gender dysphoria is a very serious issue, the rates of suicide and attempted suicide by transgender people are upwards of 75% and I feel like you are just trying to say that it is a casual want instead of what it really is, the ability to be who we really are. because we don't just want to be the opposite gender we are the opposite gender it just so happens to be that we are born into the wrong bodies, because it has been proven that transgender people literally have the mind of a cisgender person of the opposite birthsex. — sarah young

If the suggestion is that transition surgery is medically appropriate in order to save the lives of those suffering from gender dysphoria, then it would be necessary to cite statistics indicating that those who have transitioned suffer less from emotional issues and suicide than do those prior to transitioning. From what I've seen, that is unfortunately not the case.

If your argument is simply a libertarian one (that it's your body and you can do with it what you wish) then I'm more sympathetic to that, simply because it is none of my business what you do, especially in light of the fact I have no idea who you are or what you've experienced.

I just have a problem with the scientific claims, where people try to justify their decisions as if they're demanded by some objective criteria. If I could show you definitively that gender reassignment surgery were objectively a bad thing (based upon social, scientific, or moral arguments), I think you'd be as unmoved by my arguments as I am by your suggestion (if it indeed was your suggestion) that somehow transitioning is what one in your situation objectively ought to do.

It just strikes me that you can do as you wish, with me not caring what you do and you not caring if I care. You get to live your life how you see fit. I can buy into that, but that's as far as I'd take it.

But since they don't know you, they can't hate you — Artemis

Yeah but when they are talking to me, saying that I am not valid because of who I am it feels really personal

I'm Arkansas 2020, and it isn't a problem sonmuch as an inconvenience, when something comes into the public eye someone is bound to disagree with it

This thread is not about whether it is good or bad to change your sex, or whether you have a right to do so, but about whether it is 'possible' to do so. So it is, at root, a metaphysical question. For all the heat and emotion that surrounds it, the question is at base squarely philosophical and can - and should - be dealt with using the cold tools of reasoned analysis.

I pointedly used conditionals in the OP. I said 'if' sex is constitutively determined by physical features (including chromosomal structure) then it can obviously be changed.

That applies to ALL physicalist views about sex. All of them. Someone who thinks (implausibly) that a certain chromosomal structure is both necessary and sufficient for qualification as a male, or female, is someone who thinks sex can be changed. For chromosomal structure can, in principle, be changed. It's just hard to change it, that's all, and may currently be beyond our know-how.

Likewise if you think sex is constitutively determined by one's attitudes, either one's own or those of others, or some combination. Again: it can then be changed.

And likewise if you think it is a combination of the above (including disjunctive 'either/or' combinations).

Clearly, however, there are some here who think sex can't be changed. They're not really arguing their case, so far as I can tell, just asserting it as if it is common sense and doesn't require support.

Some of those clearly also think the sex is determined at the chromosomal level. I think they're either confused or dishonest, as a simple thought experiment will demonstrate.

Imagine that tomorrow scientists discover a very easy way in which chromosomal structure can be changed. All it takes is the consumption of a pill and, overnight, your chromosomal structure will be changed.

Now, will all of those who think sex can't be changed now alter their view and conclude that it can, in fact, be changed?

No. Of course they won't. They'll just shift the goalposts. You can get boobs gallore, vaginas all over your body and you can even change your chromosomes, they'll still notconsider you a woman if you weren't born with them.

That's a prediction - but it's true, isn't it? If getting boobs and a vagina doesn't do it for them, how plausible is it that changing your chromosomes will? Not remotely! They 'say' it is all about chromosomes, but it isn't because you can bet your house they won't consider you a woman no matter what changes you make to your body or your attitudes, or whatever. They'll never be satisfied.

That's the sense in which they're dishonest. All they're going to do is locate some physical feature that technological limitations mean you can't currently change and insist that changing sex requires changing 'that'. And then, when technology advances to allow you to change it, they'll say 'ah no, it actually in addition requires changing 'this'. And on and on it will go. They'll just keep refining their supposedly physicalist conception of sex so that changing it is always beyond your reach.

