Now look I am not an a close-minded arsehole, people can do whatever the hell they please as long as it doesn't cause dis-ease or impact on to someone else's life. But I just can't for the life of me see any reason in why there is acceptance over such a thing in society. — intrapersona

The trick is to learn how to put up with what we don't like, and that, objectively, isn't a cause of major problems.

Advice to a young actress who asserted that an older actor in a production showed too much affection for the leading man (c. 1910); "My dear, I don't care what they do, so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses."

Frightened horse, of course, might bolt and cause bodily injury or death. So far as I know, a transsexual donning a wig, dress, and heels and sashaying down the street to Target has not yet caused a horse to fall dead on the street from shock, except when the shoes and dress didn't match. That can kill a horse outright.

There are questions about rightness and wrongness, and those should be debated. The rightness or wrongness of Donald Trump can be debated. There are also questions about liking and disliking, and those need to be resolved. You don't have to like anything on the long list of diverse appearances, but it is helpful to separate "like and don't like" from "right and wrong". Transsexuality, homosexuality, all sorts of paraphilias (like foot-fetishes), tastes in partners, prostitution, and so on can be extremely off-putting.

What a philosopher needs to do with his likes and dislikes is learn to live with them. That doesn't mean learning to like what one finds repellent. It means recognizing what and why one dislikes something and then putting it in context, and moving on. Why should you resolve your likes and dislikes?

Because, to put it plainly, all the things we merely dislike and find intensely annoying are not going to go away. There are things I have found annoying, irritating, and very unlikeable for the last 70 years, and they haven't disappeared, damn them!

You can accept transgendered people without especially liking or understanding their psycho-social dynamics. You don't have to. There are lots of things about the way people tick that I don't like, don't understand, don't find appealing, and so on. That's just LIFE.

Surely you realize that the phrase "born in the wrong body" (or the idea in general) isn't necessarily to be taken literally and doesn't need to include any beliefs about souls or spirits? It can just be a way of saying "a big incompatibility with sense of identity and physical body" in a way which, I suppose, might better describe what it feels like to oneself — zookeeper

"A big incompatibility with sense of identity and physical body" is a type of somatic delusion - just as feeling as if your arm isn't your own so you end up cutting it off.

If people get offended when you suggest that really they might simply be delusional and wrong about it, that probably has something to do with the fact that they know that regardless of what you call their condition, they can't just make it go away. Calling something a delusion can be useful if there's a realistic possibility of actually dispelling the delusion, but if everyone involved knows that it's a more or less permanent delusion, then insisting on a negative word like delusion is to be a bit of an ass about it. — zookeeper

This is the typical liberal response to someone asking valid questions and making valid points. They always resort to name-calling when they don't have a legitimate argument to make.

If people get offended because they can't make it go away (meaning they can't make their belief that they are in the wrong body go away) then isn't that the definition of incorrigible? Isn't that an example of believing it with absolute certainty? Isn't that what I've been saying is a symptom of having a delusion?

They believe that their body doesn't match their "inside". They believe that they were born in the "wrong" body. In other words, they believe something is wrong with their body when there isn't anything wrong. This is a somatic delusion. People with somatic delusions are incorrigible and absolutely convinced that the delusion is real. So when you question them about their delusion, as if they could be wrong, they get easily offended - you know, just like those religious types. — Harry Hindu

As far as I can tell they desire to have a body of the opposite gender. That they might say they were born in the "wrong body" has more to do with their personal preferences than any possible "somatic delusions". They simply make a choice about what makes them happy.

.

Just think about it for a second without getting caught up in the politics and ethics of it. These people believe that they have a soul or spirit that is somehow imbued with either masculinity or femininity that is opposite of their body's masculinity or femininity. Do souls or spirits have a quality of masculinity or femininity about them, and can souls be placed in the wrong body? — Harry Hindu

Do you actually think the soul exists? I would call that a somatic delusion.

Most transsexuals (the one's i've met) don't offer up completely retarded explanations along the lines of souls or insides and outsides or any of the like to explain why they are transgender. They will tell you that they are happier living as the opposite gender. and that's their founding reasoning.

Are you really questioning "delusions"? Or are you just questioning a lifestyle choice that you don't fancy?

Do you actually think the soul exists? — VagabondSpectre

I don't wish to derail this thread but I had to answer your question VagabondSpectre. Souls do exist and their "gender" is fluid in nature not specific.

Got any proof whatsoever of that?

I won't hold my breath.

