If changing sex became easy, should society allow it?

A lot of trans people haven't had any medical interventions at all

No shit! Because it's a feeling. An idea.

Its telling that they imagined scenarios where the body changes but never that therapy gets so effective they become happy in their body.

I this hypothetical future where not only the visible anatomy but the endocrine system and each of the 36 trillion cells in the human body was changed at a genetic level (and be clear - if that was done at a rate of one cell per second that would take 1.14 million years to achieve. You wouldneed a process that could complete the process in 14 million cells per second to achieve a whole human body in less than a month) then yoir stipulation that they still remain the same human would, in this world that we live in, still mean the change was incomplete because a male would still have had his earliest formative years with the privileges of maleness and a female would still have had her earliest formative years with the constant pressure to act as support-creature to others that males don't get. Therefore the so called "sex change" could never be complete.

If as a species we were to genetically engineer ourselves such that all babies are born as gender-neutral with no distinction such that they would be treated alike frim birth, and we only chose at become sexually diamorphic after adulthood at which point we might choose either male or female and might swap between them at willor cgoose to stay as neither, only then could such a process be actually valid, complete and ethical.

I find it really amazing that anyone can really think all this. It makes no sense at all! Why do you think this - is it just because it’s what you’ve been told and you want to be a good person?

Gender stereotypes are very powerful and in almost every society they have been and often still are rigidly enforced. Almost no one naturally fits an extreme masculine or feminine stereotype. I don’t, I’m a lifelong tomboy with a lot of stereotypically masculine interests and skills, as well as some feminine and some neutral.

Some people do not fit the gender stereotypes expected of them at all and naturally long to break outside them. And of course in the past or in the most repressive societies, that;s very difficult. Lots of people have wished they were the opposite sex for totally understandable reasons. Often gay people, and of course many people who just wanted to escape expectations of masculinity or femininity that didn’t suit them or harmed them.

That doesn’t mean anyone is “really” the opposite sex inside in some undetectable way, just because they wish they were. It means gender stereotypes are stupid and restrictive. No genderist I have ever met or discussed this with is able to explain what “being trans” really means, how it works, how a “trans” person differs from someone who just wishes they were they opposite sex, and how we’re meant to tell so that we can distinguish love;y, innocent, suffering “trans” people from people (generally men) who want to take advantage of self-ID to get access to women and child victims or to gain other advantage such as kudos, eligibility for LGBTQ+ schemes and grants and awards, sporting success, etc etc etc.

Can you explain the above because you would be the first, and I would genuinely like to hear this explanation.

In the creative field I work in, as a short-haired, largely gender non-conforming woman, I could very easily “come out” as non-binary or as a trans man tomorrow. It would fit my look and my genuinely non-stereotyped gender expression (because I am female without adhering to feminine stereotypes, because I don’t believe they should restrict me as a woman). If I did this, it would be a massive grift. It would get me access to all kinds of financial and career opportunities and I’d be showered with praise and adoration. I’m not “non-binary” and I think “non-binary” is a load of sexist guff that defines everyone else as fitting into gender stereotypes when that’s actually untrue. I’m not a man and I think it’s offensive to appropriate the lived experience of men and act like I know what being male is like.

But people like you would be all over it and pontificate that I was a poor oppressed trans person who just wanted to be allowed to exist. Wouldn’t you?

“It's not cosplay, and it's not a choice. Only coming out is.”

I don’t think most people believe that. No-one falls for the “born in the wrong body” story nowadays, they see (rightly) that what you call “trans” is just a desire to be the other sex and / or a fetish about being the other sex.

A transwoman is a man who wants to be a woman, but is not one.

Yeah, it would require time travel as well as the transmutation thing.

I’ve pondered this too. I think it would be OK if a person could fully switch to be their opposite-sex equivalent and this did not take any effort, surgery, money etc. you would just decide to do it or maybe just take one pill and it would happen overnight. Also, you would become the opposite sex version of yourself so for example if you were in the 50th percentile for male height and strength you would become the equivalent woman, so that males changing to females wouldn’t have an advantage over natal females, and female changing to males wouldn’t have a disadvantage (which is one of the several reasons genderism currently has such anti-female outcomes).

I’m not sure whether maybe this would only become possible as an adult, but if you had grown up one sex and became the other it would be understood by everyone that you hadn’t had the same experience as someone born that sex, and most importantly being someone who changed sex would not mean you were put on a pedestal and inaccurately treated as the most oppressed demographic ever. People would be allowed to find it a bit daft if they liked.

I imagine in this sci-fi society this ability would mean sexual politics were quite different. But assuming women had the same disadvantages they do now, you’d see a lot of men changing back after finding they got ignored and mansplained to, they were scared going out at night, pregnancy and motherhood shafted their career, periods/endo/menopause made them miserable or their male partner dumped them with 90% of the childcare and housework. Unlike what happens to TW now.

Or can you only make the change once and you’re stuck?

OP

As posters have already thought, this is impossible.

If you had a process to reduce a body to sub atomic particles and reconstruct it as the opposite sex while still retaining all your experience, learning and personality, how does that work?