So what's their actual view - or better, (because they themselves are normally confused), what's the view that delivers this result? The historical view. That's the only view about sex that fixes it once and for all and will make changing it something you'll never be able to do. For with the historical view, changing your sex requires changing the past. And of course, that's something none of us are ever going to be able to do.

This is significant philosophically and epistemically.

It is significant epistemically because the historical view is just one view among at least four distinct kinds of view. At best only one of those views can be true. So, if three kinds of view permit sex to change, and one doesn't, then chances are sex can be changed. Other things being equal, it is three times more likely that you can change your sex, than that you can't.

It is significant philosophically because it means the 'can't change it' brigade need to defend that view - that view specifically - and it just isn't particularly plausible.

Since your validity is not determined by what other people think, best not to pay attention to naysayers. Us women have had to deal with people questioning our validity for millennia, whether trans or cis. Easier said than done, but that's all you can do. The Serenity Prayer got that right.

They're both wrong, and you're wrong. We can change internal features as surely as we can change external ones. So if sex is constitutively determined by some arrangement of physical features, then a person's sex can be changed. Not just apparently changed, but actually changed. — Bartricks

I think you're missing my point.

The fundamental question is: what are the necessary and sufficient properties for belonging to the set "human female sex" and "human male sex" respectively?

There is no objectively correct answer to this question. That's why I said they're both right- they simply have different views of which sets of properties are necessary and sufficient.

I pointedly used conditionals in the OP. I said 'if' sex is constitutively determined by physical features (including chromosomal structure) then it can obviously be changed. — Bartricks

So you did, and I don't agree with that statement.

The identity of an animal is determined by billions of base pairs of DNA. A creature's identity, once composed, is fixed -- that's my view. You don't have to agree with it. A rabbit is a rabbit; it can not become a wolf. a salmon is a salmon; it can not become a bear. Homo sapiens are a particular variety of primate, and there is nothing we can do about that. Nor should do.

A female conceived is a female, and a male conceived is a male. Just because one can not altar fundamental facts does not mean that we then have to be rigid and unyielding about various aspects of existence.

Men and women can fulfill an array of roles which are very diverse, without needing to change their identity.

But we (all creatures great and small) have a stable and, for all practical purposes, an unchanging identity. This is a good thing, again in my opinion. A creature can fulfill the role for which it is suited. Some creatures can fulfill several roles. An ox can be a source of meat, and a source of traction. An ox can not breed, however, because oxen are sterilized male cattle.

What a man can do is take the role of a woman; visa versa for a woman. There may be satisfactions in so doing. Again what can not be change is "identity".

The identity of an animal is determined by billions of base pairs of DNA. A creature's identity, once composed, is fixed -- that's my view. You don't have to agree with it. A rabbit is a rabbit; it can not become a wolf. a salmon is a salmon; it can not become a bear. Homo sapiens are a particular variety of primate, and there is nothing we can do about that. Nor should do. — Bitter Crank

Again, just a bunch of assertions, not an argument.

They're all demonstrably false too.

I take it you agree that your body was created from a sperm and an egg, yes? And so you accept, I take it, that sperms and eggs can become males and females?

If a sperm and an egg can become males and females, why can't a male become a female? You owe an argument, because the difference between a sperm, an egg, and a male is far, far more radical than ever the difference between a male and a female.

So, the idea that once a thing's identity has been determined - as in the case of a sperm, and an egg - it is therefore fixed, is farcical.

I mean, as far as you're concerned nothing can change! If something is blue, it is always blue. If something is square, it is always square. And so on. A more obviously false view is hard to conceive of.

