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I've said it in the past and I will say it again. "Gender affirming" surgeries will be looked at in a couple of decades the way lobotomy is being looked at now.

I've said it in the past and I will say it again. "Gender affirming" surgeries will be looked at in a couple of decades the way lobotomy is being looked at now. This is a clear result of the over-representation of the left in popular media and educational institutes, resulting from the previous over-representation of the right.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
It might be analogous to helping the mentally ill walk off a bridge. Not an easy topic by any means, especially in the context of a culture that so stigmatizes mental illness (even mentioning that it might be an issues is controversial to the ignorant on these topics).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- haswell 4y ago
  With all respect, this strikes me as a really terrible analogy on multiple levels. First and foremost, it seems extremely problematic to argue that a female-assigned individual who deeply believes they were supposed to be born without breasts is experiencing a mental state that resembles anything like suicide. Regardless of any legitimate concerns about gender surgery, this analogy immediately breaks down. Treatments and behaviors surrounding mental illness are usually framed in terms of how adaptive they are, i.e. walking off a bridge leads to death, therefore not adaptive (ever). Having a mastectomy, if it allows someone to live a happier more fulfilling life: potentially adaptive. Many people still believe that being gay is a mental illness, and that this is an affliction that must be “cured”. Many people still argue that the LGBTQ+ community is essentially leading hordes of people off of bridges by the thousands. I’m not accusing you of holding this view, but I bring it up here because in the minds of many, both issues lie somewhere on the same slippery slope, and at its foundation, the analogy assumes that these people are deeply ill, and the only cure is to change one’s brain. As our understanding of consciousness grows and we learn more about the links between our physical bodies and mental states, many avenues of mental health treatment increasingly acknowledge the role of the whole body in this picture. To your point, this doesn’t make the topic an easy one, and I have plenty of concerns about people making decisions without the proper education and counseling. But it seems that many people project their own inability to comprehend such changes onto those who are not locked into the same world view, and the result starts to look a lot like the rampant homophobia of recent decades past: understandable given the trajectory of culture up to that point, but extremely problematic. As medical technology advances, such surgeries may become less and less risky. In a hypothetical future, if someone could “try out” the body parts of the gender they identify with without that being a permanent decision, would that change your assessment of these surgeries and their potential utility?
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Your last part about a future technology is very interesting. Part of the confusion around this topic might come from the many different perspectives on what it means to help someone in need. Any parent knows that a child could (and have been known to) kill itself given the option to only eat what they want (candy, cookies, etc.) There are documented cases of near-death experiences of children due to parents who gave in and only fed the child favorite sugar rich-cereal for every meal. It may seem unfair to the child that their parents are disrespecting their deeply held beliefs about their diet, but they aren’t mentally developed enough to understand what’s best for them. Another analogous phenomenon is transeablism: “The desire to acquire a disability through choice rather than happenstance” People suffering from this have been known to band-saw off their arms, or throw themselves into machinery to acquire disabilities to help their body match their internal mental identity/state. One could imagine a nice doctor helping someone band-saw off their arm to achieve their mind/body peace if the technological cost on everyone was zero in some future, just as today we see well-meaning doctors chemically band-saw off people’s healthy body functions through chemical castration. Definitely a difficult topic.
    - haswell 4y ago
      Yeah, I think the fact that humans often want things regardless of whether or not those things are conducive to life/happiness is a huge factor. This factor is magnified when the individual is young enough to have a brain that is still developing, but arguably applies at all ages, with the primary difference being that we generally trust the consistency of the internal states of adults more than we do the states of minors. Clearly wanting something isn’t enough to justify it, for many reasons. I think the thing that needs more examination is how we tell the difference between the kind of mind that wants to saw its own arm off for no apparent direct gain from the kind of mind that knows it was born into the wrong body. These are clearly both deviations from the norm, but as a bisexual man, I also realize that a large portion of the population still believes I’m mentally ill, even if wanting other body parts isn’t part of my “illness”, and so I can’t reduce the plight of a pre-op trans person to just a simple matter of wants. Continuing on the future tech thought experiment, I also wonder how opinions would change if a test were developed that could reliably predict if someone would be happier after an operation. Something that detects/indicates compatibility. It seems that most opposition to these operations fall into two buckets: 1. The religious one, where this is an abomination and no amount of progress will change the nature of the opposition. I have little interest in arguing against this, since the premise is inherently illogical. 2. The logical one, built on the legitimate concern that an operation can’t be undone, and therefore could potentially cause more harm than benefit in the long run if the patient later realizes that they were mistaken. Difficult for sure.