Go ahead and exhale for this could take a bit.
What kind of "proof" are you looking for?

It's a shame that we cannot even use PF as a reference to point to but if you were present, the "Do Souls Exist" was the highest attended poll of the Forums and the thread was long and detailed. But if you were not there, I shall try to explain how it is that I know souls exist and that their gender is fluid.

I have been aware of souls existing around me that others could not see since 9 or 10 years old. When I questioned my Mother, she knew her Mother, my Granny had spoke of such things but not her. So when I asked my Granny about these things I was seeing and hearing their message of, she was the first person that didn't look at me like I was crazy. She assured me that what I was hearing and seeing was true. She explained to me that the ability to see souls, interact with souls, be able to see into the future (which hadn't happened yet) was a special sense, a sense that would always be open to me, as long as I never misused it for my own personal gains.

Since then, through out my life, I have been utilized as a messenger to get a message to someone. It could be someone I know or a complete stranger but the soul is always persistent, regardless of the recipients' belief in it. As far as their gender? They are souls, so even though they may have had a gender on this plane of reality, they become fluid in nature once they leave the body and it is rather undefined.

As far as I can tell they desire to have a body of the opposite gender. That they might say they were born in the "wrong body" has more to do with their personal preferences than any possible "somatic delusions". They simply make a choice about what makes them happy. — VagabondSpectre

Of course it is a choice that makes them happy. This is what a delusion is - a false belief that is desperately held onto in an effort to ignore a reality that doesn't make them happy. Delusions are a defense mechanism. They are psychological strategies brought into play by the unconscious mind to manipulate, deny, or distort reality in order to defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self-schema.

Do you actually think the soul exists? I would call that a somatic delusion. — VagabondSpectre

You really need to read my other posts in this thread. If you think that is a somatic delusion but not believing you are in the wrong body, then I'm not sure that you're capable of being consistent.

Most transsexuals (the one's i've met) don't offer up completely retarded explanations along the lines of souls or insides and outsides or any of the like to explain why they are transgender. They will tell you that they are happier living as the opposite gender. and that's their founding reasoning.

Are you really questioning "delusions"? Or are you just questioning a lifestyle choice that you don't fancy? — VagabondSpectre

You really need to research what delusions are before you enter this conversation. I provided a link in my first post. Here is another:
http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/delusional-disorder

"People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner."

Delusional people can function normally but when you question them about their delusion, they cease to be reasonable. The become incorrigible. This is a symptom of a delusion - of rejecting reality and replacing it with your own.

I am questing the validity of their claim which you don't seem to have a problem with questioning my claims, or the claims of the religious which are also delusional, but aren't consistent in questioning transgenders. This is what I mean by being inconsistent.

"People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner."

Delusional people can function normally but when you question them about their delusion, they cease to be reasonable. The become incorrigible. This is a symptom of a delusion - of rejecting reality and replacing it with your own.

I am questing the validity of their claim which you don't seem to have a problem with questioning my claims, or the claims of the religious which are also delusional, but aren't consistent in questioning transgenders. This is what I mean by being inconsistent. — Harry Hindu

The problem I see is you have only described delusions that might apply to some but not all transgender people. You wield your position as if it applies to all of them, but as I have been continuously pointing out all of the example delusions you have put forward are in no way a necessary part of transgender psychology.

For instance "believing you have a penis" when you actually have a vagina is a delusion. But what about transsexuals who know they have a vagina, and then have a surgical operation to create an artificial penis?. Afterward they know they don't have a "real" penis, but they know they have something that approximates one, and that fits well with their desire to live out life as a male.

Where is the delusion?

I'm not entirely interested in ferreting out all available somatic delusions for analysis. When it comes to souls, I don't believe in them, but if you're going to try and argue that wanting to be the opposite gender is necessarily a somatic delusion, I'll happily start pointing out what else might be a somatic delusion in order to force perspective.

How can you say down syndrome is only a "deviation from the norm"? It is a downright disease of the human condition and it as preposterous that we accept it, it is like cancer, it should be eradicated because it serves no purpose other than wasting our resources like time, money, food and much more. — intrapersona

Do you hold it against a person he has cancer then? Is he wrong to have it?

Except that a penis/balls-bearing transexual male raised as a male or a transexual vagina/ovaries-bearing female raised as a female has to imagine what it is like being the opposite. They do for a while have to pretend. Having watched a tall, broad-shouldered kind-of-homely 45 year old guy transition to being a woman, (not a particularly graceful experience for the two of them) yes, imagination, pretending, and just plain stage work is required to get from one gender to the other.