But we (all creatures great and small) have a stable and, for all practical purposes, an unchanging identity. This is a good thing, again in my opinion. A creature can fulfill the role for which it is suited. Some creatures can fulfill several roles. An ox can be a source of meat, and a source of traction. An ox can not breed, however, because oxen are sterilized male cattle.

What a man can do is take the role of a woman; visa versa for a woman. There may be satisfactions in so doing. Again what can not be change is "identity". — Bitter Crank

So sayeth the book of Bitter Crank (also sometimes known as the book of Total fill-in-the-blank).

A more obviously false view is hard to conceive of — Bartricks

What is harder to conceive is that there is any reason to continue this discussion with you.

The identity of an animal is determined by billions of base pairs of DNA. A creature's identity, once composed, is fixed — Bitter Crank

Not true. An individual's DNA mutates over time.(reference)

Imagine that tomorrow scientists discover a very easy way in which chromosomal structure can be changed. All it takes is the consumption of a pill and, overnight, your chromosomal structure will be changed. — Bartricks

I think most of those who claim sex can't be changed will change their mind if a pill is created that in every way changes one's sex. You exaggerate your opponent's position to suggest most of them are arguing that sex is metaphysically immutable. A clownfish changes gender over its life as do other reef fish after all. What is clear, to me at least, is that a fully transitioned man to woman is different from a naturally born one. In fact, there are terms (cis and trans) to describe the difference.

There is validity to the argument that a man cannot be made the same as a biologically born woman as a matter of current scientific fact. The immutability of gender argument you've attacked appears to attack a strawman, or at least a very very minority held position.

Is a trans woman and a cis woman the same to me? No, not really. One has female genes and female genitalia and the other male genes and no genitalia. That is just the truth. I'd change my mind if the pill you described were created though.

ince your validity is not determined by what other people think, best not to pay attention to naysayers. Us women have had to deal with people questioning our validity for millennia, whether trans or cis. Easier said than done, but that's all you can do. — Artemis

well first, thanks and second that isn't what I was saying i was just saying it really doesn't feel like they didn't just hate the group I'm in and really they hate every individual in the group as well as the group

(A) If someone's a given sex when and only when they have most of the sexual characteristics associated with that sex, then we can't change sexes through surgery and medicine at the minute.

(B) If someone's a given sex when and only when they have exterior sex characteristics associated with that sex, then we can change sexes through surgery and medicine at the minute.

These are practically constrained by the powers of medicine. The "can't" and "can" in the above take their meaning from the powers/possibilities/capabilities of modern medicine.

If we take

If that's true, then it seems quite obvious that sex can be changed. For no physical object seems to have any of its features - apart from mere extension - invariably, and thus any physical object's properties can be changed. That which is square can be made spherical; that which is red can be made blue; that which is small can be made bigger, and that which is male can be made female. So, if sex is physically determined, that doesn't imply it can't be changed. Indeed, quite the opposite: if sex is physical 'of course' it can be changed (though we might differ on just what needs to be changed). — Bartricks

The argument in the OP reads like:
(1) All sexual characteristics are held contingently by bodies.
(2) That which is contingently held by a body may change.
(3) All sexual characteristics of bodies can change.
(4) Sex is defined by the presence of sexual characteristics.
(5) Since sexual characteristics are contingently held by bodies, they can be changed.
(6) Sex can be changed.

The modality of the "can" phrase is different in this argument; it refers not to practical possibility given current medicine, it instead refers to physical possibility. If it's physically possible that all sexual characteristics of a body may be changed, then sex may be changed. I think this argument turns on whether a body with a given natal sex could be as if it had the other natal sex through some physical/biochemical process in a manner consistent with how a body works (an analogue of "physically possible"'s usual meaning of being consistent with how nature works).

