No, that really was a terrible metaphor.

You need to learn how to use words to express what you mean in a coherent way.

No surprises here guys

Ok, explain your thoughts. Gender is a decision, and not a compulsion, but you say it's like a compulsion. If it's not a compulsion but a decision, how is it like a compulsion?

Ok, explain your thoughts. — BlueBanana

You would have thought that he would have done so by now, if he really could. :wink:

I have found that many people on these forums tend to engage in ad hominem attacks and/or become more and more vague when they realize that what they've been saying is just wrong.

Well I am not transgender, but I have a good friend going through a transition right now taking hormone therapy. He is in process of becoming a she and she tells me that she felt for a long time that something was out of wack with her life as a man, she decided, along with therapy to do the transition, she is about 6 months down a 2 year road to full transition.

Exactly. She decided to go through the transition because she felt like that was who she was, not because she decided to feel like a woman.

The transition isn't what defines her gender, it's not what makes her a female person. Those are defined by her self-identity, by who she feels she is. She can make the conscious decision to express her gender through the transition, but not about her feelings.

Yes I agree that she realized that was who she is, but she still had to make the choice and a very serious commitment to make this realization possible...her gender choice is a choice because she is assuming a role that she will manifestly play on the social stage, one that 'she' could not realistically play as a man.

but she still had to make the choice and a very serious commitment to make this realization possible... — Cavacava

No, she had to make a very serious commitment to make her practical applications and expressions of her identity possible. She can make the decision only about the gender roles she'll assume. If she'd chosen otherwise, to tell herself the lie that she was a man, it'd've still been a lie because her true feelings wouldn't have been changed.

She didn't have to make a choice to stay the way she was. Many people lead lives of quiet desperation yearning to be what they could be yet remaining the way they are, only a few are strong enough to go against similar societal norms.

Those are defined by her self-identity, by who she feels she is. — BlueBanana

Yes I agree that she realized that was who she is — Cavacava

Can't people be wrong in identifying themselves? Can't people misinterpret their mental states? I gave the example of the Italian-American believing that he was a Native American. Does their belief make them what they are, or does your physical relationship (his genetic relationship with his family) with others make you what you are?

What about anorexia? People with anorexia believe that they are overweight an engage in physical activities to counter that belief. We see anorexia as a disorder and treat it as such. How is this any different from someone that believes that they are a woman in a man's body?

What does it even mean to feel like a woman in a man's body? Are they saying that their soul is female and they are in a male body? Are we talking about souls being placed in the wrong body, a mental illness, or what? If we can't get at what it is that we are actually talking about, then we simply don't know what it is that we are talking about.

There also seems to be confusion between being transgender and transsexual. If someone engages in changing their physical body (hormone replacement, removing the penis, etc.), they are changing their sex, not their gender. If they don't change their body, rather they change the way they behave (like what they wear), then that would be transgender (changing behaviors as opposed to changing your body). So, Cavacava, your friend would be a transsexual, not a transgender, so your example doesn't apply to gender.

You sound dangerously like this discussion is going to a rather transphobic direction, but anyway:

Can't people be wrong in identifying themselves? — Harry Hindu

Sure they can, but my point is that those feelings of feeling like a woman would've existed in their subconsciousness.

I gave the example of the Italian-American believing that he was a Native American. Does their belief make them what they are, or does your physical relationship (his genetic relationship with his family) with others make you what you are? — Harry Hindu

I don't think his claim was that he was ethnically a native american, but just culturally.

How is this any different from someone that believes that they are a woman in a man's body? — Harry Hindu

Whether one is obese is determined by physical facts, gender is not.

What does it even mean to feel like a woman in a man's body? Are they saying that their soul is female and they are in a male body? Are we talking about souls being placed in the wrong body, a mental illness, or what? — Harry Hindu

It's about the sociocultural gender roles, or one's inner/subconscious or conscious desires to identify with a certain set of them even if one doesn't make the conscious decision to express those desires.

If gender can be chosen through a conscious decision, why do transgender people choose to be the gender they are, even though that leads to them being discriminated (among other cons)? — BlueBanana

This question is still separate from your original, which doubted that one chooses their gender. Choosing their gender and why they choose their gender are two different things.

