I understand your sentiment and I dont want to come off as just “transbasher” […]
You seem to be genuinely open-minded, which is good of course. So as you have been well-spoken and generous of thought, I will attempt to be with you as well.
[…] because i have close both male and female friends who after college decided they wanted to transition.I don’t agree with their thought process but I don’t tell them or put them down for their choice because it’s their choice as an adult.
The concept of agreeing or disagreeing with someone’s lifestyle is foreign to me, so I cannot comment on that. I do not view myself as a judge to voice an opinion on any person’s lifestyle.
If I live in a society where I can use my sole judgement to manipulate the lifestyle of others, then that means that other members of that society can judge and manipulate my lifestyle. I do not want that for myself, so I do not wish it on others.
On the subject of intersex births, I find the 1 in 1700 to be very generous. Having a mother who has worked labor and delivery for the past 30 years in a large hospital, she has only ever had 2 instances where the baby was born intersex. And that’s out of tens of thousands of deliveries.
You must realize that you are taking two missteps of reason here.
The first is anecdotal thinking by placing personal experience above targeted and broad research, the world is a complex place and while I have no doubt that your mother presents this information in earnest, it remains an anecdote.
The second is hearsay, you are not only using anecdotal information, but second-hand anecdotal information.
In my view, one of these errors alone would be enough to disqualify the validity of your point, and together, well… I have no doubt that you are an intelligent person and I hope you can see my concern here, would it not bolster your views to step away from anecdote?
Regarding the data, I cannot comment on the data itself because I admit I am not an expert, I fetched the values from the best information from medical institutions I could find. If better data is presented, I will amend my comment now and moving forward.
In those fringe cases I think sure we can allow those to be allowed to transition because there is a biological reason evident from birth.
I agree.
But if you just have a hormone imbalance that doesn’t mean you need to block the natural course of growth to see “what you’d prefer”. Just let the body do it’s thing and when it’s done developing then mess around with it.
I disagree, I cannot imagine the pain that transgender folks experience because I am not gender dysphoric, but I do know what it feels like to have someone doubt my experience of mind. Having experienced [won’t go into detail for personal reasons] a variety of mental health issues in my life which have been discarded by others as false because… they were invisible… it is difficult to express the anger that this conjured within me at being told that my own experience was invalid because the observer had not personally experienced what I describe and therefore to them it was imaginary.
Whether you have experienced something like this specific example, or not, I believe that all humans have had the experience of being told that we are lying (when we are not) and we all know how bad that feels. What is real to a person is real to a person. Brains are not computers. We are not purely rational beings. I think that it is fair to allow a person to take any action which 1. increases their quality of life while 2. not harming others and in my view gender affirmation behaviors fall directly into this category.
(or 5a.) Regarding delaying treatment until full development. Many biological processes are not reversible, so allowing the body to “do what it will do” then address the results afterward introduces many complications.
Someone who doesn’t want to be a man might be pretty upset when biology makes them 6’8" (203cm) and 300lbs (136kg) then society says, “Okay you can try to be a girl now if you want.”
So I’m fine with this stance regarding reversible techniques (similar to how I feel about puberty blockers… kinda neat how my views are symmetric both ways, right? ;-) ) because there is no harm done. But forcing a delay to full development is something that I believe does cause harm.
Side note, often it can feel that taking no action is a safer action because of how our brains work. But as is often said, “Not making a decision, is a decision.” Taking no action can be equally harmful to taking an action. I believe that this thought applies to our current discussion.
Lucky for us, the arbitrarily set age of developement (roughly 15-18 depending on country) is well within the bounds of avoiding this scenario. That said, everyone develops at a different rate, and I think we all knew the 15 year old that was taller and broader than most full-grown men.
I hope that my comment reads well, I may add some small edits of clarification but I believe that I have expressed the general idea. Have a nice day.
If I live in a society where I can use my sole judgement to manipulate the lifestyle of others, then that means that other members of that society can judge and manipulate my lifestyle. I do not want that for myself, so I do not wish it on others.
The first is anecdotal thinking by placing personal experience above targeted and broad research, the world is a complex place and while I have no doubt that your mother presents this information in earnest, it remains an anecdote.
The second is hearsay, you are not only using anecdotal information, but second-hand anecdotal information.
In my view, one of these errors alone would be enough to disqualify the validity of your point, and together, well… I have no doubt that you are an intelligent person and I hope you can see my concern here, would it not bolster your views to step away from anecdote?
Regarding the data, I cannot comment on the data itself because I admit I am not an expert, I fetched the values from the best information from medical institutions I could find. If better data is presented, I will amend my comment now and moving forward.
Whether you have experienced something like this specific example, or not, I believe that all humans have had the experience of being told that we are lying (when we are not) and we all know how bad that feels. What is real to a person is real to a person. Brains are not computers. We are not purely rational beings. I think that it is fair to allow a person to take any action which 1. increases their quality of life while 2. not harming others and in my view gender affirmation behaviors fall directly into this category.
Someone who doesn’t want to be a man might be pretty upset when biology makes them 6’8" (203cm) and 300lbs (136kg) then society says, “Okay you can try to be a girl now if you want.”
So I’m fine with this stance regarding reversible techniques (similar to how I feel about puberty blockers… kinda neat how my views are symmetric both ways, right? ;-) ) because there is no harm done. But forcing a delay to full development is something that I believe does cause harm.
Side note, often it can feel that taking no action is a safer action because of how our brains work. But as is often said, “Not making a decision, is a decision.” Taking no action can be equally harmful to taking an action. I believe that this thought applies to our current discussion.
Lucky for us, the arbitrarily set age of developement (roughly 15-18 depending on country) is well within the bounds of avoiding this scenario. That said, everyone develops at a different rate, and I think we all knew the 15 year old that was taller and broader than most full-grown men.
I hope that my comment reads well, I may add some small edits of clarification but I believe that I have expressed the general idea. Have a nice day.