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> Sure, in an ideal world where we had full knowledge of human biology and an ability to edit the brain, we'd treat gender dysphoria simply by making people bel

> Sure, in an ideal world where we had full knowledge of human biology and an ability to edit the brain, we'd treat gender dysphoria simply by making people believe they were the "correct" gender. But lacking that ability, we do the next best thing possible that we can do. Why are you more keen to edit the brain than the body? If I can switch around your body parts to make you feel more comfortable, that seems less invasive than surgery or drugs which make you think different thoughts - especially when those thoughts are a core part of your personality (your sexual identity) and are only pathological within the context of the body you were born with.

CydeWeys 10y ago
Both should be options. It's hard for me to say a priori which one I would choose given that I don't actually know what gender dysphoria feels like, and it definitely seems like something you'd have to experience to truly understand. One major advantage of changing the mind over the body is that a lot of people want their own children (independent of gender), and transitioning removes that possibility modulo some work-arounds. But just because someone has a specific mind now doesn't mean that they'd want to change it. There are lots of people who want to change their minds. I suspect that most people with depression and other mental disorders would love to have the option to get a treatment that changed their mind to remove that condition. I bet most of us here would change our minds in order to be smarter, and indeed some people are already taking drugs that claim to be able to do so (though the entire field is in its infancy). More to the point, at least one transgender person I know says she wishes she could've simply changed her mind to agree with her body rather than go through the entire process of changing her body. Our minds are maybe more malleable than you think.

CydeWeys 10y ago

Both should be options. It's hard for me to say a priori which one I would choose given that I don't actually know what gender dysphoria feels like, and it definitely seems like something you'd have to experience to truly understand. One major advantage of changing the mind over the body is that a lot of people want their own children (independent of gender), and transitioning removes that possibility modulo some work-arounds. But just because someone has a specific mind now doesn't mean that they'd want to change it. There are lots of people who want to change their minds. I suspect that most people with depression and other mental disorders would love to have the option to get a treatment that changed their mind to remove that condition. I bet most of us here would change our minds in order to be smarter, and indeed some people are already taking drugs that claim to be able to do so (though the entire field is in its infancy). More to the point, at least one transgender person I know says she wishes she could've simply changed her mind to agree with her body rather than go through the entire process of changing her body. Our minds are maybe more malleable than you think.