You sound dangerously like this discussion is going to a rather transphobic direction, but anyway: — BlueBanana

Strange that it isn't consisered anorexia phobic when we tell an anorexic that they aren't fat.

You sound dangerously close to committing an ad hominem fallacy.

There is no phobia or dislike of trans people, anymore there is any phobia or dislike of anorexics. There is simply the desire to get at the root of the problem, just like we do with anorexia.

I don't think his claim was that he was ethnically a native american, but just culturally. — BlueBanana

He never made that distinction.

Whether one is obese is determined by physical facts, gender is not. — BlueBanana

I was talking about anorexia. It is a neurological condition where they believe that they are fat and that drives their behavior of forcing themselves to vomit and engaging in excessive exercise. This is no different than someone believing that they are a woman in a man's body and that drives their behavior dressing like one and performing sex changes.

In the natural world one's behavior is determined by one's sex. There exists sexual dimorphism throughout nature. And the differences in physiology lead to differences in Behavior. Because females in most species have to use the most time and energy to rear the young they are more choosy and picking their mates. Seahorse males are the ones that carry Young and become choosy when picking a mate.

It's about the sociocultural gender roles, or one's inner/subconscious or conscious desires to identify with a certain set of them even if one doesn't make the conscious decision to express those desires. — BlueBanana

It's about how you were raised most likely, as that can have serious consequences on your inner/subconscious or conscious desires to identify with a particular group.

How does a man even know what it is like to feel like a woman to say that they are actually a woman in a man's body, and vice versa?

Strange that it isn't consisered anorexia phobic when we tell an anorexic that they aren't fat. — Harry Hindu

How does a man even know what it is like to feel like a woman to say that they are actually a woman in a man's body, and vice versa? — Harry Hindu

I was always wondering how to approach this topic without being accused of being trans-phobic. I feel bad that people (including yourself) have to deal with these issues because it undermines any possible conversation to be had and squashes curiosity for fear of being labeled in a negative light. : ( I have a friend that admitted to me that they "have felt like a women" for most of their life. I wanted to ask: How do you know what that "feels like". How could I question someone's "feelings"? Is there a point in doing that? Most people I have known, "just know", whatever that means. The question of why always stops somewhere it seems. "I like this feature in a person, I like that type of candy, I love this color the best!"
"Why? Why? Why?" , I would ask. "I just do!", they respond. -______-/

It's about how you were raised most likely, as that can have serious consequences on your inner/subconscious or conscious desires to identify with a particular group. — Harry Hindu

I like this point. I can firmly say that I could care less what 'gender' I identify with, and that probably has to do with how I was raised. I was born as the male sex. Wouldn't change and don't care. I don't care if others do what they want either. I was never forced to be one gender or another, my parenting was a mixed bag as to not have "normal male/female" role models and they never said no when I exhibited behaviors that were male or female. I started to see these roles in school and never really cared for them. I feel that many people put way too much importance in these constructed "realities". "Realities" that are formed from the interplay between wanting to be respected for your feelings/actions and the lack of understanding from most of those around you. Thus, many are forced into picking a side in order to avoid alienation. In the case of trans individuals we are stuck stuck with either trying to get the world around them to understand them and see them as normal, or "helping them change their feelings" to better match the dichotomy we want them to see. Most trans individuals (at least implicitly) agree with the "idea of gender" and want to fit in to one of those groups, they just have ended up in a different body because of psychology reasons (formed by the environment, hormones, genetics, et cetera). When they are even judged for wanting to try and fit in to those genders, feelings of alienation develop. Alienation in humans usually leads to depression and suicidal tendencies, something the trans community has the most of any of the LGBTQ+ members.

The side of me that asks the question above is the side of me that is skeptical about the idea of gender as it is. Just like I want the society to accept trans people I also want trans people to care less about what they are with respect to the black and white way the society wants to seem them as . I don't care. I can act and do what I want. I can ask a guy for a "feminine" hug, I can play "manly" sports and enjoy brotherhood. Why are and why should these things be tied to identities? In my opinion, the answer lies in the fact that it is very very beneficial for us to have clear cut groups that simplify the world for us. Along those same lines, it is also easier to rationalize your feelings through changing yourself to fit in those groups (surgery or gender change), then to just not care about those groups in the first place.