What would be practically required to change all sexual characteristics of a fully developed body? At least; genetic therapy changing chromosomes, hormone therapy changing all relevant body chemistry, surgery supplanting (the relevant) sexual organs with analogues. Rather a lot of the body's biochemistry has to be changed, including both cellular properties like chromosomes and macro properties like sexual organs and secondary sex characteristics. I think it's implausible that sex (in sense (A)) can (practically) be changed at the minute. unless we identified sex with sense (B). In which case, it obviously can be changed, as the procedures exist to change the relevant sex characteristics in an appropriate way (sex organ transformations, presence of facial hair etc etc).

The great Aristotle defined humans as rational animals. I believed he used the word "man" and not "humans" which reflects the age-old tradition of men looking down on women. Anothet word that indicates the gender bias is "mankind" for humans. Even biological nomenclature expresses this bias: humans are homo/man sapiens. In other words women have been excluded by none other than men, with tacit approval of the fairer sex themselves, from the category of humans with the explicit intention of claiming superiority.

However, despite the high levels of testosterone bathing male brains, men must inevitably come to the realization that the only difference that really counts is rationality. Take strength and men are weaklings compared to a silverback gorilla and all other physical attributes men claim they posses are likewise inferior to animals. Ergo, to not make animals of themselves they have to fall back on the only quality they're superior at - rationality.

Unfortunately (for men), rationality isn't gender-dependent such that men are better thinkers than women. Logic is neither a Y chromosome thing nor does it arise in the testicles. So, such being the case, women and men don't differ in the most crucial aspect of our humanness. Men and women are identical to each other as far as being human is concerned.

Of course there exists traditional roles for both men and women but these can be chalked up to physical differences and not disparity in mental ability. In this day and age these historical gender-roles are rapidly fading away. Since being human is to be only rational and has nothing to do with the genitalia, I find it odd that a person would want to change sex because now and in the future it won't make a difference whether you're a dick or a pussy.

I think most of those who claim sex can't be changed will change their mind if a pill is created that in every way changes one's sex. — Hanover

What you've said isn't quite what I said.

Whether chromosomal change is or is not necessary for sex change to have occurred is partly what's under debate (I am sceptical that it is). For instance, if one holds that sex has a historical aspect to it, then there would be no pill capable of "in every way" changing one's sex.

My prediction was that if a pill was developed that would overnight change your chromosomal structure, most of those who would deny sex has been changed by the acquisition of boobs and a vagina would continue denying that sex has been changed. There will be exceptions here and there - and it is just a prediction - but I think it is true.

You exaggerate your opponent's position to suggest most of them are arguing that sex is metaphysically immutable. — Hanover

I don't think it is an exaggeration. There are some who hold such views here, so we can simply see if they deny it.

A clownfish changes gender over its life as do other reef fish after all. — Hanover

They would point out that their change is 'natural' and not a product of human intervention. Again, they would cite historical properties and insist that what matters is not what properties you've acquired, but how you acquired them.

There is validity to the argument that a man cannot be made the same as a biologically born woman as a matter of current scientific fact. The immutability of gender argument you've attacked appears to attack a strawman, or at least a very very minority held position. — Hanover

No, these matters are not determined scientifically. There are some physical attributes, including chromosomal structure, which (I expect) we do not know how to change, but they're still capable of being changed, it is just we don't know how.

Is a trans woman and a cis woman the same to me? No, not really. One has female genes and female genitalia and the other male genes and no genitalia. That is just the truth. I'd change my mind if the pill you described were created though. — Hanover

I think many of those who would deny that someone who was born a man but now has boobs and a vagina is a woman, would continue to make that denial if that person then took that pill. For what would irk them is that this person was not 'always' this way.

Genetically, no.

Chromosomes are just another appearance. Like hair, body parts,genitals, etc., they are a biological trait reported to entail sex. One which might be subject to change. We and cut or grow our hair, cut off or remodel genitals, potentially some effect might change or remove a chromosomes too. They are no better as ground to sex.

If someone’s Y chromosomes suddenly dropped off tomorrow, would they cease to be a man? Hardly the stable quality of an identity. The trouble with supposing one is made into an identity by possessing particular traits, if the identity is then equivalent to those traits. If the trait goes, so does they identity, at least by the story being told. Sex by chromosome is another one of those shallow appearance stories, like the hair and genitals before it.