Ditto for the secular Jewish woman who transitioned to ultra orthodox bearded manhood. Ditto for most of the transexuals I have know. It takes a hell of a lot of "balls" to pull these transitions off, whether it goes well or not. — Bitter Crank

I'm not sure I agree with that. There's something about their identity that is stronger than their biological build, from which a dissonance arises that leads them to want to change their appearance. That's not pretending to be something you're not. That's being different from what you look.

I've dressed up as a woman for a play and was therefore pretending to be one. At the very least these things are of a different order...

I wonder how it is that all women's childhoods are the same? Rich white Suburban women had an analogous childhood to every other woman that ever lived, all throughout history. They all act the same too, have all of the same sensibilities, and are just tied together by a transcontinental temporally transcendent tether of tampons.

The problem I see is you have only described delusions that might apply to some but not all transgender people. You wield your position as if it applies to all of them, but as I have been continuously pointing out all of the example delusions you have put forward are in no way a necessary part of transgender psychology.

For instance "believing you have a penis" when you actually have a vagina is a delusion. But what about transsexuals who know they have a vagina, and then have a surgical operation to create an artificial penis?. Afterward they know they don't have a "real" penis, but they know they have something that approximates one, and that fits well with their desire to live out life as a male.

Where is the delusion? — VagabondSpectre

Easy. The delusion is the belief that you are a man when you were born a woman, not that you have a penis when you have a vagina. Having a vagina is what causes them stress. It flies in the face of the reality they built for themselves, which is why they have a "sex-change". This is no different than a man who believes his arm doesn't belong to him, and cuts it off. Like I said before, people with delusions can behave normally but when it comes to their delusion, they seem crazy, like attempting to cut off your arm, or having a "sex-change".

When a transgender says that their outside doesn't match their inside, ask them how they know the problem isn't on the inside. Question them about what it is on the inside that is different. Do they believe in souls and is it the soul that is different than the body. If the say no, then what else could it be other than a mental problem? My point about souls is that they either believe they are a soul in the wrong body, or they have a mental problem. What other reason could you use to account for their belief and behavior when it comes to their delusion?

It seems to me that too many people go straight to the ethics and politics of transgenderism, when we need to first address the cause of transgenderism.

I'm not entirely interested in ferreting out all available somatic delusions for analysis. When it comes to souls, I don't believe in them, but if you're going to try and argue that wanting to be the opposite gender is necessarily a somatic delusion, I'll happily start pointing out what else might be a somatic delusion in order to force perspective. — VagabondSpectre

Please do. I started it by using the alien arm as an example.

This is utterly insane. Honestly. I think these progressives have just lost the plot. If you have a penis and feel you should have a vagina, then you have a mental disease which requires treatment - which is precisely NOT acting based on your feelings. It's exactly like a drug addict which feels he should have more of a drug in order to live well. It's a mentally created illusion which causes you to fool yourself into doing something s-t-u-p-i-d.

Yes, people with transexual feelings shouldn't be ostracized, they should be pitied and helped, just like other people suffering from mental conditions. They should definitely not be allowed to have any kind of surgery. They should imagine they were living 200 years ago, when there was no such surgery. What would they have done then, not lived?? Clearly they would have lived, and learned to cope with their feelings in healthier ways. I'm more than certain that transexual people found ways to live, and some of them have lived good lives, even in the past. We're not going to re-organise society because of some crazy folks out there, who don't like it the way it is. They have to adapt to the world as it is, not ask the world to adapt to them. This is really so petty and so childish - ugh the world isn't how I like it, therefore the world is fucking wrong, and it needs to get its act straight! Oh yeah, big fucking surprise. The world isn't how any of us want. So what? The world doesn't exist here to satisfy our wants and desires. The world doesn't owe us anything. Stop being fucking whiny children, and grow up...

It's a shame that we cannot even use PF as a reference to point to but if you were present, the "Do Souls Exist" was the highest attended poll of the Forums and the thread was long and detailed. But if you were not there, I shall try to explain how it is that I know souls exist and that their gender is fluid.

I have been aware of souls existing around me that others could not see since 9 or 10 years old. When I questioned my Mother, she knew her Mother, my Granny had spoke of such things but not her. So when I asked my Granny about these things I was seeing and hearing their message of, she was the first person that didn't look at me like I was crazy. She assured me that what I was hearing and seeing was true. She explained to me that the ability to see souls, interact with souls, be able to see into the future (which hadn't happened yet) was a special sense, a sense that would always be open to me, as long as I never misused it for my own personal gains.