This question is still separate from your original, which doubted that one chooses their gender. Choosing their gender and why they choose their gender are two different things. — Buxtebuddha

So why am I not allowed to ask different questions?

I was talking about anorexia. — Harry Hindu

So was I. One can't be an obese anorexic. Anorexia is partly defined by whether one is obese.

He never made that distinction. — Harry Hindu

So why assume he was talking about etnicity?

In the natural world one's behavior is determined by one's sex. — Harry Hindu

And humans cannot be claimed to be entirely natural anymore. We have sociocultural structures. We have the mental capacity to think objectively about ourselves and understand abstract ideas and describe them linguistically.

How does a man even know what it is like to feel like a woman to say that they are actually a woman in a man's body, and vice versa? — Harry Hindu

Just a guess but they probably don't know for sure that they are feeling about it the exact same way. Like when you're a part of any subculture, you don't know everyone else in that group is feeling the same way about their identity within that group, but you srill know you identify with that sjbculture and feel like you're a part of it.

Probably because when we look at sex and gender as random events in probabilistic maths we see they aren't independent events.

So was I. One can't be an obese anorexic. Anorexia is partly defined by whether one is obese. — BlueBanana

You don't know what you are talking about:

DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA

To be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa according to the DSM-5, the following criteria must be met:

Restriction of energy intake relative to requirements leading to a significantly low body weight in the context of age, sex, developmental trajectory, and physical health.
Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.
Disturbance in the way in which one's body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight.

https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/learn/by-eating-disorder/anorexia

And humans cannot be claimed to be entirely natural anymore. We have sociocultural structures. We have the mental capacity to think objectively about ourselves and understand abstract ideas and describe them linguistically. — BlueBanana

Whether or not humans cannot be claimed to be entirely natural anymore is a point of contention for another thread. Every species has a specialty that enables it to survive in unique ways.

I was talking about anorexia. It is a neurological condition where they believe that they are fat and that drives their behavior of forcing themselves to vomit and engaging in excessive exercise. This is no different than someone believing that they are a woman in a man's body and that drives their behavior dressing like one and performing sex changes. — Harry Hindu

It is different. Someone with anorexia sees themselves as fat, despite not being so, whereas a transgender woman doesn't seem herself as having female genitalia (else she'd identify as a cisgender woman). A transgender person, unlike the anorexic, has an accurate perception of their body.

There's an article here by a transgender person explaining the difference between body dysmorphia and sex (and gender) dysmorphia:

Those who suffer from body dysmorphia have a disconnection between the reality they are perceiving and how that perception is recognised in their brains. They look in an ordinary mirror, but for them, the result is something like we might imagine a funhouse mirror to look. There is an inability to recognise the body for what it is. Features seem distorted, and flaws (real or imagined) are perceived as much much worse than they are (if they even exist, and if they're even flaws in the first place).

...

[Sex dysphoria] can't be a form of body dysmorphia, because the issue is not a processing error between the reality of physicality and how that physicality is understood internally by the mind. There is no failure to see the body as it is. The issue is something else.

So body dysmorphia is when you think your body is other than it really is whereas sex dysmorphia is when you think your body should be other than it really is.

Disturbance in the way in which one's body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current low body weight. — Harry Hindu

Um... thanks for repeating?

Whether or not humans cannot be claimed to be entirely natural anymore is a point of contention for another thread. — Harry Hindu

No it's not if you bring it up to back up your point. You can't make a claim and then claim I'm off-topic and should make a new thread when I refute it.

why not? what else are we? Super-natural? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Is technology supernatural?

if they aren't independent events that implies they are causally related then? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Sharks aren't ice cream trucks in disguises. That's a possible explanation, and the gender roles as social constructions are another one.

Opinions can be changed, but a person can't just decide to change their own opinion. — BlueBanana

We can't decide to "want to change", but we can "want to change" and we can change. This idea supposed that we don't initiate our feelings -- we don't 'decide' to feel something. We just start feeling it, then we have to call it something.

I have changed my opinion about transgenderism. I used to think it was real. In the last couple of years I started to doubt that it was real and began thinking it was probably delusional. I didn't decide that I wanted to change my opinion. What I decided was not to trust the testimony of transgendered people about their experiences.

Whether the decision to distrust testimony was voluntary, I don't know.

