Hypothetical perfect sex change

There is a question regarding trans-gender persons at around 45 mins in the talk which is to the point. Overall, brains of males and females are hugely diverse, but there is no male Vs female brain.
Feeling you should be of the opposite sex because you feel different in your gender to what you feel fits your sexed body is extremely narrow and damaging, and plain wrong.
Your sexed body is your body. How you feel about your gender identity is likely influenced by external conditioning including fixed and insidious social stereotypes. That will also make a person feel they need to change their sexed body to be able to express their gender in a way more socially acceptable. I think, and most of those who are dismissed as 'GC' or 'transphobic' feel that is wrong - that no-one should feel they have to undergo such a painful and ultimately incomplete medical transformation - particularly girls - in order to express themselves as they wish, particularly not to fit in to a social category.
That is upholding the rights of the individual to express who they are, as they are. Those rights are here, now, legally.

But the sexed body is, and always will be, immutable and some sex-based provisions will remain necessary and appropriate.

Interesting recent talk on 'the gendered brain' -

@pop91 To answer the OP, briefly the answer would be no.

1. There is no conceivable way that a tool such as Crispr would be able to alter the chromosomal makeup in every single cell in the body
2. Even if it were possible, the vast majority of cell types in the body - creation of organs, overall physiology and physicality, having undergone a specific sexed development pathway, cannot from then onwards utilize the genes that underpin that development to alter their function. They are already mature and fixed. Stem cells are more flexible.

The sexed body and the development of same cannot be altered to then be of the opposite sex, after the event. The OP is fantasy.

Sex is determined at conception. It can't be changed.

Appearance can be changed, but that's all.

I haven't RTFT, so apologies - I'm sure this has been said before.

I think it's a fair enough question. If we had technology that changed every single aspects of a person's genetics and every single secondary sexual characteristic then yes I guess they've changed sex. In terms of things like all women short lists, though, men who changed to women would have grown up with male privilege and should not be allowed on them.

We are a million miles away from this though so I think it's interesting to ponder but irrelevant to the current situation. Right now we can just tinker with external appearance and slightly adjust hormones. I think all this question does is highlight how little anyone changes when they 'transition' and the reasons why it is cultural appropriation for men to talk about their 'period pains' or 'vagina' (pseudo-vagina OK, it's nothing like an actual vagina when you fashion it out of a penis).

I think op was referring to structural neuroplasticity.

Which just shows that they don't really understand how the brain develops.

Structural changes in the brain are widely accepted to happen through exposure to experiences and exposure to different things.

For example, differences can be seen in the brain between children that have been abused and those who have not. Studies have shown children that have excessive screen time have built similar pathways in their brain.

This is why the toys should be toys campaign is so good- little girls playing with cars and building blocks helps build pathways that help engineering skills later on and little boys playing with dolls builds empathy pathways.

So I would expect a trans person who had been doing stereotypical opposite sex activities for a reasonable amount of time to show some similarities to a person that had similar experiences and hobbies. This definitely does not prove trans is innate but that nurture is a powerful tool for neuroplasticity. So in theory of you work in engineering and scanned all the brains of your colleagues they would have similar pathways regardless of sex or perceived gender identity. Ditto nurses, London can drivers etc.

But as I said earlier in the thread, brain scans are a rather limited tool anyway and I don't like people co opting them to suit their agenda when they are mainly used for people with life altering conditions.

I mean there's research to suggest trans men already have brains similar to that of cis men and vice versa for trans women.

But other than size (in relation to whole body size) there is no significant difference?

theconversation.com/you-dont-have-a-male-or-female-brain-the-more-brains-scientists-study-the-weaker-the-evidence-for-sex-differences-158005

This hypothetical has been done - why dont you read some of the Iain M Banks 'Culture' novels OP?

I think I'd enjoy flip-flopping between man and woman form. I'd go to work as a man, and exercise as a man, and I'd definitely walk home at night/alone as a man.

But then I do love my (straight) DH so I suppose I'd need to be a woman when I'm with him.

5. That there is not an understanding in GC beliefs that a reason beyond social is possible for the existence of trans people and there is no biological reason Trans people exist, for example, hormone anomalies in the womb?

There is a clear lack of understanding among genderists of ''innate'. Our sexed identity, our perception of the sex of others, and our sexual orientation are innate. We know this to be true because they all persist when a person develops dementia; whereas gender identity is lost and people become distressed about their wrong genitals and clothing.

The experiences of transmen and transwomen are very different,

In case it wasn't clear - I meant "The experiences of transmen and transwomen are very different from each other "

This is because there is no one person in the story who could be thought of as undergoing the change. There is the person at the start, a woman (in OP's telling), who is then destroyed to be replaced by a man.