Since then, through out my life, I have been utilized as a messenger to get a message to someone. It could be someone I know or a complete stranger but the soul is always persistent, regardless of the recipients' belief in it. As far as their gender? They are souls, so even though they may have had a gender on this plane of reality, they become fluid in nature once they leave the body and it is rather undefined. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

And how do you expect us - the folks who don't see souls every other day - to believe or understand this? How can we understand this? Are we supposed to take your words as truth, just because you claim it is so? There's literarily no way, as far as I'm aware, for us to verify this, is there?

This is utterly insane. Honestly. I think these progressives have just lost the plot. If you have a penis and feel you should have a vagina, then you have a mental disease which requires treatment - which is precisely NOT acting based on your feelings. It's exactly like a drug addict which feels he should have more of a drug in order to live well. It's a mentally created illusion which causes you to fool yourself into doing something s-t-u-p-i-d. — Agustino

What's stupid about having a sex change, or choosing to wear clothing typically associated with those of the opposite biological sex?

What's stupid about having a sex change, or choosing to wear clothing typically associated with those of the opposite biological sex? — Michael

What's stupid about cutting off your arm because you think it doesn't belong to you?

Having one arm is a disability. Having a penis or a vagina isn't. What's wrong with choosing to have one when sheer probability gave me the other?

Also, the equating of being transgender with wanting to have different sex organs (or body in general) is wrong. Someone can be transgender but happy with their body. As I said before, and in my last post, it can just be about identifying with the behaviour/attitude and other non-biological traits that are typically associated with someone of the opposite biological sex.

and are just tied together by a transcontinental temporally transcendent tether of tampons — Wosret

Excellent!

And how do you expect us - the folks who don't see souls every other day - to believe or understand this? How can we understand this? Are we supposed to take your words as truth, just because you claim it is so? — Agustino

To answer your first question on how to "understand this" is to be open to listening to what I and other 'seers' have to say, their experiences and what they think they are seeing. How to "believe this" is a conclusion you have to arrive at, as there is no way to convince another of this concept, unless and until you experience it for yourself.

Are you supposed to take my words as truth, just because I claim it so?
I wouldn't at first blush, at second blush or maybe never. Having said that, there are other people that can see what I see and the more open you are to understanding this concept, the more willing others will be to share.

There's literarily no way, as far as I'm aware, for us to verify this, is there? — Agustino

Can you point to God and give me the tools to verify his existence?

Same goes for souls.

What's stupid about cutting off your arm because you think it doesn't belong to you? — Harry Hindu

Because this one is likely to kill you whereas a sex change operation won't.

Always fun to have people who aren't psychologists try to dumb it down to just plain "stupid" or a mental illness.

How about all those people who don't even classify as male or female? There are a couple of more genders out there.

Can you point to God and give me the tools to verify his existence? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Well certainly if you can see souls, then I'd expect you to have much greater insights than I would with regards to God no? I suppose that you can converse, and ask the souls you meet about God no? Hence if you asked this question, it would seem strange to me. It's like a man who can see, while looking out the window, asks me if there's a tree in front of him.

Because this one is likely to kill you whereas a sex change operation won't.

Always fun to have people who aren't psychologists try to dumb it down to just plain "stupid" or a mental illness.

How about all those people who don't even classify as male or female? There are a couple of more genders out there. — Benkei

Those hermaphrodites are suffering of a malformation, it's a disease, not the natural state of being. Just like some are born with no arms and no legs. Theirs is a physical disease, and there is a physical solution for it, which is similar to a sex change operation.

What's stupid about having a sex change, or choosing to wear clothing typically associated with those of the opposite biological sex? — Michael

Ehmm let's boil it down to plain stupid as Benkei likes it. We treat a disease of the body by acting on the body. We treat a disease of the mind - for example anxiety caused stomach aches - not by giving the patient pills for a physical illness, but by treating the mind. A transexual has a disease of the mind, NOT of the body. His body is what it is, but his mind is unhappy with it, and feels it should have a different body. It's in fact obsessed about this. Thus he has a mental illness. The solution is not surgery anymore than the solution for anxiety caused chronic stomach pain is investigate surgery - regardless of how much the patient insists otherwise, the doctor should refuse such treatment.

Surgery is objectively injurious to the body, and there is nothing wrong with the body in the first place, and hence surgery ain't warranted.

Surgery is objectively injurious to the body... — Agustino

So are tattoos, piercings, and boxing.

