It's literally scientifically impossible to change sex. Sewing a sausage dick on isn't going to change that. Such a thing is delusional and we should treat it as such. — emancipate

The BBC World Service has a story about a woman who was taking testosterone and had had her breasts removed who decided (as a "man") that "he" had always wanted to have children. She still had ovaries, a uterus, and the other parts. So "he" stopped taking testosterone and eventually resumed menses. "He" was artificially inseminated and bore a child. The BBC host for this story was very excited that "a man could bear a child."

Extreme bullshit, of course. The "man" in this case was a woman pretending to be a man, and taking male hormones to get a beard and slightly different musculature. What she was doing was elaborate transvestitism.

Men take estrogen, develop breasts, lose their male sex drive, and so on, and dress like women. Parts can be chopped off. In the case of women wanting to look like men, parts can be chopped off, hormones taken, and sausages sewed on. They remain the men or women that they were born as, just more chopped up.

Transsexualism and transvestitism is an elaborate sexual masquerade--and certainly not the only sexual and non-sexual masquerade which humans perform. But let's stay honest: A man wearing a dress (even if an artificial vagina has been created) is still a masquerading man. A woman wearing a beard and a suit (even if an artificial penis has been created) is still a masquerading woman.

I don't have any objection to people masquerading, as long as they--and society--are clear and honest about what they are doing.

I don't have any objection to people masquerading, as long as they--and society--are clear and honest about what they are doing. — Bitter Crank

:100: agree. Demanding that the rest of society play along with the charade is the problem. Better refer to random fragile being as xer person who menstruates on Tuesdays and chestfeeds on Fridays, otherwise they will cry and shit their pants. Madness. Surgeons are mutilating bodies for coins. Doesn't that go against the hyppocratic oath? Wth is going on?

Transsexualism and transvestitism is an elaborate sexual masquerade--and certainly not the only sexual and non-sexual masquerade which humans perform. But let's stay honest: A man wearing a dress (even if an artificial vagina has been created) is still a masquerading man. A woman wearing a beard and a suit (even if an artificial penis has been created) is still a masquerading woman. — Bitter Crank

What determines someone to be a man or a woman? Genotype? Phenotype? Psychology? Social role? Naming?

A male and female cannot transition to the opposite sex because they lack the necessary attributes of the opposite sex to do so. — Cobra

What are these "necessary" attributes?

That you are paying undue attention to the contents of other folk's underwear is terse, but right on point. It's not your business. — Banno

So... ask. — Banno

Exactly. So it is our business in certain contexts and it's not really that it isnt our business in other contexts. It's just that we don't care in other contexts because it's irrelevant.

Another situation it is relevant, besides mating, is in sports.

What determines someone to be a man or a woman? — Michael

Biological sex is based on a combination of traits:

- chromosomes (in humans, XY is male, XX female)
- genitals (penis vs. vagina)
- gonads (testes vs. ovaries)
- hormones (males have higher relative levels of testosterone than women, while women have higher levels of estrogen)
- secondary sex characteristics that aren’t connected with the reproductive system but distinguish the sexes, and usually appear at puberty (breasts, facial hair, size of larynx, subcutaneous fat, etc.)

Using genitals and gonads alone, more than 99.9% of people fall into two non-overlapping classes—male and female—and the other traits almost always occur with these. If you did a principal components analysis using the combination of all five traits, you’d find two widely separated clusters with very few people in between. Those clusters are biological realities, just as horses and donkeys are biological realities, even though they can produce hybrids (sterile mules) that fall morphologically in between. — Harry Hindu

When pronouns, "he" and " her" are a reference to one's sex, not gender - whatever that is if it's not the same as sex.

The rules we abide by for having the sexes behave a certain way is so that we can identify the sexes in a society where it is a rule that you wear clothes in public.

Would you refer to someone with XX male syndrome using "he" or "she" (or both or neither)?

When pronouns, "he" and " her" are a reference to one's sex, not gender - whatever that is if it's not the same as sex. — Harry Hindu

According to who or what?