What was that show on Netflix that featured Paul Rudd as a man who paid a company to transform him into the perfect version of himself? They buried him in the woods and replaced him with an upgraded clone (not a spoiler, the premise of the show is his coexistence with the improved clone.)

It wasn't a brilliant show, but it's more interesting discussion fodder than OP's scenario.

5. That there is not an understanding in GC beliefs that a reason beyond social is possible for the existence of trans people and there is no biological reason Trans people exist, for example, hormone anomalies in the womb?

There are identical twins where one twin has transitioned and the other hasn’t, so it’s unlikely that “being trans” has a complete biological explanation or cause.

My personal suspicion is that some cases of gender non conforming behaviour patterns and homosexuality possibly have some kind of biological underpinning or tendency. I suspect that gender dysphoria might well result from bullying such children for their gender non-conformity from a very early age, so that the bullying was occurring over the time period when the child formed an understanding of self and which sex they were. Easy to understand that a child who had constant reinforcement that their behaviour patterns were not acceptable for a person of their sex might draw the false conclusion that they must be the opposite sex.

So for homosexual transsexuals there may well be underlying physical differences, in brain structure, for example. But I think it’s likely that it’s the homosexuality that relates to this difference. The “transness” is, in my opinion, probably more related to socialisation during the critical period of growing up, where understanding of the self is formed.

for some reason, it felt important for people to work out that I am a trans man?

It is important.

The experiences of transmen and transwomen are very different, so much so that I'd say these days that you will need to campaign separately for at least some of what you want. You come from such a different place socially, physically and emotionally, transition has a different effect on your lives, and you want different things. You have a common cause but not an identical cause.

And from the point of view of women ourselves, allowing transwomen into women's space on their own terms presents a threat to our safety that transmen don't present either to other women or to other men.

So yes, we want to know who we are talking to so we can have a meaningful conversation.

I think this has already been said, more or less, although in a different way, perhaps. But to emphasise:

What OP suggests would be in no way a sex change, even were it medically possible.

-- This is because there is no one person in the story who could be thought of as undergoing the change. There is the person at the start, a woman (in OP's telling), who is then destroyed to be replaced by a man.

The woman does not survive the process -- she must be thought of as dying, as the man is brought to life.

Suppose a woman were to die at the same moment her grandson was born. No one would call this an example of a sex change, perfect or otherwise. A woman dies; a man is born. This is just what OP postulates.

So, no, Pop91 and other wannabe sex-changers: changing sex is not even theoretically possible. Sorry!

[Btw (and this might not be strictly on topic), the scenario OP describes does have echoes in recent philosophical literature, mostly following Derek Parfit in his book Reasons and Persons and elsewhere. Those of you who like thinking about such things might like to have a look. It is good fun, and interesting, at least to some of us.

You might notice Parfit and others consider personal identity, which, following John Locke I suppose, we can take to be about what makes a person the same person over time. -- Are you, or to what extent are you, the same person as that horrible child who peed on my uncle's carpet back in the day? (Or, perhaps more seriously, 'organised that transport of Jews to Auschwitz' so long ago?)

This connection between 'identity' and 'sameness' (they mean the same, roughly speaking) often seems to fall by the wayside in present-day discussion of identity in politics and gender theory to the detriment of clarity of thought in such domains, some would say. But enough for now.]

But hypothetically if society as a collective agreed to raise children free of gender then you believe there would be no gender dysphoria?

Yes, I do pretty much believe that. Or at least that gender dysphoria (well, sex dysphoria, as there would effectively be no gender) would be vanishingly rare. If there were not any such thing as personality/appearance/role expectations specific to people with a particular set of genitalia, I don't think those feelings of being the wrong sex would ever arise. Your body would just be your body. It wouldn't say anything about your rolein society except what biological sex you were.

That can't really ever totally happen though, because you can't maje society do that, and in the extremely unlikely event that society evolved into that, the long history and memory of a gendered society would still be there to affect people's views.

Imo the craziest thing about the TRA agenda is how regressive it is - embracing and emphasising stereotypes and using them to determine what sex someone is or should be, rather than the much more progressive attitude that clothes, make-up, hobbies, jobs, personality etc are equal for all and do not determine a person's sex.

And one book you may find amusing and thought provoking - though you'll probably struggle to find it as it's old and out of print - is Esmee Dodderidge's The New Gulliver (Women's Press 1979). It's a proper modern Gulliver's Travels in which Gulliver's spaceship crashlands on a planet where all gender roles are reversed but physical sex isn't.