...and there is nothing wrong with the body in the first place...

There is for some, hence the desire for surgery.

A transexual has a disease of the mind, NOT of the body. His body is what it is, but his mind is unhappy with it, and feels it should have a different body. It's in fact obsessed about this. Thus he has a mental illness.

It isn't classified as a mental illness. DSM-5 is quite clear on that:

DSM-5 aims to avoid stigma and ensure clinical care for individuals who see and feel themselves to be a different gender than their assigned gender. It replaces the diagnostic name "gender identity disorder" with "gender dysphoria", as well as makes other important clarifications in the criteria. It is important to note that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder

tattoos, piercings — Michael

Yes, they should be illegal too. (To clarify, not having a tattoo/piercing but giving those in exchange for money should be illegal)

boxing — Michael

Boxing is a sport, it's not injurious to the body anymore than football is. In both you can, however, injure your body in irreparable ways.

It isn't classified as a mental illness. DSM-5 is quite clear on that. — Michael

And I care what the DSM-5 says because? Do you see me bowing my head to that classification and worshipping it?

And I care what the DSM-5 says because? Do you see me bowing my head to that classification and worshipping it? — Agustino

You're taking about mental illnesses, so you should care what professional psychiatrists say. They're the ones who determine the "mental illness" classification.

Yes, they should be illegal too.

No they shouldn't.

Boxing is a sport, it's not injurious to the body anymore than football is

Yes it is.

In both you can, however, injure your body in irreparable ways.

And this directly contradicts the preceding sentence.

Yes it is. — Michael

So if I am Floyd Money Mayweather and beat everyone without ever losing, how is it injurious to my body? Clearly it can be injurious, it doesn't necessarily have to be. Depends on how good you are.

No they shouldn't. — Michael

(To clarify, not having a tattoo/piercing but giving those in exchange for money should be illegal) — Agustino

You're taking about mental illnesses, so you should care what professional psychiatrists say. They're the ones who determine the "mental illness" classification. — Michael

I think professional psychiatrists are a bunch of cuckoos pretty much. I think the way in which they work, having multiple and different patients, and spending relatively little with the patient in actual real life circumstances makes them completely unaware of what a patient actually goes through or how to help them. The ideal is an Aristotle walking around with a young Alexander. That's what a psychiatrist ought to be, and that's the one I trust.

I would like to know how consistent people are in this. Why do we find it okay to tell the religious that they believe in a delusion, but not okay to tell this to a transgender? — Harry Hindu

Because they are a treasure of victim points for the Left. So we must rationalise and intellectualise a case that gender/sex is completely a social construction, which is oppressive -- like what our insecure lesbian Judith Butler writes. It's very comforting to "know" that it is not us (0.4%) that are confused but other (99.6%) that are confused. They simply do not understand our highly intellectual prose.

I identify as a transgender lesbian black independent oppressed strong woman with 14 children living off welfare, and if you disagree with me, you are an Islamophobe.

Easy. The delusion is the belief that you are a man when you were born a woman, not that you have a penis when you have a vagina. — Harry Hindu

You're conflating belief with desire. All transsexuals desire to become the opposite gender (in whichever capacity that is possible), but they don't all "believe they are the opposite gender".

You have to establish something about the desire to live life as the opposite gender, but instead you've just presumed that all transsexuals hold beliefs which contradict biology.

Having a vagina is what causes them stress. It flies in the face of the reality they built for themselves, which is why they have a "sex-change". — Harry Hindu

If having a vagina is what caused pre-op FTM trannies stress, then getting rid of the vagina altogether would solve their problem right?

No. It's their lack of a penis which causes them "stress", not the presence of their vagina. There's a difference between cutting off an unwanted body part and modifying a body-part into something more desirable.

This is no different than a man who believes his arm doesn't belong to him, and cuts it off. Like I said before, people with delusions can behave normally but when it comes to their delusion, they seem crazy, like attempting to cut off your arm, or having a "sex-change". — Harry Hindu

Obviously cutting off an arm is going to leave someone physically disabled, but giving them a sex change is only going to prevent them from having children (presuming they were not already incapable), so in order to really make your comparison work, you're going to have to equate the ability to have children with having two functional arms..

It's blatantly a false comparison. People have elective surgeries to tie/snip their various reproductive tubes all the time. So is a vasectomy is analogous to cutting off one's arm? Is taking birth control or wearing a condom is analogous to tying one's arm behind one's back? Is it the result of somatic delusion?

