The Transgender Tipping Point

"Sex" is completely biological and black-and-white.

"Gender" is entirely socially and subjectively constructed.

 

They are in the sense that one's sex is a biological fact. I could conceivably convince myself that I am truly a woman, but it wouldn't change the fact that the cells in my body have a Y chromosome.

 

Right. But Gender?

Can Gender be different than sex?

 

As the guy points out, gender is a relatively contemporary word for what we long called sex. (Indeed, I remember in some old journalism class, or maybe an old AP stylebook, the admonition that words can be characterized by their gender, people by their sex.) So, yes, one's gender is/can be fuzzier than one's sex.

Nevertheless, the point is that folks undergoing gender reassignment surgery, as I understand it's now called, are medically mutilated to ensure greater congruence between how they perceive themselves (or want to be perceived) and how they actually are.

The question still stands, therefore, why we would be much more inclined to indulge the transgender desire than we would, say, someone who desires to be an amputee. Or someone suffering from anorexia who desires liposuction.

 

Just wait until the uproar because the transgender females are too physically dominant over the girls.

 

But everyone should not be able to marry and adopt kids right?

That's only for traditional couples.

 

Because the theory is, in the transgender cases, the end-result would be infinitely healthier than the status quo. The exact opposite is true with your other examples.

 

If you think you've caught me in some glaring act of hypocrisy, please post some statement I've made as evidence of this.

 

How does mutilating the genitals and pumping someone with hormones = "healthy." ?

Let alone "infinitely healthier" than staying the way they were born.

Seems to me both cases are mental to a certain degree. I don't "feel" right in this body --- which is perfectly healthy by every definition a physician could give --- and I want to change it.

 

I can't really say for sure, but in my mind, living life as the "wrong" gender seems very similar to living with clinical depression. Surely we'd advocate remedies for that.

 

People who have the surgery are much more likely to attempt (and succeed at) suicide. It is not a healthier option.