You do ask some very interesting questions pop91, and I'm struggling to keep up because I want to give well considered response but the threads move along very fast and fill up before I can!

Before I could answer your question, I need some answers from you about exactly what you mean by "changing sex". Sex is easily observable at birth but physical sex doesn't start or end there. Big permanent changes happen at puberty, and other changes happen later on, as a direct or indirect result of sex. So I need to think more clearly about what this total physical sex change would mean. We can both suppose (for the sake of the discussion) that in future medical science can make all these changes. The only thing it can't change is the past. My questions are about exactly what you want medical science to do, physically, in your own scenario.

First an easy one. What happens to a man's voice when he becomes a woman? Does his voice "unbreak"? If he has a baritone, does he keep it? Would his Adam's apple disappear? Or would she be a woman with a barotine and a large Adam's apple? And would a woman's voice break when she transitioned and an Adam's apple appear? I am guessing your answer would be that the science would change the Adam's apple and the speaking voice, but do correct me if I am mistaken.

Now let's get a bit harder. Other permanent physical changes at puberty differ between men and women overall. Height. Skeletal form. Muscle mass. Lung capacity. Physical strength. Suppose we do this sex change at the age of 25, when height and all these other things are pretty much determined. Would medical science shrink some or all of them when a man becomes a woman, for instance taking about six inches height off each man who changes sex? Or (as the data scientist in me feels obliged to say) adjusting for randomness and average distributions between sexes. And if a woman becomes a man would she grow six inches? I am not wedded to a female gender identity myself, but one of the (many) reasons I would not wish to change sex is that I would go from being a rather short woman to being an exceptionally short man, with all the problems that would entail. So, in your view of science, what should happen? Height and build and physical capacity and strength the same as before, or fully adapted to the distribution of these traits in the new sex?

And then let's move into the further future. Suppose science does the transition to someone at aged 45 or older. By this time most women and many men have children and as a result many of us women have damaged and weakened pelvic floors. So what does medical science
do when the men transition? Do they have very nice strong pelvic floors, like women who haven't given birth? Or do they get medically provided damage too? (I rather like the idea of giving them the same effects as the women who have borne their own children ) And supposing science did impose this damage, what would you think of the mindset of someone who chose to accept this damage when they didn't really need to because their children are already in the world?

Whether I would think of these transitioners as men or women, and to what extent, would at least partly depend on the answers to these and similar questions. Happy thinking!

Pop91:
But hypothetically if society as a collective agreed to raise children free of gender then you believe there would be no gender dysphoria?

What would gender dysphoria even be for children raised free of gender?

How would it manifest itself? -- Not in terms of gender, by hypothesis. But then, even supposing you wanted to distinguish a particular kind of body dysmorphic disorder (see NHS BDD), it would be perverse to describe this as gender-based in the stipulated absence of gender in such circumstances. No?

I wonder. Can you, Pop91 , distinguish your own gender dysphoria from BDD without recourse to the notion of 'gender identity'? How, if so?

It does seem gender dysphoria will collapse into nothing more than a particular form of body dysmorphia if we deny ourselves talk of gender identity as a causal factor in its production. But, as some of us keep saying, no-one has yet explained a way of detecting the presence of gender identity in this sense -- as a cause of dysphoria when mismatched somehow with sex.

So, Pop91 , it seems we have no reason to believe there is any such thing as gender identity in the required sense. What, then, makes your dysphoria anything other than a particular form of BDD?

Oh okay just a similar premise but not actually the same plot. Still a bizarre plot line, why would surgery be your first revenge idea? That’s my favourite thing, being able to ask who the hell gave these movies the green light. Must look up predestination too. Looking forward to next weekend watching some crap now!

Kanola - The Skin I Live In isn’t about a hitman, it’s a revenge story involving a plastic surgeon.

A bad movie you may enjoy is Predestination. It’s awful.

No way 😂 I was astounded that one person had thought up such a bizarre idea and there’s another one! I mean why do the sex change to him? If you know he’s a hitman and you hate him why not kill him because it’s pretty obvious he’s probably going to try killing you for revenge!

Really titchy had the right of it. This really is an issue with people identifying as something that they don’t fit the definition of in reality.

[quote Kanaloa]@Zapx

Not yet 😂 it does look like exactly my kind of rubbish. It’s called The Assignment and basically the hitman then sets out to kill the people who gave him the sex change.[/quote]
Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In has a similar premise.

Also, it’s odd that you (who sees yourself as a man I believe?) would choose this forum to come and antagonise. Why wouldn’t you feel more comfortable asking other men your hypothetical thought experiments? I mean what do we women know about what it is to be a man?