Are people who choose to never reproduce suffering from a somatic delusion?

There are three functions of human genitalia: Reproduction, pleasure, and pissing. Reproduction is the only function lost during a sex change, which is also the only function lost during a vasectomy. Considering that nobody has a prehensile penis and it's not true that in home country, PUSSY grab YOU!, comparing a sex change to the cutting off of limbs is decidedly less apt than comparing it to a simple vasectomy or tubal ligation procedure. Even cutting off your baby toe would be less apt of a comparison because toes help with grip and balance while penises and vaginas do not.

When a transgender says that their outside doesn't match their inside, ask them how they know the problem isn't on the inside. Question them about what it is on the inside that is different. — Harry Hindu

Did you once meet a transgender person who communicated their condition in terms of "insides" and "outsides"?

Sure, there are transgender folk out their who are downright lousy with delusions of the somatic variety, but I contend that there are transgender folk out there who are not. Not all trannies hold any or all of the example delusional beliefs that you've presented.

Do they believe in souls and is it the soul that is different than the body. If the say no, then what else could it be other than a mental problem? My point about souls is that they either believe they are a soul in the wrong body, or they have a mental problem. What other reason could you use to account for their belief and behavior when it comes to their delusion? — Harry Hindu

This deserves some sort of "false dichotomy" of the year award. A false dilemma (or a "false-dichotomy") is a fallacy where two possibilities are presented as if one of them must be true when in reality neither of them might be true or there are unstated alternatives to the two possibilities presented. So you've basically said "either souls exist or I'm right that all transgender people hold delusional beliefs". But (and this might be just some crazy hypothesis but) what if both souls didn't exist and there are some transgender people who don't hold delusional beliefs about the way their biology works? Is that really so hard to imagine?


The desire to transition toward the opposite gender is not a belief, it's a desire. If you want to describe that desire as in and of itself "a mental problem", then please explain on what grounds it is problematic. Problematic for reproduction? For the species? Have you been reading this thread? O.0?

It seems to me that too many people go straight to the ethics and politics of transgenderism, when we need to first address the cause of transgenderism. — Harry Hindu

Well back on page #3 I wrote a very lengthy post exploring some evolution-endowed genetic, epigenetic, and hormonal mechanisms which give rise, in rare cases, to individual biology predisposed towards characteristics of the opposite gender. While it is arguable that psychological development can be wholly responsible for leading an individual to a state of "desiring to live as the opposite gender", it is highly probable that in many cases hormonal predisposition is a significant contributing factor in psychological development. I'm not saying that the endocrine system causes direct or specific thoughts, but the vast array of reasons that an individual may have for wanting to be the opposite gender can be indirectly contributed to by hormones via things like physical development. You're not really exploring the possible causes if "mis-gendered souls" are the only alternative to somatic delusions that you can come come up with.

In my opinion people go straight to the ethics of transgenderism as a means to condemn it, including by describing the cause as mental illness (or in this case, the irrational belief that one's body is somehow broken). If you want to understand why I'm trying to separate morality and ethics from having unorthodox desires just read the title of the thread. While some transgender individuals might hold delusions about "their insides" (whatever it is they might actually mean by such a vague statement), not all transgender people do because somatic delusion is not the fundamental cause of all cases of transgenderism; wanting to be the opposite gender is.

Consider this hypothetical: There is a machine you can enter and inside a button you can press which will instantly change your DNA and your body to the opposite gender but leaving your mind un-altered. If someone went in and pressed the button because they wanted to, would you say that they necessarily wanted to as the result of a somatic delusion?

The argument isn't about empirical form. A soul is more a logical expression, an understanding of who someone is and how they mean. More or less the point is there is something about a person which cannot be verified by looking of an object in the world. Sure people often say they "exist," but it really means something closes to "meaning with presence."

"Soul" has a lot of baggage, but it's a pretty good reflection of what's at stake here. It's not a question of the body as an existing state, but of identity and how bodies are understood.

In this respect, I would argue "souls" are necessary. When I look out into the world, am I aware of the lives and meaning of more than the bodies in front of me. There is a inner life, a logical expression, which is concurrent with the body-- something of everyone which speaks to me, regardless of whether a person is aware of it, which shows their meaning.

Speaking of (empirical) verification is a category error, an attempt to understand something which is not the body as the body. How do I expect you to understand this? The way anyone does: to respect the necessity of meaning. One is convinced in experiencing the logical expression of identity. Without that, one is stuck in the loop of reducing people to the presence of their empire bodies.