yourself why do you feel it's ok to repress whole segments of society because they don't feel comfortable with who they are, while you are perfectly ok with other segments pulling nature's cheat codes to achieve the exact same thing.
This is exactly the point: the authoritarian motivation behind repressing minorities, and the hate speech that goes along with it.