Have or alter your body this way, change your traits, and you will finally belong to your identity. The supposition identity is not grounded in itself. We must consume thing to be part of the team. Just buy the right drug, alter yourself the right way, you will finally be your meaningful self. When you finally take on the appearance of a man or women, you will be one.

The great irony in the consternation over “fluid” sex is it is the essentialist who believes, above all, it is fluid. Since they cite a trait external to identity defines it, the spectre of fluidity is always haunting. If the trait changes, if the appearance changes, so must their identity. Essential relation between identity and appearance doesn’t allow for a man without a penis to be a man, a person with long hair to be a man, a person without XY chromosomes, etc., the essentialist is always in fear of finite whim destroying sex because sex does not extend past appearance for them. It’s only ever about having the right kind of hair, genitals, chromosomes, iPhone, Apple Watch, car or house. The essentialist is the one who goes shopping for a sex or gender, taking one to be buying the right product in the social space. For them, sex is only looking a part, possessing the right sort of things. Lose the look, you lose the sex.


When I say sex lies deeper, I mean it is defined separately to one's appearance (e.g. hair length, genitals, a particular chromosome or not), in terms of one’s sex itself. It is not a status obtained by having one sort of appearance or another, but a substantial feature itself. Changing one’s appearance has no impact on their sex. Grow a man’s hair, he is still a man. Cut off a man’s genitals, he is still a man. Eliminate man’s Y chromosome, he is still a man. Sex, being identity of whole, holds across changes to other aspects of that whole. Similarly, give a woman short hair, she is still a woman. Change a woman’s genitals, she is still a woman. Give a woman a Y chromosome, she is still a woman.

The unity of identity applies just as much to the (trans) woman. If the woman appears with a penis, no breasts, etc., she is still a woman. If she appears with breasts and a penis, she is still a woman. If she appears with breasts and a vaginoplasty, she is still a woman. If she appears wth XY chromosomes, she is still a woman. Sex is not a game of obtaining or changing by buying appearances. To have a sex (or change a sex) depends on an attribute of sex itself.

In this respect, trans identity is an illusion. It only makes sense in reference to shallow appearance identifications of sex— that someone who looked like they should be a man is a woman or vice verse. When we understand the deeper truth of sex itself, the idea of trans no longer makes any sense. Appearance doesn’t give any definition of sex. Any sex might be given with any appearance. There is no longer “woman who looks like a man” or a “man who looks like a woman.” Just men, women, and anyone else, with the unity of their sex itself, however they appear.

Properly stated, a trans woman is just a woman, many of whom never actually changed sex at all (they were a woman all along, just misread by those who thought women only appeared a certain way), with a different appearance (e.g. hair length, genitals, chromosomes) to some other women.

(A) If someone's a given sex when and only when they have most of the sexual characteristics associated with that sex, then we can't change sexes through surgery and medicine at the minute. — fdrake

The word 'can' is ambiguous. I was talking about what is metaphysically possible, not what is medically possible. If sex is constitutively determined by physical features, then it can in principle be changed because we do not have any of our physical attributes essentially.

We can, of course, distinguish between physical attributes we know how to change and those we do not. If sex is constitutively determined by physical attributes we know how to change, then it is medically possible for us to change a person's sex, whereas if sex is constitutively determined by physical attributes some of which we do not know how to change, then it is not medically possible for us to change a person's sex.

