8 ms·

"Ideology"? Is it unfathomable to you that people would reasonably be able to feel that they have a different biological gender to how they feel in their mind?

• mssundaram 5y ago
  I've been curious if anyone has studied why there are more and more transgender people lately. I don't believe it is only due to awareness and perception - it seems to be occuring more and more frequently. Do other animals with similar levels of consciousness experience gender dysmorphia?
  • leephillips 5y ago
    Among some populations it may be a social contagion: https://t.co/Bp5FcXDsg3 https://t.co/Bp5FcXDsg3 What other animals have a similar level of consciousness? You can‘t form the idea that you are “in the wrong body” unless that idea has been provided to you by your culture. You need linguistic and social support to even have the concept. EDIT: Oh, you may be interested in the phenomenon of what you might call “trans” non-human animals: individuals who behave like those of the opposite sex. Apparently in some species their physical characteristics can even change, such as female lions that grow manes. But nobody is confused enough to say “trans lady lions are lady lions“; that confusion is reserved for humans. In mammals, the sex can not change. But it‘s an interesting phenomenon.
    • makeworld 5y ago
      Abigail Shrier is a writer and not a scientist, and it can be clearly seen even from the title of the book that she has an agenda. The thesis of the book has been "rejected by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage If you have a peer-reviewed study, that would be much more worthwhile to look at.
      • honkdaddy 5y ago
        Here's a study referenced in the book. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/ The layman's explanation of the phenomenon is that parents observe a rapidly onset expression of gender dysphoria in their teenage daughters which "seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe."
        • makeworld 5y ago
          https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27610041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27610041
  • jl6 5y ago
    Some people have tried to study this phenomenon but have been shut down by accusations that such research would be transphobic. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/16/academics-are-being-harassed-over-their-research-into-transgender-issues https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/16/academics-ar...
    • makeworld 5y ago
      What has been shut down specifically? That letter is very vague.
  • teraflop 5y ago
    Are you similarly confident that the dramatic rise in left-handedness in western cultures over the past ~200 years is due to factors other than awareness and perception?
  • yerwhat01010 5y ago
    Abigail Shrier's recent book Irreversible Damage explores this question. I highly recommend it.
    • makeworld 5y ago
      As I mentioned in another comment: Abigail Shrier is a writer and not a scientist, and it can be clearly seen even from the title of the book that she has an agenda. The thesis of the book has been "rejected by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_Damage If you have a peer-reviewed study, that would be much more worthwhile to look at.
      • chitowneats 5y ago
        There is severe hesitation to fund this research by the psychiatric and medical establishment.
      • honkdaddy 5y ago
        As I mentioned in another comment, multiple studies have been done. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6095578/
        • makeworld 5y ago
          That study has issues, does it not? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6424477/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6424477/ Interviewing parents seems like a problematic basis for an entirely new condition to me.
  • eulenteufel 5y ago
    This is just a personal anecdote: In my puberty I had a strong feeling of rather being a girl and this caused significant mental anguish and some self harm. If had known as much about transgender people back then as I do know I would have likely transitioned then. Today I'm pretty okay with being a man. I still sometimes have problems with it but not in the same order of magnitude. From these personal experiences I think it is plausible that more people transition because more people are aware of the possibility and knowing other trans people in their age. I have no idea how big that group is however.
    • kyleee 5y ago
      Though it may be an unanswerable question (and maybe too personal, please don't feel obligated to share), do you think you would have been better off transitioning?
      • mensetmanusman 5y ago
        https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51676020 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51676020 This is an interesting case that went through the UK courts. Very analogous to OP’s situation had it happened today.
• chitowneats 5y ago
  I have no issue with how they choose to self identify. I accept trans-identifying individuals and I will use whichever pronouns they ask of me. What I have an issue with is this type of behavior where they turn things upside down without any care for others. In this case, they're stealing glory from and seriously hampering the careers of lifelong female athletes. Imagine lifting since you were a teenage girl, and someone else in their mid 30's, who would not have qualified for the men's competition, comes along to take your Olympic medal after going through a sex change procedure. It's deeply disrespectful to women. It requires a certain zealotry to bully your way into female spaces like this.
  • vore 5y ago
    I apologize for misunderstanding your initial point: couching the pro-trans movement as an "ideology" had read to me as a dismissal of the pro-trans movement at large and if that is not your intent then I retract my initial comment. That said, I don't really agree with this clarification either: no trans woman is setting out to have gender reassignment to bully their way into competing against women who were lifting since they were teenagers. I think you are attributing this to malice that is simply not there, and it is only an artifact of unfortunate circumstance. Trans women certainly don't want to be in this situation either: I'm sure they would much rather be born biologically female and compete that way!
    • chitowneats 5y ago
      I respectfully disagree. Hubbard has no business in this competition. It's selfish for her to do this. She is "johnny come lately" to women's weightlifting and has several decades of male puberty under her belt. These photos are actually tragic to look at. If we're talking about someone who transitions in their teens and has no other options for sport in their adolescence, I would agree that's a much more difficult and ambiguous situation.
    • junon 5y ago
      > pro-trans movement as an "ideology" had read to me as a dismissal of the pro-trans movement at large This is the problem. There's no difference to people. Arguing any nuanced part of the conversation is often met with exaggerated reactions of "you're anti-trans" or "you're dismissing transexualism as a whole", which is not the case. So yes, the pro-trans movement on many online spaces is very ideological - they even claim it themselves (transmedicalism vs. gender identity, etc). Very little of it these days is based on science or medical prognosis.