Can someone explain why transgend is OK but transracial is not?

[speakout]

I am trying to understand the arguements.
My niece and I have been trying to find reasoned arguments or points of view to understand why transgender and transracial are so "completely different".
Other than the " if you can't see the difference you must be stupid".
Anyone found some logical explanation?

I don't believe there is a worldwide conspiracy involving all major medical bodies to mendaciously diagnose people with gender dysphoria.

And I didn't say there was. What the campaigners want is to get the transition without the medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. On their own say-so.

a doctor can only diagnose on the symptoms presented,

Diagnosis and treatment are two different things. A doctor can diagnose severe depression on symptoms presented, but whether they prescribe ECT for it is a different question, it depends on the risk of long term outcomes like memory loss and how those affect the patient's life. Doctors will try quite a few other things first, and it's a complex judgment call.

At some point we have to trust adults to take responsibility for themselves.

Well, if they don't have a mental health condition, then yes we do. But we do set limits on the decisions that people with mental health conditions can make about treatment. Even if you're profoundly depressed you don't get ECT just by asking for it.

And conversely for people without mental health conditions: do we agree an 18 year old adult with no mental health problems can decide they wont ever want children and can take responsibility for ending their fertility? What does informed consent look like then?

I think in order to try and get in the head of someone thinking this way, you have to realize that the things they think are most important and real are not the physical realities of nature.

They are chosen and socially constructed identities.

Sex is nature.

Race and gender are socially constructed (obviously they have a relation to physical reality but there is a lot built on top of that.)

Can you supply evidence that personality traits are not distributed differently among the sexes?

That's equally a hypothesis that requires evidence, if that is how you are going to swing.

No. Nobody can explain it because it's bullshit. I might come back with a more considered response when I've read the full thread though 😁

I've no doubt it is a complex judgement call, but it is one I trust medical professionals to make.

I also trust people with dysphoria to know their own minds frankly, perhaps that's where we differ. So working with a medical professional and having explored other issues, I think they can give informed consent. I think there's a difference between a dysphoric person saying 'yes, I'm dysphoric enough to go through all this hassle and operations' and say, a schizophrenic who says they definitely aren't sick anymore and can stop taking their meds.

Where we would probably agree is that informed consent isn't possible if people are lied to- so telling a young man they will be a woman like any other after transition and everyone will accept them as such and no-one will know any different is very wrong.

Also, if an 18 year old wants to be sterilised so be it. I've never understood why women have to wait until we are past childbearing age for a sterilisation- I've always suspected it comes down to 'silly hormonal woman, can't possibly take big important decision' combined with a healthy dose of 'if she is sterilised she might choose to sleep around (or remain celibate) instead of settling down to be a brood mare like what she ought to.'

I don't think there's a God given right to love your life free from regret I'm afraid.

Bear in mind that most women don't realise they actually have more testosterone in their body than oestrogen.

Just to clarify my post above, I have children of my own and don't see motherhood as being a brood mare, I just suspect that's how it's seen by others.

Wouldn't want to unnecessarily offend anyone.

I've no doubt it is a complex judgement call, but it is one I trust medical professionals to make.

I also trust people with dysphoria to know their own minds frankly,

You're being both naive and ignorant, in that order. The puberty blocker debacle and the surgeries that ensue are a case in point.

Your ignorance about what gender dysphoria is is embarrassing. If your 14 year old daughter with anorexia demanded slimming pills, would you trust her to make that decision?

Dysphoria is by definition an unstable, unrealistic state of mind.

It's people like you - perhaps well-meaning - who have slept-walked us into this mess.

If someone is transgender and happy (and not harming anyone else in doing so) accept it
If someone is transracial and happy, (and not harming anyone else in doing so) accept it

But there IS harm.

If you don't see race, you can't see racism

If you don't see sex, you can't see sexism

If you don't see harm, you can't stop harm

I also trust people with dysphoria to know their own minds frankly, perhaps that's where we differ
So where does this leave detransitioners who were absolutely convinced they knew their own minds....until they didn't. Young people are vulnerable even at 18.

For god's sake, the brain doesn't stop growing/maturing until the age of 25! These people that think 18 year olds know their own minds - what were you like at 18? Are you the same person, with the same views?

I also support the right of sick people to receive medically appropriate treatment

But I thought the latest position was that these aren't (all) sick people? That you don't need to suffer from dysphoria to be Trans? So what's the treatment actually for?

it is one I trust medical professionals to make.

But they are not all the same. I'd trust some of them more than others. That's why they have rules and guidelines and professional standards.

So working with a medical professional and having explored other issues, I think they can give informed consent.

That's what the campaigners don't want people to have to do. No obligation to do much work with a medical professional or to explore other issues first.

Where we would probably agree is that informed consent isn't possible if people are lied to

Yes, we do agree on that, but I'd see factual honesty as a minimum requirement. Necessary, but not sufficient.

if an 18 year old wants to be sterilised so be it.

Interesting take, rather black-and-white thinking there.

I've never understood why women have to wait until we are past childbearing age for a sterilisation-

Because people can change their minds especially between 18 and 35. You've never changed your mind about anything really life-shattering?