How we actually use language determines what words mean and pronoun-usage in the modern age is more complex than it may have been historically.

You say "pretending" and "masquerading" I think that's your take on what's happening.

Everybody else says "trans", to indicate how they self identify and how they want to be addressed.

In America anyway, this is pretty mainstream, if still a little awkward sometimes.

The question isn’t whether there are individual
differences in personality. It is whether, a robust gender-correlated difference can be extracted , above and beyond these individual differences that you cite. Study after study shows such robust gender-related differences in many different mammals. We already know of the link between testosterone and aggression. — Joshs

The question is whether they behave a certain way because they are female or male, or whether there are alternative explanations.

Yours is a simple demand, that folk conform to you expectations.

In the end, the only genuine response to your posts is pathos. It is tragic that you have had to adopt the attitude you have, that you cannot accept the divergence of others. — Banno

You demand that people conform to your expectations.

Even at a philosophy forum, for you, some things are simply off limits, as if this would be a watercooler conversation.

If you would to be understood, be understanding. — Banno

You're not understanding. Why should others be understanding?

It's just subversion of rationality by the obstruction of one of the most basic concept of life

Of course it's not possible, it's about "accepting" it

Transsexualism and transvestitism is an elaborate sexual masquerade--and certainly not the only sexual and non-sexual masquerade which humans perform. But let's stay honest: A man wearing a dress (even if an artificial vagina has been created) is still a masquerading man. A woman wearing a beard and a suit (even if an artificial penis has been created) is still a masquerading woman. — Bitter Crank

This isn't "being honest" so much as its being willfully ignorant. The mapping of gender roles onto the biological sexes (which is itself nowhere near so black and white as folks like you like to imagine) is itself an arbitrary social convention, its already a "masquerade" in the first place. Transsexualism (which is not the same as transvestitism) is no different in this regard, and pretending otherwise is just a post-hoc rationalization for personal prejudice. But points, I guess, for being open and honest about your own irrational prejudices; better an open bigot than a secret one, right?

I think that's your take on what's happening. — frank

Well, yes, not surprisingly. My "take" is that the overwhelming majority of H. sapiens are born as male or female. True, a small percentage are born with sexual anomalies. True, many are born with personality or mental traits that are conventionally associated with the opposite sex. True, some are born with or develop sexual object arousal that are unusual (fetishists). Most people are born and identify as straight, some are born and identify as gay.

In fact, moray eels can change sex, people cannot. People can masquerade and pass as members of the opposite sex, as long as they are in costume. Moray eels cannot.

Everybody else says "trans", to indicate how they self identify and how they want to be addressed.

In America anyway, this is pretty mainstream, if still a little awkward sometimes. — frank

Fine, trans can call it whatever they want.

Self-advocacy groups sometimes over-reach. In my opinion, the gay rights movement over-reached on marriage and family. "Marriage" with the prospect of children is essentially a heterosexual expectation. That doesn't mean that gay people should thus lead marginalized, lonely existences. Two men, two women can have meaningful and fulfilling relationships (or not--break-ups occur either way).

Yes, I understand that two men, two women, or singles can raise a child. The question for 'gay liberation' is more a matter of what gay people have given up to gain acceptance and the 'normality' of heterosexual-type family life.

In my opinion, trans people (that better?) have over-reached as well.

The BBC host for this story was very excited that "a man could bear a child." — Bitter Crank

How did the baby navigate the penile canal?

So where does trans fit in here? I think the idea that one must change one’s body to fit one’s psychological gender is only necessary in a culture which
believes that behavior should match genitalia according to rigid norms. In a society which has no such belief , one is free to recognize that body sex and psychological gender are inextricably intertwined such that it becomes incoherent to claim that one was born in the wrong body. — Joshs

The notion that someone was born in the wrong body is fairly common. One has the "wrong" hair color, the "wrong" height, the "wrong" eye color, the "wrong" mass and distribution of fat or muscle, and so on. The idea that one is "a male born in a female body" or a "female born in a male body" is on this spectrum of rejecting one's current body and wanting another body.

It's simply indicative of our society's obsession with appearance, with the superficial. Giving in to this obsession is not virtuous.