YorkshireSeason 4y ago
[flagged]
- mindover 4y ago
  Why are you posting this drivel? The links show a much more nuanced discussion than what you are trying to imply. The French demanded to end the discrimination against gay men as by law gay sex was prohibited until the age of 21, but the age of consent for straight sex was 18. Nothing to do with pedophilia. Oh and that happened in 1977 - almost 50 years ago. You are obsessed with the left vs the right culture war. It’s not healthy.
  - YorkshireSeason 4y ago
    Please do not trivialise genital mutilation as 'culture war'. Did you actually read the french (and german green) petitions? https://web.archive.org/web/20050404190912/http://www.decadi.com/dignaction/Fpetit.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050404190912/http://www.decadi... Here is the letter from the well-known intellectuals: https://www.dolto.fr/fd-code-penal-crp.html https://www.dolto.fr/fd-code-penal-crp.html They were not just about making the age of consent equal for gay and hetero sex. They were also pushing for lowering and abolishing the age of consent altogether. You can see this as a 'submarine'. From the wikipedia article: "Michel Foucault argued that it is intolerable to assume that a child is incapable of giving meaningful consent to sexual relations." There is clearly a structural similarity between contemporary apologists for genital mutilation under euphemisms such as 'gender affirming surgery' and the what the french intellectuals demanded 50 years ago.
    - mindover 4y ago
      Firstly, you are twisting my words. I have never said that genital mutilation is culture war, only that you are obsessed with it. Secondly, you have demonstrated your inability to have an honest discussion without trying to “mutilate” your opponent’s view. For this reason I will not spend time translating the French sources just to prove you wrong. You did it yourself already by linking to that WikiPedia article while mis-representing its content.
haswell 4y ago
I find the comparison with lobotomies deeply problematic and reductionist for a number of reasons: 1. Lobotomy was generally not voluntary on the part of the patient. 2. The outcomes of these procedures are in different stratospheres, and gender surgery doesn’t involve changing the makeup of one’s brain and the fundamental structures through which one experiences subjective reality. 3. Given what we’re learning about the fluidity of sexuality and gender dysphoria, there’s at least some argument to be made that these surgeries have at least the potential for net benefit, even if the jury’s out on the actual degree of benefit or the specific circumstances under which benefit is experienced. With all of that said, encouraging these surgeries nonchalantly and without regard for their permanence and real world impacts is hugely problematic. The problematic parts are amplified when the patient is too young to legally make other life changing decisions. But to me, comparing these surgeries with lobotomies reduces issues of dysphoria and its potential remedies to a caricature of the situation and shuts down lines of thinking regarding potential benefits. After all, if these are truly as problematic as lobotomies, all discussion should turn to how we should campaign against said surgeries. Reality is not nearly this simple. I’m curious how you feel about other forms of body modification, from the routine (nose job, breast augmentation, etc) to the more extreme (extreme jewelry/piercings, tattoos, etc). It seems to be culturally acceptable (for the most part) to modify one’s body based on other characteristics of one’s identity that are arguably far less innate than sexuality. It’s puzzles me that people see gender surgery so differently.
- YorkshireSeason 4y ago
  > Lobotomy was generally not voluntary on the part of the patient [...] curious how you feel about other forms of body modification In what sense can children consent to genital mutilation, since they do not understand at all human sexuality and the human sex drive, since the have had absolutely no experience with it? Virtually all other forms of body modification are also not legal for children.
  - antifa 4y ago
    Contrary to popular hysteria, it's extraordinary rare that anyone under the age of medical consent is given what you would call "bottom surgery". As far as parents forcing children into genital mutilation, this is actually very popular and common elective medical procedure, but the word you're looking for is circumcision.
kbos87 4y ago
Care to share the perspective you have on the subject? Speaking with such conviction about something that can have so much real impact on the lives of others, I’d really hope you have some direct and first hand experience.
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
  So I can only speak about paedophilia if I have been molested or am attracted to kids? Or about lobotomy if I have been lobotomised ?

