Which holds more clout to you? Facts or feelings?
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They would be intrasexed technically if they have the XY chromosomes but female physiology; in other words, it's a mutation. Obviously it could cause reproductive problems if the "female" has a Y chromosome.
The XX female and XY male accounts for the vast majority of the human population. Transsexuality, gender identity disorder, hermaphrodites, and other intrasexuals are really outside the sexual/gender norm.
Anyway, to answer the original question posed, I like to keep my feelings factual and like to make my facts feelable. Obviously the facts that influence a person most have the most emotional salience. The mind is very good at seeing what it wants to see and contorting it into a coherent whole (if this whole deviates too much from the norm, we call it delusion or psychosis). It takes considerable mental discipline to overcome the cognitive biases that hide the obvious from us. Facts derived from the analysis and interpretation of data and evidence are still filtered through the mind but are obviously less subjective than an impulsive judgment.
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IME, prejudice against the transgendered is a good deal greater and nastier than prejudice against ASD or simply "being a loner", precisely because people treat being transgender as a "wilful and foolish choice", as you seem to be doing here, and not an unfortunate accident of birth and/or environment. Anyway, many (most, by some way, I think) transgender people do not choose or want surgery, or even to act according to the stereotypical models of their preferred gender, for a whole variety of reasons. People considering sex change surgery do know and understand the implications (edit - and limitations).
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Yes; I think you'd have to have the opposite gender identity very strongly to want to go through surgery for it. If I had ended up with a mentally male gender identity, I wouldn't have thought it particularly important, and certainly wouldn't go through surgery for it, because right now I don't think being female really defines me any more than my hair color does. (Not that I know this for sure. I guess maybe even a small thing can become an issue if people THINK it defines you.) But if you were weakly identified with the opposite gender, it mightn't be nearly so much an issue to have to use the wrong pronoun or dress in the wrong clothing. Maybe you'd just wear clothing that's closer to androgynous than to either gender, so as to feel comfortable in it; I don't know. Or with a bit stronger gender-identity, you'd just go for living as your mental gender, without worrying about surgery... I think they have to identify very strongly with the opposite gender before they get desperate enough for surgery.
Part of the need to change physical gender might be caused by the idea that there are two genders, and two only, and the way kids are so strongly influenced to identify with one or the other. I mean, sure, most people can be pretty clearly put into one or the other category, but there's a range within each category--people like me, female but not really feminine; male but not really masculine; from there to the near-stereotype extremes--and then a few people scattered around the middle. Add another dimension for physical gender, and you've got a nice little x/y coordinate system (hehe! pun!) with physical gender on one axis and mental gender on the other... with a bunch of little points mostly clustered around the male/male and female/female edges; two clusters for the usual gender identites; another two for transsexual; and androgyny/genderless/intersexed/third-gender scattered randomly in the middle.
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If this person gender-identifies as a man, and lives as a man, then, in my opinion, they are a man. Man is a social construct. Sex is biological, but gender is social. Not being male does not necessarily mean one is not a man.
What if a person were to say, I have always felt like a cat and wish to undergo surgery to become more like a feline? It is an extreme comparison but it proves that inner perception does not determine outward reality.
They might do what others who have experienced this feeling do and undergo the surgery you mention. It does happen you know. Evidently feline features seem a popular choice for humans who identify with non-human animals to the extent of desiring physical modification to more closely resemble their 'identified with species, if the documentary I was watching was any indication.
So long as I can remind you that chemical and hormonal imbalances also occur in the absence of any resulting mental disorders.
Not at all. The doctor has an obligation to ensure that there is a genuine mis-match between a person's sex and gender before beginning sex-reassignment treatments. To not take every reasonable step to ensure such a mis-match is occurring before proceeding with sex-reassignment treatment would be very unethical and blatantly reckless.
Gender is not determined by sex, if it were every human culture would have the same number of gender categories. They do not in case you wondered.
They generally are, none of which requires we use sex to determine gender, and where it hurts an individual to do so, without any particular profit accruing to society, I suggest there is no reason why that individual should be held ransom to societal gender expectations.
Why is it considered more acceptable in this society to mutilate yourself in order to fit a deranged sense of identity than to be a loner that prefers to be within his or her own thoughts? The former is described as "being yourself" whereas the latter is considered tantamount to tragedy.
Judging from the statements of people who have undergone surgical procedures to acquire feline characteristics, people do not generally simply accept that they are just being themselves. Indeed the descriptions were of being treated like some kind of free for view freak show, and there were many claims of being publicly derided by complete strangers. So far as I know, people who have undergone sex-reassignment procedures, face considerable prejudice as a result.
Well then it obviously follows that sex determines gender, or ought to, and anyone who seeks to realign their sex with their gender, is clearly monstrous...mmm, actually, however ineffective psychologists might be at differentiating between people with a true mis-match between gender and sex, and those with completely different but similarly presenting problems, that does not mean the problem (of such mis-matches) does not exist, does not need addressing, nor does it necessitate that those who need and receive therapy to realign their sex with their gender are somehow monstrous.
Gender, like all social facts, is an exceptional form of reality. It's only the reality it is because we collectively construe it as such. That gender conventions exist is objective fact, accurate descriptions of some particular gender system can be objective fact, but there is nothing necessitating any objectivity in the particular form of gender conventions themselves. They are social constructs that exist because we (at a group level) believe and accept them as true.
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Facts.
The person removed some of her identifying female traits, and deigns to call herself a man; however she insists on keeping her uterus. She is not a 'he' as her physical gender and genetics are absolutely female, and she can still do something that no man is able to do- be pregnant.
She is a female who had surgery to make herself look like a man. She is not, and never will be, a man. Not unless she can change her genetics and have a penis and make sperm.
The person removed some of her identifying female traits, and deigns to call herself a man; however she insists on keeping her uterus. She is not a 'he' as her physical gender and genetics are absolutely female, and she can still do something that no man is able to do- be pregnant.
She is a female who had surgery to make herself look like a man. She is not, and never will be, a man. Not unless she can change her genetics and have a penis and make sperm.
Your view ignores the significant fact that gender is a social construct rather than some innate physical truth.
Feelings may provide tremendous motivation in the short term, but it is the facts that that determine the long-term success or validity of an act.
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The most you can say is "physically female". He will never be physically male, but he will also never be mentally female. Trying to squish a person like that into one specific gender doesn't really work. Do you have to want to have a hysterectomy to be a "true" transgendered person? I don't think so; I think some are simply more comfortable with having bodies opposite their minds. I think maybe in a society that didn't emphasize gender so much, there'd be fewer people wanting to go for surgery, because if you weren't raised with an idea of either/or, then you wouldn't grow up, early on, with the strong pressure to identify as one or the other. Without that pressure, it might be easier to live with a mind and body with different genders, and surgery would seem comparatively less rewarding.
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