Let’s take as an example traits within modern Western societies, such as a boy growing up with a constellation of behaviors he has no control over and which causes other boys to label him a sissy. Let’s say he would list these behaviors as including speaking with a lisp, walking and throwing a ball like a girl, playing with dolls instead of toy soldiers and guns. Let’s say he also is attracted exclusively to other males and connects this attraction. with the other behaviors which he regards as feminine. Let’s say further that he does a bit of neurophysiological research and suspects that the constellation of ‘feminine’ behaviors that he was apparently born with are not random or independent of each other but instead are all the result of a kind of brain ‘wiring’ that determines psychological gender (masculine vs feminine behavior and sexual attraction). — Joshs

I wouldn't say any of that.

Children accusing another child of being a sissy is not limited to boys. Girls, too, will call another girl a sissy, if they deem her weak or incompetent.
Effective parents and teachers assume that a child should have control over his or her behaviors, that's the whole point of raising a child.

It's convenient to conceive of a person's identity as somehow a given, a neurological, physiological given. Because this way, we feel justified to like or dislike the person; we feel that our persistent liking or disliking of someone is justified.
Conceiving of a person's identity as somehow a given feeds our general craving for externalization and our reticence to take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, desires. By taking such responsibility I mean seeing our thoughts, feelings, desires as constructed, conditioned, as subject to arising and cessation, and subject to our volition, not as givens.

We actually learn to take such responsibility early on (a child needs to do so in order to do his homework, for example), but people vary in how consistently they do this.

It's just subversion of rationality by the obstruction of one of the most basic concept of life

Of course it's not possible, it's about "accepting" it — InvoluntaryDecorum

Transsexuals only want _some_ of the physical traits of the sex they are transitioning into.

A man chemically and surgically "transitioning" "into" a woman wants only some female traits, but not all. He doesn't want to have a body that will eventually go through menopause, lose hair and get brittle bones. He also doesn't want to have a body that has the ability to become pregnant even when the owner of said body doesn't want it to. Hell, he surely doesn't want to have a body that readily accumulates fat and leaks blood every few weeks. No, he just wants some of the socially and economically accentuated perks of "femininity", but not others.

Hence transsexualism is suspicious.

The issue at hand might well be the inability of some folk to deal with the complexities of the real world. — Banno

Most people have some difficulty to face in life. A makeover of one's appearance (whether it's in the form of hiring a stylist to choose one a new wardrobe, having a facelift, or a sex change operation) doesn't solve anything in the long run.

The problems that can be solved by changing one's external appearance (whether it's dying one's hair or changing external sexual characteristics) are not problems worth solving.

How did the baby navigate the penile canal? — Hanover

By exploding the penis to smithereens. Don't worry though, it wasn't a real penis and they sewed another one back on afterwards.

My expectation? What I have done is point tot the incoherence of your statements. If that made you uncomfortable, look to yourself rather than to me.

To me this indicates how little you have understood of the plight of transexuals. Suggesting that all they need is a new haircut is extraordinarily numb.

Self-advocacy groups sometimes over-reach — Bitter Crank

Every little thing comes down to money. Companies scramble to present a PC image so as to avoid losing their share of the market. That's why I, a healthcare worker, have been trained to be sensitive to trans issues.

Sniff all you want. There's nothing you can do about it.

Every little thing comes down to money. Companies scramble to present a PC image so as to avoid losing their share of the market. That's why I, a healthcare worker, have been trained to be sensitive to trans issues. — frank

Sure. But why should this political correctness extend to discussions at philosophy forums?

You little shit you. — baker

Choice.

Perhaps the reason you are so upset is because you realise the inconsistency of your view.