mensetmanusman 4y ago

It might be analogous to helping the mentally ill walk off a bridge. Not an easy topic by any means, especially in the context of a culture that so stigmatizes mental illness (even mentioning that it might be an issues is controversial to the ignorant on these topics).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
haswell 4y ago
With all respect, this strikes me as a really terrible analogy on multiple levels. First and foremost, it seems extremely problematic to argue that a female-assigned individual who deeply believes they were supposed to be born without breasts is experiencing a mental state that resembles anything like suicide. Regardless of any legitimate concerns about gender surgery, this analogy immediately breaks down. Treatments and behaviors surrounding mental illness are usually framed in terms of how adaptive they are, i.e. walking off a bridge leads to death, therefore not adaptive (ever). Having a mastectomy, if it allows someone to live a happier more fulfilling life: potentially adaptive. Many people still believe that being gay is a mental illness, and that this is an affliction that must be “cured”. Many people still argue that the LGBTQ+ community is essentially leading hordes of people off of bridges by the thousands. I’m not accusing you of holding this view, but I bring it up here because in the minds of many, both issues lie somewhere on the same slippery slope, and at its foundation, the analogy assumes that these people are deeply ill, and the only cure is to change one’s brain. As our understanding of consciousness grows and we learn more about the links between our physical bodies and mental states, many avenues of mental health treatment increasingly acknowledge the role of the whole body in this picture. To your point, this doesn’t make the topic an easy one, and I have plenty of concerns about people making decisions without the proper education and counseling. But it seems that many people project their own inability to comprehend such changes onto those who are not locked into the same world view, and the result starts to look a lot like the rampant homophobia of recent decades past: understandable given the trajectory of culture up to that point, but extremely problematic. As medical technology advances, such surgeries may become less and less risky. In a hypothetical future, if someone could “try out” the body parts of the gender they identify with without that being a permanent decision, would that change your assessment of these surgeries and their potential utility?
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Your last part about a future technology is very interesting. Part of the confusion around this topic might come from the many different perspectives on what it means to help someone in need. Any parent knows that a child could (and have been known to) kill itself given the option to only eat what they want (candy, cookies, etc.) There are documented cases of near-death experiences of children due to parents who gave in and only fed the child favorite sugar rich-cereal for every meal. It may seem unfair to the child that their parents are disrespecting their deeply held beliefs about their diet, but they aren’t mentally developed enough to understand what’s best for them. Another analogous phenomenon is transeablism: “The desire to acquire a disability through choice rather than happenstance” People suffering from this have been known to band-saw off their arms, or throw themselves into machinery to acquire disabilities to help their body match their internal mental identity/state. One could imagine a nice doctor helping someone band-saw off their arm to achieve their mind/body peace if the technological cost on everyone was zero in some future, just as today we see well-meaning doctors chemically band-saw off people’s healthy body functions through chemical castration. Definitely a difficult topic.
  - haswell 4y ago
    Yeah, I think the fact that humans often want things regardless of whether or not those things are conducive to life/happiness is a huge factor. This factor is magnified when the individual is young enough to have a brain that is still developing, but arguably applies at all ages, with the primary difference being that we generally trust the consistency of the internal states of adults more than we do the states of minors. Clearly wanting something isn’t enough to justify it, for many reasons. I think the thing that needs more examination is how we tell the difference between the kind of mind that wants to saw its own arm off for no apparent direct gain from the kind of mind that knows it was born into the wrong body. These are clearly both deviations from the norm, but as a bisexual man, I also realize that a large portion of the population still believes I’m mentally ill, even if wanting other body parts isn’t part of my “illness”, and so I can’t reduce the plight of a pre-op trans person to just a simple matter of wants. Continuing on the future tech thought experiment, I also wonder how opinions would change if a test were developed that could reliably predict if someone would be happier after an operation. Something that detects/indicates compatibility. It seems that most opposition to these operations fall into two buckets: 1. The religious one, where this is an abomination and no amount of progress will change the nature of the opposition. I have little interest in arguing against this, since the premise is inherently illogical. 2. The logical one, built on the legitimate concern that an operation can’t be undone, and therefore could potentially cause more harm than benefit in the long run if the patient later realizes that they were mistaken. Difficult for sure.