But I strongly suspect that most of those who think it is not medically possible for a person to change sex actually hold that changing sex is something that could not be changed no matter what physical changes a person underwent. For upon reflection it simply seems implausible that someone who refused the status 'woman' to someone who had acquired boobs and a vagina would then happily grant it if that person took a chromosomal-structure-change-pill. Some might, of course. But I think most wouldn't - they'd just change their position, searching for some yet more demanding set of criteria for qualifying as one sex rather than another. (For an analogy, in debates over capital punishment many oppose it ostensibly on the grounds that it is not an effective deterrent; yet when asked to imagine that it is as effective a deterrent as lengthy imprisonment most of them agree that they would still be morally opposed to it under those circumstances, showing that their 'real' concern about it lay elsewhere).

Their actual position - most of them, anyway - is that sex has a historical aspect to it, and thus to qualify as one sex rather than another it is important not just what properties you currently have, but either/or what properties you were born with, or how you acquired them.

Such views are, I think, not particularly plausible. No more so than the chromosomal view. But perhaps most importantly, these views are especially implausible when it comes to those issues that divide people.

So, let's just grant - purely for the sake of argument - that to be a woman you need to have a certain bundle of properties and also to have acquired them via a 'natural' process. Whereas someone who has all the same physical characteristics as a woman but has not acquired them 'naturally' is a 'woman', not a woman. Well, it isn't remotely plausible that the woman should be permitted access to female toilets and the 'woman' not. And it isn't remotely plausible that the woman should benefit from positive discrimination policies designed to ameliorate prejudice and the 'woman' should not. And it isn't remotely plausible that it is ok to insist on calling the 'woman' a man, when doing so is likely to make that person feel very uncomfortable (for an analogy, that would be akin to insisting on calling adoptive parents 'not real parents' whenever they refer to themselves as parents. Imagine a parent's evening at a school where the teachers insist on seeing parents who've adopted separately from all the rest, because 'they're not real parents').

And that's 'if' these demanding views of sex qualification are correct - which they're likely not.

When I say sex lies deeper, I mean it is defined separately to one's appearance (e.g. hair length, genitals, a particular chromosome or not), in terms of one’s sex itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I understand what you are saying, but I can not agree with it.

Chromosomes (which are groupings of DNA) are the basis of sex (as far as I know). The sex-linked chromosomes determine sex. What determines sexuality (gay, straight, fetishist, celibate, whatever) is another kettle of fish. Certain aspects of appearance (certainly NOT hair length) are determined by the chromosomes: ovaries/uterus or testes/penis, and numerous other sex-linked characteristics.

I don't know where the basis of sex could lie, deeper or not, if it was not in the DNA groupings of chromosomes. For all but a small fraction of people (far less than 1%) the XX and XY chromosomes agree with the person's self-conception of their sex (separate from sexuality). "Medical authority figures in the United States most often quote a prevalence of 1 in 30,000 for MtF transsexualism and 1 in 100,000 for FtM transsexualism." (University of Michigan)

That a small number of people's chromosomes do not match their perceived sex does not negate the principles of how sex is determined physically.

When I say sex lies deeper, I mean it is defined separately to one's appearance (e.g. hair length, genitals, a particular chromosome or not), in terms of one’s sex itself. It is not a status obtained by having one sort of appearance or another, but a substantial feature itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness

If that works for you, fine. To me it sounds non-sensical. In my experience, men who look like men (general physical characteristics, specifics of penis, testicles, beard, body hair, manner-of-being-in-the-world) also act and identify as men. The same (different features) goes for women. Not 100% of the time, but more than 99%. Maybe I hang around with an unusually conventional group of people, but I don't think that is the case.

It IS the case that men and women can perform many roles traditionally assigned to the opposite. Men can be effective nurses, women can be effective soldiers (so reports have it, anyway). Some men are homebodies, and some women are out carousing all night. But female soldiers and all-night carousers generally think of themselves as women. Male nurses and homebodies continue to them of themselves as men.

Were society organized differently (in other cultures it has been) men and women occupy roles which in the US are oppositely assigned. For instance, women in many countries do heavy outdoor work, not exclusively, but consistently.

It is my impression that you are NOT talking about gender-linked occupational roles -- like only men get to be bricklayers and only women get to be nurses.