It's convenient to conceive of a person's identity as somehow a given, a neurological, physiological given. Because this way, we feel justified to like or dislike the person; we feel that our persistent liking or disliking of someone is justified.
Conceiving of a person's identity as somehow a given feeds our general craving for externalization and our reticence to take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and desires. — baker

I think your failure to understand psychological gender in terms of a perceptual-affective style that we are born with comes from a larger inability to understand cognition in embodied terms , as attuned by an affective , valuative background , a pre-given global possibility space which contributes the particular relevance that experience has for us. You seem to think of behavior in atomistic, reductionist behavioral terms. This reminds me of Skinner’s attempts to explain language learning via stimulus response theory. What you’re missing is a ‘transformational grammar’ of personality. Your way of understanding behavior reduces it to disconnected conditionings and prevents you from achieving a truly intimate empathy with others. People arent stimulus response machines or Cartesian rationalizers. They are embodied sense forming pattern seekers, and gender is one factor in how we stylistically organize those patterns.

You make a very good rightwinger. It's quite enviable. No doubt evolutionarily advantageous.

Cheers.

I think your failure to understand psychological gender in terms of a perceptual-affective style that we are born with comes from a larger inability to understand cognition in embodied terms , as attuned by an affective , valuative background , a pre-given global possibility space which contributes the particular relevance that experience has for us. You seem to think of behavior in atomistic, reductionist behavioral terms. This reminds me of Skinner’s attempts to explain language learning via stimulus response theory. What you’re missing is a ‘transformational grammar’ of personality. Your way of understanding behavior reduces it to disconnected conditionings and prevents you from achieving a truly intimate empathy with others. People arent stimulus response machines or Cartesian rationalizers. They are embodied sense forming pattern seekers, and gender is one factor in how we stylistically organize those patterns. — Joshs

*sigh*

The only thing I "fail" to internalize is a particular popular notion of gender/sex. I don't give it the kind of prominence and importance as many people do.

The only thing I "fail" to internalize is a particular popular notion of gender/sex. I don't give it the kind of prominence and importance as many people do. — baker

Please indulge me and tell me what you know of embodied, enactive approaches within cognitive psychology and how they differ from earlier models.

As I said , I don’t think this is simply about there are gender-connected constellations of behavior. The larger issue concerns what it is we are born with when our parents fist. price how our personalities differ from each other, how one has a temper and the other is shy. If you were to simply deny gender-related claims but support the idea that personality traits give us global styles of perception that are robust, then I would say your thinking and mine weren’t far apart.But my guess is you want to deny any connection between personality and cognitive style, because when it comes down to it, gender is a personality style.

No, you misread the source and direction of my view.
Basically, I think people should focus on work. Not on "developing identity" and pursuing luxuries.

Basically, I think people should focus on work. — baker

"Work sets you free".

And she says I'm right wing.

I have found that all men and women do not fit the stereotypical. It is impossible for me to say that I feel like a man or a woman inside because I do not know how other people feel. Because of this, I am often skeptical when someone claims that they know how any particular gender feels or is supposed to feel.

One of the oldest philosophical maxims is the "Know thyself." "Who are we?" and "What are we?" are of the highest level of philosophical inquiry. To those who believe they have solved these inquiries to the extent of adding or removing body parts, the philosophical audacity is beyond me.

I have formed a reasonable belief of my reproductive abilities and societal role. My belief is not only based on a subject feeling that I have, but upon an objective analysis of my observations garnered from my senses. If a person "feels" like one gender, but their organs look and feel like that of another gender, they can't be certain of their identity. Changing organs surgically and dressing like a particular gender will not clarify the issue. If a person has a sex change operation and dresses like a particular gender, it is primarily to make society believe that they were born with the reproductive organs of the gender they are emulating. This isn't fair to society at large which has vested interest in quickly identifying as many characteristics of its members as possible.

Basically, I think people should focus on work.
— baker

"Work sets you free".

And she says I'm right wing. — Banno

Cheap shot, but that made me laugh. A lot.

Over my life I have known many transgender people - young and old. Some very brave folk who were out there thirty years ago and really took risks to become the person they are now. No one I have met is transgender for laughs or as a stunt. People's biology doesn't need to limit their gender expression and changing sex may be an efficacious pathway to good mental health and full participation in community life. I can't pretend to understand this phenomenon experientially but I can support people and wish them the best. There are few things less noble than resenting or undermining people for who they are.