You still have a person who has undergone an extreme body modification but all of their understanding of the world Is of the opposite sex. The person will have no experience of their body type and how does that work?

Without developing who you and how the world around you interacts with your sexed body, how do you change sex? Not just the perceptions that are the foundation of all our interactions with the world, how does a male person then know how to adapt physically to their environment. All of a sudden their body reacts differently, eg just in walking and jumping etc .

Even from an experience point of view, a male person will never have experienced being female in any way when they come to consciousness of their new body. Will this era be utopian where no sex based negative discrimination will be experienced at all?

If not, why should a male person then be able to get opportunities needed for female people to counter the sexed based negative discrimination that they experienced from birth?

Unless you have a perfect way to change every single memory and learning and perception of that male person into them having experienced it within the linear development of a human life experience, your experiment is meaningless.

This ‘thought experiment’ has been done before on MN.

No one ever said that all it took was a male person to change their entire sexed body to one of a female sexed body. Logically, we are also the materially real experiences of how we have interacted with our bodies from the start of our life and how the world interacts with our sexed person.

In a world like that, what would be the point of changing sex? How many people would actually want to?

Or changing your skeleton. Or magically providing opposite sex gametes.

”Yay! Imagination Christmas!” 🙄

Trans people existed long before surgery and hormones became options, and will continue to be born. Nothing will alter that.

A lot of trans people haven't had any medical interventions at all - but plenty are pushed towards them by a transphobic society which punishes them when they don't 'pass' (and accuses them of gender stereotyping when they do).

Being trans is a small part of who someone is, like having blue eyes. It's not cosplay, and it's not a choice. Only coming out is.

If you read more trans voices, you'll discover that many older trans people are being encouraged to come out by a tolerant, diverse new generation - and it is healing something deep within themselves. No one would be trans unless it meant everything, because it's a difficult and dangerous life.

So, a better question would be: what if society accepted that trans people existed, stopped trying to theorise why, and accepted that restricting the right to bodily choice sets a very dangerous precedent for all cis women and people who can get pregnant?

Science FICTION ( The same can be said for changing sex) completely FICTION; it’s not real, NOBODY can change sex.

it’s FAIRYTALE FICTION.

I imagine this transformation as being a bit like a werewolf with all the classic bodyshifting (as bones and organs remodel themselves, hair grows / withdraws) it doesn't sound pleasant.

However, I think we would need to recognise them as a slightly different sort of woman / man to those born in that sex (we could go with womanshifter/ manshifter) to account for the fact that while now biologically the same, they had experienced a number of years as an alternative sex and therefore had formative experiences that differed and may impact.

If we lived in a society free of gendered norms, where things were much more equal maybe that wouldn't matter so much and people could freely sex shift without the need for a term to separate them, but potentially even just experiencing male or female puberty would be different enough that there would always be some need to differentiate.

Ive been asked this before by TW.

Its different to imaging they were born female, its a scenario where they get to keep their AGP - the desire to be a women, but with a woman's body.

They dont want to experience a womens perception of herself.

What change would there be mentally? If you’ve lived life as a man until you’re an adult even if something could change your chromosomes would you actually be a woman?

@ByTheRiverside "Transgender people currently don't have access to an awful lot of options to change sex characteristics."
What do you mean by 'transgender people'? People who have a mental health condition which makes them falsely believe they were born in the wrong body, and that cosmetic surgery/mutilation and taking opposite sex hormones will somehow 'cure' them? Does 'people' include children?

"In the future, let's imagine that changing sex is an easy medical option available to anyone. Transgender people can quite easily change their anatomy, and even their genetics. They do this while still remaining the same human, with the same prior experiences."
Even if it were scientifically possible, - for, say, a woman to grow a penis and testicles, and for her female sex organs to shrink and disappear, and for her to become statistically more likely to violently assault women, etc - it'd be a total mind fuck if she could remember before when she used to menstruate or when her children used to call her Mummy. I can't imagine she'd suddenly feel all that masculine entitlement which comes naturally to natal males, just from late-onset penis syndrome. Science-fiction would have to rewire her brain with false memories, and erase every female experience.

I haven't voted because I think it's a stupid poll.

But the sci-fi fantasy is certainly a scenario which would be popular in cultures which prohibit homosexuals, or where it's acceptable to abort female foetuses.

If all the world were paper,
And all the seas were ink,
And all the trees were bread and cheese,
What should we have to drink?

😂😂😂

Sea horses are horses.

That would not make a female male.

An SRY triggers male development in a fertilised egg, it does not define your sex which is a function of phenotype (specifically which gamete your phenotype is organised around supporting.)

In that vein, how would a man who, say, had previously raped or killed a woman be able to comprehend how he should/would feel about MVAWG in his/her new female body?

I will consider the question in the OP the day that all the reasons women have for distrusting men not have happened and never happen again. Including but not confined to: no man will ever or have ever been violent to any woman/ child/ animal, no man will ever or have ever sexually assault(ed) any creature living or dead, no man will ever or have ever discriminate(d) in any way against any woman or child, no man will ever or have ever abused anyone. Only then.

It's such a nonsensical question, it's not worth an answer.