Germaine Greer on Transexuality
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Soldato
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I should hope that that far in the future being trans is a complete non issue socially, and if we can identify root causes that well i'd certainly hope we have effective treatments for conditions such as depression and anxiety.
Don't you think a trans person would actually be in /favour/ of eradicating the root cause of their unhappiness?
In other words, don't you thing a trans person would want gender dysphoria to be cured by science? I don't mean having the symptoms treated after the fact, I mean prevented.
So that everybody's gender matched their birth sex.
Not entirely true. Recent advances in medicine has meant people with certain genetic disorders are able to procreate (where perhaps before they wouldn't live long enough)
Dare I open the can of worms in GD on whether or not this is truly us advancing...
/grabspopcorn
Edit: not that the possibility of not living long enough would apply in this situation. My point was genetic disorders don't die out
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Soldato
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Well, no, i don't. The trans people i know have talked about how much the trans community means to them and how much it has helped them, i certainly don't think they'd want to see that disappear. It's really not the sort of thing that can be "cured". Would you advocate the same of homosexuals?
Again, this is a very simplistic view about what both gender and sex actually are. Both are incredibly complex and difficult to define. It's not a square peg round hole sort of situation, there's spectra and blurred lines in everything you can try to pin down here. Gender, sex, sexuality, they're all fluid. And society will be better off when we accept that.
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Where did I say I was disgusted by male genitalia? I don't really have any emotional feeling towards other men's genitalia whatsoever. They neither disgust nor excite me, they simply exist.
Their "gender" or their sex? If the latter then a test of their DNA would immediately reveal their sex. If you mean "gender" as in the modern nonsense, well I'd check their chromosomes and tell them what they are. If they disputed it, I'd refer them to the therapist.
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Testing someone's DNA or genotype merely gives us a set of arbitrary data. What society ascribes coercively to that data is what is flawed and wrong.
The fallacy of saying gender is a social construct but coercively assigned sex is a factual absolute is why such rabid and frankly nonsensical prejudice occurs.
The fallacy of saying gender is a social construct but coercively assigned sex is a factual absolute is why such rabid and frankly nonsensical prejudice occurs.
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And what, exactly, are you looking for in their DNA which would give you an indication as to their sex?
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There is nothing arbitrary about sex! The argument on gender I can respect, even if I strongly disagree. But claiming that sex is arbitrary is so irrational you either don't know what you're saying or you're crackers.
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What is irrational and crackers is transphobia.
So please do tell, why is it exactly we say that penis = male or Y chromosome = male?
So please do tell, why is it exactly we say that penis = male or Y chromosome = male?
That's like saying people who attend Alcholics Anonymous don't want to be cured of alcohol addiction - they just really like the people at the support groups.
It's like saying support groups for HIV victims indicate people don't want HIV to ever be cured.
It's possibly the most bizarre line of reasoning I've ever heard.
So you're saying that a trans person wouldn't want to have been born the sex they identify as. That they value the "journey" to their chosen sex? That they'd want to see other people have to make that journey?
I'm sure you can't be right about that. It's seems to accomplish nothing other than guaranteeing the same kind of agony to future generations.
You know that support groups exist, not to glorify the problem, but to get support to help overcome the problem?
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Are you for real..?!
It wasn't something decided on a whim or at random, it was something determined by observing the association between having those things and being a man.
People with a penis or a Y chromosome produce sperm and are capable of fertilising an egg. When people with a Y chromosome cannot do this, it's a medical issue.
There is an observable logic here which means it aint arbitrary.
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Clearly the key difference between transexuality and transgenderism, and HIV and alcohol, is that the former does not fundamentally predispose any sort of dysfunction with the rest of society. It does not impact on your ability to be a fully functioning member of that society, nor does it prevent you from living a full and happy life. It's not at all like saying that recovering alcoholics don't want to ever have been alcoholics, it's like saying that homosexuals don't wish to be made straight. I'm sure you understand though, that your question is impossible to reasonably answer. "If this massively important part of your life and development that has shaped who you are as a person wasn't there, would that be better?" It's completely unknowable.
I also have to strongly disagree with your willingness to run with this analogy. Let's be clear here, it's not "curable", it's not something that exists because of a single cause, it's not something you can and i rather doubt ever will be able to point at one child and say "they will get it" and point at another say "they won't". Even if for some very questionable reason you wanted to eradicate it, you couldn't.
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There my have been an observable logic back when we didn't know any different, kinda like when the earth was flat and the sun orbited the planet. However further observations proved this to be absurd.
There are millions of men with XX chromosome configuration and ovaries, and women with XY and penises right now as we speak. It's completely absurd to believe that sex is an absolute. To believe that is biological essentialism and as I said before, history has not been kind to advocates of that thinking. Nazi Germany being an extremely pertinent example.
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Aha! He finally answers the question. He's looking for a Y chromosome.
Unfortunately, Thompson, the individual you are testing is one of the roughly 1 in 20,000 males with XX chromosomes. You have incorrectly identified this individual as female.
Another individual enters the test.
This individual presents XXYY chromosomes. They have two copies of each. This individual has developed some male characteristics but does not have functioning testes and has female levels of testosterone.
Another individual enters the test.
This individual presents as XY. Ah, finally. A nice simple male. As you pat yourself on the back you notice that the test has kept running but is now showing as XX. What is happening here? It keeps switching between the two! This individual has a form of genetic mosaicism which means that some of their cells are XX and some of them are XY. What a quandary.
Another individual enters the test.
This individual presents as XX. You stamp their form as "FEMALE" in large red letters. However, the therapist comes in and informs you that they feel and act "masculine," and that they have a penis, no testes, two ovaries, a uterus, and fallopian tubes.
Not so clear cut, is it? There is no magic switch you can flick which makes you one sex binary or the other. There are countless genetic factors involved, and countless ways in which they can develop and interfere with each other to the point where it becomes, well, pointless trying to dictate someone's sex to them based on any one characteristic. And if you base it on multiple characteristics you then have to arbitrarily decide which are more important, how many on one side counterbalance this one on the other and so on. Sex is not binary.
Is AIDS going to be curable in future? Dementia? Ebola?
Also, mind telling me what next week's winning lottery numbers will be?
He doesn't seem to actually understand the topic. He uses a lot of words to not really say much and ends up looking like a pseudo-intellectual.
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I've had to repeat this point many times and you just seem to be ignoring it. Transexuality is not a disease.
I don't think it's likely that dementia will be curable though, no. I think we will get better at preventing it and develop better treatments for it, but an out and out cure seems unlikely given the nature of the condition.
You're really not good at this are you?
Without even looking at the definition, break the word down.
Dis-ease, it says it all. Etymologically, it means a lack of ease.
Nobody actually WANTS to be transgendered or a transsexual, and they are certainly not going to be at ease with it.
it is a mental disorder, we do try to cure mental disorders....