You don't see a difference between someone who has had children and someone who has not? Or between a 18 year old and a 30 year old? Or between 30 and "past childbearing age"?

For what it's worth, one of my transsexual friends did tell me (many years ago now) that transition was a matter of convincing her psychiatrist both that she was sane and that she genuinely want to do something quite insane. And she did succeed.

I don't think there's a God given right to love your life free from regret I'm afraid

That's a very dismissive thing to say; of other people's profound suffering and (potentially) of your own. "Regret" is minimising.

@ScholesPanda , you sound cross and you've nicely proved my point.

Hand-waving away legitimate points about safety by accusing me of knowing nothing about the topic : "You're an expert who knows more than every medical authority in the world are you?"

Minimising and distancing yourself from the appalling medical scandal that is unfolding "I'm not responsible for any mess that you or anyone else finds themselves in".

Simplifying the issue and smugly declaring everyone capable of making healthy choices when this is demonstrably not true or even possible: "I do support the right of adults to live their life as they wish" (Define adult and explain to me how this works when the 18 year old is autistic or has internalised homophobia?)

Setting up a straw man to help you "If you want medical transition banned go and campaign for it"

and virtue-signalling: "I do support the rights..."

and resorting to ad hominem "a knob off the internet."

It's all there.

I notice you also do the TRA thing of not responding to questions:
Your ignorance about what gender dysphoria is is embarrassing. If your 14 year old daughter with anorexia demanded slimming pills, would you trust her to make that decision?

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying here about medical professionals and trans campaigners now so I suppose we've exhausted that point.

I'm sorry you think I'm being dismissive, I actually try to sympathise and help people even where they have made a lot of mistakes in their lives- it doesn't change the fact that it was there errors though.

However, I think personal autonomy trump's being protected from regret or sadness- giving up our autonomy, and allowing others to take decisions for us seems like the greater of two evils to me.

I accept you may not share that opinion but please don't try and dismiss mine on the basis you don't think I'm being sufficiently kind.

Of course I've made mistakes, I'm often wracked with doubt, and there are things I regret. But I see that as part of the human condition and not something we can protect ourselves or others from, however much we might try.

Assuming that the medical types know best strikes me as extremely naive.

The Tavistock has been shut down due to concerns about patient safety and the lack of info about the longer term consequences of the meds they're prescribing.

The medical profession can and do get things wrong.

They absolutely do get things wrong.

I think that the growth in the past two years of clinicians speaking out against the treatments being offered to children, young people and adults has been an indication that around this very topic, there is huge disagreement and frankly that should be making every single person stop and question what is going on, not saying 'the medical profession knows best'. Particularly when there is also so many studies that seem to be no where near 'robust' on this issue as they should be.

Indeed. I don't deny that treatment of gender dysphoria might change in future, and what is seen as currently good might no longer be seen in the same light.
But I can only live in the here and now, and the bulk of the medical profession seem to think that the best treatment for gender dysphoria can be to transition. And I wouldn't want to deny people access to that treatment if they want it.

That was a response to @TheKeatingFive

@ScholesPanda I am glad we mainly agree.

But I am afraid that "regret" is a very dismissive and minimising way to describe "suffering". If you can't put the word "suffering" into your own sentence and feel it is true, then you don't understand just how how much people can suffer from wanting a child and being unable to have one. I am not accusing you of deliberate cruelty, but however hard you try to sympathise fertility must be an area where you just don't get it. I am not interested in being kind, just honest.

You overvalue autonomy. Maybe that is OK for you, that's your most important value and you'll put up with any amount of suffering for the right to have things your own way and not have anyone else telling you "this is a really shit idea and there's every chance you'll feel shit about it 10 years down the line". But not for society as a whole. No single value always trumps everything else.

However, I think personal autonomy trump's being protected from regret or sadness- giving up our autonomy, and allowing others to take decisions for us seems like the greater of two evils to me.

The difficulty is who is able to consent and who isn't.

If someone has comorbidities that have been ignored (as many of the detransitioners are now telling us), and adults with these comorbidities are being allowed to make medical decisions around experimental treatments that are being questioned while their comorbidities if they were diagnosed would actually raise alarms about the ability to consent, should they still be allowed to receive that medical treatment?

Particularly since these people are also reporting that they are repeating the things groups and peers have told them to say to ensure they get treatment.

Clinicians are now being pressured in some countries that if they do not treat as insisted upon, they may be sued.

So, no. I think that there is too much at play here. I think it is too simplistic to say that people of all ages should not be protected from regret and sadness when it is now well publicised just what these vulnerable patients are doing.

Yes, I know. However, 18 is the age of majority and I don't see that changing anytime soon. 18 year olds are adults and can take their own decisions, on any number of issues, some of which will change the course of their lives. That's just a fact.

I don't think either is OK or normal so both fall into the same category for me

the bulk of the medical profession seem to think that the best treatment for gender dysphoria can be to transition.

That's pretty much a circular definition. "Gender dysphoria" used to be "that condition which can best be treated by transition".

It's only more recently that "gender dysphoria" has become expanded to include variations which are probably not best treated by transition. And the bulk of the medical profession has yet to catch up.