My point was any biological trait is on equivalent terms as hair length. DNA, chromosomes, genitals , etc., are just as much finite instances of the body which might be subject to change. In terms of defining sex, all of them are on the same level and have the same problem: the equivocate sex simply wth how someone appears, as if belonging to a sex was just a matter of looking a certain way.

By deeper, I mean an account of sex which grasp the unity itself, which doesn't just just equate having a sex with possessing a particular appearance, an account in which a sex remains defined even in the face of finite changes (e.g. hair length, chromosomes, genitals, DNA, etc.). One which does not equate sex having medical produces to look a certain way, going to the gene store, etc.

If that works for you, fine. To me it sounds non-sensical. In my experience, men who look like men (general physical characteristics, specifics of penis, testicles, beard, body hair, manner-of-being-in-the-world) also act and identify as men. The same (different features) goes for women. Not 100% of the time, but more than 99%. Maybe I hang around with an unusually conventional group of people, but I don't think that is the case.

It IS the case that men and women can perform many roles traditionally assigned to the opposite. Men can be effective nurses, women can be effective soldiers (so reports have it, anyway). Some men are homebodies, and some women are out carousing all night. But female soldiers and all-night carousers generally think of themselves as women. Male nurses and homebodies continue to them of themselves as men.

Were society organized differently (in other cultures it has been) men and women occupy roles which in the US are oppositely assigned. For instance, women in many countries do heavy outdoor work, not exclusively, but consistently.

It is my impression that you are NOT talking about gender-linked occupational roles -- like only men get to be bricklayers and only women get to be nurses.

I’m not saying it works for me. It’s an objective truth. All instances of sex are defined by sex itself.

Many of the male and female sexed people have certain characteristics. Nothing about my position says there cannot be many men with certain physical characteristics, specifics of penis, testicles, beard, body hair, manner-of-being-in-the-world.

Indeed, it claims exactly the opposite: if there are men with those traits, they will exist and appear in our observations of society. Men existing with those traits was never problem nor denied. Those men aren’t men because they have those traits, they are men with those traits. 100% or 0.00001%, the amount of men we see with those traits doesn’t affect it, the male sex of each man defined by his sex itself.

The male nurse is correct to think of himself as still a man. Being a nurse, being just an appearance, has no impact upon his sex. Just because there is a notion amongst some that only women take those roles, the unity of his male sex remains unaffected.

I am talking about sex/gender linked occupational roles, not specifically, but they are a member of the same family of defining a person and role by their appearance. Biologically defined sex is another example of these. Just as someone might be saying those who are men, are not nurses because that’s a woman’s role, the notion of biological defined sex claims one cannot fall into a role (ample/female) on account of how they appear (one body of another).

Sex, in these biologically defined terms, is no different than a gender role. The woman with a penis is the same sort of situation as the male nurse. Some people might believe the role cannot go with an appearance, but that doesn’t change what is true of the person. If we have a woman whose existence is doing (i.e. she exists with one) a penis, she is still just as much a woman, just as the male nurse is still a male. Saying otherwise ("But only MALES have penises", "Only WOMEN are nurses") is only someone ignoring the given truth a person and their sex itself. Like nursing, having a penis is just something the someone might be doing, whether other think it impossible for them or not.

We clearly disagree about identity, and what makes a woman a woman and what makes a man a man. That's OK, we don't have to agree.

You've yet to present a single argument for your position. Clearly the content of the OP doesn't interest you - you don't address anything in it. And you just blankly state your view as if the fact it is 'your' view has some kind of evidential value.

this is a philosophy forum - so you're supposed to 'argue' something, not just express a view. And you're also supposed to read the OP and actually address something in it, not just think "oh, this is about sex change, so I'll just assert my view on sex change regardless of the nuance of the thread".

regardless of the nuance of the thread — Bartricks

Nuance?

The thread isn't actually about what it takes to change sex.