YorkshireSeason 4y ago

[flagged]

mindover 4y ago
Why are you posting this drivel? The links show a much more nuanced discussion than what you are trying to imply. The French demanded to end the discrimination against gay men as by law gay sex was prohibited until the age of 21, but the age of consent for straight sex was 18. Nothing to do with pedophilia. Oh and that happened in 1977 - almost 50 years ago. You are obsessed with the left vs the right culture war. It’s not healthy.
- YorkshireSeason 4y ago
  Please do not trivialise genital mutilation as 'culture war'. Did you actually read the french (and german green) petitions? https://web.archive.org/web/20050404190912/http://www.decadi.com/dignaction/Fpetit.html https://web.archive.org/web/20050404190912/http://www.decadi... Here is the letter from the well-known intellectuals: https://www.dolto.fr/fd-code-penal-crp.html https://www.dolto.fr/fd-code-penal-crp.html They were not just about making the age of consent equal for gay and hetero sex. They were also pushing for lowering and abolishing the age of consent altogether. You can see this as a 'submarine'. From the wikipedia article: "Michel Foucault argued that it is intolerable to assume that a child is incapable of giving meaningful consent to sexual relations." There is clearly a structural similarity between contemporary apologists for genital mutilation under euphemisms such as 'gender affirming surgery' and the what the french intellectuals demanded 50 years ago.
  - mindover 4y ago
    Firstly, you are twisting my words. I have never said that genital mutilation is culture war, only that you are obsessed with it. Secondly, you have demonstrated your inability to have an honest discussion without trying to “mutilate” your opponent’s view. For this reason I will not spend time translating the French sources just to prove you wrong. You did it yourself already by linking to that WikiPedia article while mis-representing its content.

haswell 4y ago

I find the comparison with lobotomies deeply problematic and reductionist for a number of reasons: 1. Lobotomy was generally not voluntary on the part of the patient. 2. The outcomes of these procedures are in different stratospheres, and gender surgery doesn’t involve changing the makeup of one’s brain and the fundamental structures through which one experiences subjective reality. 3. Given what we’re learning about the fluidity of sexuality and gender dysphoria, there’s at least some argument to be made that these surgeries have at least the potential for net benefit, even if the jury’s out on the actual degree of benefit or the specific circumstances under which benefit is experienced. With all of that said, encouraging these surgeries nonchalantly and without regard for their permanence and real world impacts is hugely problematic. The problematic parts are amplified when the patient is too young to legally make other life changing decisions. But to me, comparing these surgeries with lobotomies reduces issues of dysphoria and its potential remedies to a caricature of the situation and shuts down lines of thinking regarding potential benefits. After all, if these are truly as problematic as lobotomies, all discussion should turn to how we should campaign against said surgeries. Reality is not nearly this simple. I’m curious how you feel about other forms of body modification, from the routine (nose job, breast augmentation, etc) to the more extreme (extreme jewelry/piercings, tattoos, etc). It seems to be culturally acceptable (for the most part) to modify one’s body based on other characteristics of one’s identity that are arguably far less innate than sexuality. It’s puzzles me that people see gender surgery so differently.

YorkshireSeason 4y ago
> Lobotomy was generally not voluntary on the part of the patient [...] curious how you feel about other forms of body modification In what sense can children consent to genital mutilation, since they do not understand at all human sexuality and the human sex drive, since the have had absolutely no experience with it? Virtually all other forms of body modification are also not legal for children.
- antifa 4y ago
  Contrary to popular hysteria, it's extraordinary rare that anyone under the age of medical consent is given what you would call "bottom surgery". As far as parents forcing children into genital mutilation, this is actually very popular and common elective medical procedure, but the word you're looking for is circumcision.

kbos87 4y ago

Care to share the perspective you have on the subject? Speaking with such conviction about something that can have so much real impact on the lives of others, I’d really hope you have some direct and first hand experience.

4gotunameagain 4y ago
So I can only speak about paedophilia if I have been molested or am attracted to kids? Or about lobotomy if I have been lobotomised ?