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It isn’t that simple. Trans people feel (often from a very young age) that their gender does not match their biological sex, to the extent that they feel compe

It isn’t that simple. Trans people feel (often from a very young age) that their gender does not match their biological sex, to the extent that they feel compelled to chemically and surgically alter their sex characteristics to match what they feel is their intrinsic gender identity. This strongly suggests that gender is not purely a social construct, and has some innate hardwired component in the brain. So I would break the sex/gender dichotomy into three categories: * sex: the hardware you got * gender: a function of your brain wiring (which I suppose is a subset of your hardware) * gender roles: mostly social constructs, although sometimes influenced by innate sex characteristics (e.g. males are inherently on average bigger and stronger, which makes them on average more suited to certain jobs)

concordDance 4y ago
They have an even stronger drive to change behaviours to match whatever the stereotypical behaviours are of their preferred sex are in their culture. The physical sex change stuff could be downstream of that, and in fact the lack of people who change physical sex without changing behaviours (e.g. dress) points strongly in that direction. Which could easily mean its not hardwired.
- MontyCarloHall 4y ago
  I don’t know about that. There’s a huge difference between simply not conforming to stereotypical gender roles (e.g. being a tomboy) and having full blown gender dysphoria (e.g. getting gender reassignment surgery). People in the latter camp literally feel that they were born into the wrong body; people in the former camp simply don’t conform to behavioral stereotypes.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    I agree with the literal wording of your reply but disagree with the connotation. The vast majority of trans people don't get surgery and basically no one (I don't know of a even one case) gets surgery without socially transitioning.
genaavrfshpxbss 4y ago
[flagged]
skissane 4y ago
> Trans people feel (often from a very young age) that their gender does not match their biological sex, I think that’s true of many (most?) people who identify as trans, but not necessarily all of them. I’m sure there must be some trans person out there (probably more than just one) who disagrees with your statement with respect to themselves > they feel is their intrinsic gender identity. Do all people who identify as trans believe in the concept of “intrinsic gender identity”? I think that’s a very widespread belief but I doubt it is universal. I’m not convinced a person has to believe in such a concept in order to be trans > a function of your brain wiring (which I suppose is a subset of your hardware) Some people definitely have “cross-sex” brain characteristics (various neurobiological features more commonly found in the opposite sex). Definitely these characteristics are more common in trans people-suggesting many cases of being trans likely do have a significant biological component. However, not all trans people have these features. Of course, we can’t exclude they may have other “cross-sex” features we don’t know about yet; but it also seems possible they actually don’t, and while for some (most?) trans individuals biology plays a major role in causation, for others maybe it doesn’t Furthermore, we also know there is a correlation between these brain features and cishomosexuality. It isn’t clear if (those) trans people and (those) cishomosexual people have some unknown difference in their neurobiology, or a shared neurobiology which can develop in different directions due to random chance or social factors
- deleted 4y ago
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concordDance 4y ago

They have an even stronger drive to change behaviours to match whatever the stereotypical behaviours are of their preferred sex are in their culture. The physical sex change stuff could be downstream of that, and in fact the lack of people who change physical sex without changing behaviours (e.g. dress) points strongly in that direction. Which could easily mean its not hardwired.

MontyCarloHall 4y ago
I don’t know about that. There’s a huge difference between simply not conforming to stereotypical gender roles (e.g. being a tomboy) and having full blown gender dysphoria (e.g. getting gender reassignment surgery). People in the latter camp literally feel that they were born into the wrong body; people in the former camp simply don’t conform to behavioral stereotypes.
- concordDance 4y ago
  I agree with the literal wording of your reply but disagree with the connotation. The vast majority of trans people don't get surgery and basically no one (I don't know of a even one case) gets surgery without socially transitioning.

genaavrfshpxbss 4y ago

[flagged]

skissane 4y ago

> Trans people feel (often from a very young age) that their gender does not match their biological sex, I think that’s true of many (most?) people who identify as trans, but not necessarily all of them. I’m sure there must be some trans person out there (probably more than just one) who disagrees with your statement with respect to themselves > they feel is their intrinsic gender identity. Do all people who identify as trans believe in the concept of “intrinsic gender identity”? I think that’s a very widespread belief but I doubt it is universal. I’m not convinced a person has to believe in such a concept in order to be trans > a function of your brain wiring (which I suppose is a subset of your hardware) Some people definitely have “cross-sex” brain characteristics (various neurobiological features more commonly found in the opposite sex). Definitely these characteristics are more common in trans people-suggesting many cases of being trans likely do have a significant biological component. However, not all trans people have these features. Of course, we can’t exclude they may have other “cross-sex” features we don’t know about yet; but it also seems possible they actually don’t, and while for some (most?) trans individuals biology plays a major role in causation, for others maybe it doesn’t Furthermore, we also know there is a correlation between these brain features and cishomosexuality. It isn’t clear if (those) trans people and (those) cishomosexual people have some unknown difference in their neurobiology, or a shared neurobiology which can develop in different directions due to random chance or social factors

deleted 4y ago
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