A bit disingenuous to say 'some'. lol — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Perhaps you're not familiar with the use of the word "some" in elementary logic. That's the sense of the word I intended, and the sense I often intend when I use that word.

Perhaps you're using the word "disingenuous" in a way I'm not accustomed to. I assure you I meant what I said in earnest.

Its pretty much 99% of the worlds population that have coinciding gender and sex. that would suggest a pretty good correlation between the two. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Do you have a citation to support that rather precise statistical claim?

I agree it seems a vast majority. What does that have to do with the points I've made? So far as I can see it's a conceptually irrelevant bit of emphasis.

No it's not if you bring it up to back up your point. You can't make a claim and then claim I'm off-topic and should make a new thread when I refute it. — BlueBanana

I did - in the sentence after the one you quoted.

So body dysmorphia is when you think your body is other than it really is whereas sex dysmorphia is when you think your body should be other than it really is. — Michael

Then it comes down to my question of how they know that their body is something other than it should be. How do they know what the opposite of sex feels like to say that their body should be like that?

I did - in the sentence after the one you quoted. — Harry Hindu

Read that part of this discussion again.

I have changed my opinion about transgenderism. I used to think it was real. In the last couple of years I started to doubt that it was real and began thinking it was probably delusional. I didn't decide that I wanted to change my opinion. What I decided was not to trust the testimony of transgendered people about their experiences. — Bitter Crank

It is definitely "real" in the sense that there are people that think they are not expressing their personalities through the gender they are currently. There is also enough evidence to suggest they are "born with it". I still don't know why it matters if they want to be a man if they were women. Gender is a social construct anyways. Sex is a different story all together.

It is definitely "real" in the sense that there are people that think they are not expressing their personalities through the gender they are currently. There is also enough evidence to suggest they are "born with it". — yatagarasu

I agree that people who claim to be transgendered are quite sincere in their belief that something is amiss with their personal identity and sexual self image. I don't think they are cynically making it up. However, the explanation they have settled upon is not necessarily true. They very well may be born with whatever problem it is that they have, but their gender being misidentified may not be the real problem.

All that I can say for sure, based on what I have observed among transgendered people I have known, is that they want to live a different kind of life. Changing one's official gender, wearing different clothing, getting a new name, and changing one's appearance is a way of living a different kind of life. The means at hand (changing gender) may solve a real problem, but maybe doesn't solve the possibly non-existent stated problem (of gender)>

I would liked to have lived a different kind of life too. Changing my gender, as it happened, wouldn't have accomplished anything for me, but I can understand the intense desire TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE. In the long run, I don't think this is a healthy solution. Changing the person one is can be very healthy; becoming someone else may not be healthy.

If transgendered people are totally wrong about what ails them, that doesn't mean that they should be scorned or abused. They clearly have a real enough problem, and it shouldn't be judged harshly. On the other hand, we are not obligated to take their interpretation as the literal truth of the matter.

I defer to transgendered people as to how they wish to be addressed (up to a point) and i am not embarrassed to be seen in public with them, even if they look perfectly ridiculous (which some do early in their new practice). I also won't tell them they are quite deluded, whatever I think. I'm not their therapist and don't have that kind of relationship with any transgendered.

Good points. Don't really have any contentions with what you said. But I would like to add that, the issue is that the prejudice against them is probably a good percent of the issues they have psychologically. If the counter movement weren't so malicious it would be much easier to get to core of everything. Like I said in a previous post, I think that making the issue about gender doesn't really change anything (like you said as well), and that I don't care for the idea of gender. Sexual dimorphism is different but the idea of gender and the expectations that come with identifying as a particular one is complete nonsense to me.

I did - in the sentence after the one you quoted. — Harry Hindu

Read that part of this discussion again. — BlueBanana

Huh? I'm willing to have whatever conversation you want - anywhere - at least until the mods start deleting posts for being off-topic (like they have deleted mine for being off-topic). You just need to make more sense.

Here is the sentence I was referring to:

Every species has a specialty that enables it to survive in unique ways. — Harry Hindu

My point was that you are engaging in anthropomorphism by claiming that humans are somehow special or separate from nature because of their physiology (big brain) and behavior (which their big brain drives). Humans are just as natural as everything else in the universe. If the universe itself is natural, then how is it that one of its constituents isn't?