Thought experiment: trans child raised by wolves

[MyAmpleSheep]

If a trans child was raised by wolves, would they still be trans? Would they still be at war with their own penis, or hope for a mastectomy?

According to comic book lore, the superhero Wonder Woman hails from the island of Themyscira, also known as Paradise Island, home to female warriors known as the Amazons. Are there inhabitants of Themyscira - all female - who, never having known any men, identify as male? If so, would they independently invent the checked shirt?

Ok - the bit about the shirt is tongue in cheek - but I'm curious what an orthdox gender identitarian answer would be to the other questions.

I’ve been deeply unhappy and discomfited by the fact that my eyes haven’t worked properly without glasses since I was 6, but guess what? I still haven’t had laser eye surgery, even forty years later. Why? Because it’s expensive, painful, and the results aren’t guaranteed to work perfectly (and there can sometimes be serious side effects), so I don’t want to take the risk with my health.

Meanwhile, I still feel ill at ease with my glasses and contact lenses, but I’ve managed to accept that my body isn’t how I’d ideally like it to be, and that I can’t easily do anything about that.

Same with my weight, looks, etc. This is a normal experience for most people in life. Unless you have a lot of money and a big appetite for risky surgery/drugs/extreme diets etc., that’s how most people live their lives every day. They accommodate themselves to the bodies they have even if they are uncomfortable in them.

It really isn’t “widely accepted”. That’s the current popular fashion (largely influenced by American discourse), but twenty or forty years ago you would find that the consensus on the development of sexuality and identity was very different - and there is still huge debate today about how far sexuality is developmental or innate. And despite decades of looking, no-one has been able to find any replicatable scientific evidence that sexuality is innate, either.

@marshmallowpuff

"I’ve been deeply unhappy and discomfited by the fact that my eyes haven’t worked properly without glasses since I was 6, but guess what? I still haven’t had laser eye surgery, even forty years later. Why? Because it’s expensive, painful, and the results aren’t guaranteed to work perfectly (and there can sometimes be serious side effects), so I don’t want to take the risk with my health."

I hear you. I made the exact same decision, for the exact same reasons.

And I went through the same process when it came to transitioning, and this time, decided it was worth it.

Edit: or rather, I decided that some procedures were worth it, and not others.

I am very uncomfortable with my large breasts. They cause pain and have caused unwanted attention since puberty, not helped by also being short. The nhs won’t help because “it’s a cosmetic procedure”. I can’t get help with my discomfort about my body, so my choices are suck it up and carry on or have private surgery ,which will put me into debt and has a chance of going wrong. At least trans people get some help with their “body discomfort”.

If someone claimed they wanted their legs removed because they “felt wrong” would you advocate for that? There was a woman who made herself blind because he felt she “should have been born blind”. Do you think she was trans or mentally ill? Should the doctors have removed her eyes as she felt discomfort about them or given her mental help?

Since your breasts cause you pain, the NHS is clearly wrong IMO to argue that reducing them would be only a cosmetic procedure.

Should the doctors have removed her eyes as she felt discomfort about them or given her mental help?

I would say: give her mental help to help her endure the discomfort, while at the same time researching where the discomfort comes from to begin with. Is it a psychological issue? A neurological one? There's obviously something wrong going on somewhere, and just shrugging and saying, "Well, too bad!" is not right IMO.

As you’ve replied today@Seethlaw, can I ask, do you feel more comfortable in your own body now you’re taking testosterone? And do most people assume you’re male?

But part of gender affirming care is surgery and drugs to stop the “body discomfort”. Surely this woman should have been entitled to have her eyes removed to ease her discomfort? How is wanting your eyes removed worthy of mental help but wanting your breasts or genitals removed “affirming”? By your logic, surely trans people who experience “body discomfort” should only get mental health help and not access to drugs or surgery?

I was very struck by @Seethlaw's question about if someone had access to a way to feel better about their body wouldn't they reach for it?

The simple answer is no, most of us don't reach for it. We do a cost/benefit analysis, however informal, 'is this worth the money/pain whatever?', and most times the answer comes back 'no'. We might do stuff like diet, change our hairstyle etc but not big stuff like surgery or drugs.

And a huge thing is that bodies do change all the time anyway. Have I got the same body at 70+ that I had at 18? Of course not. It would be ridiculous and pointless to expect that to be so. Did I prefer my 18yo body to this one? Hell, yes. Would I take steps to try to recreate that young body? No. Neither money nor inclination exist for me.

For example by manipulating everyone to force them to constantly lie to you about those aspects of yourself you don’t like so you never have to properly confront reality?

Testosterone has somewhat modified my appearance, mostly through the redistribution of fat, and the (partial, unfortunately) growing of a beard, and yes, that does make me more comfortable in my body.

That said, I had a very hourglass figure to begin with, so even though my waist has enlarged and my hips have shrunk a bit, my body shape clearly still clocks as female to a lot of people. I get called Ma'am quite often by strangers, though not always.

By your logic, surely trans people who experience “body discomfort” should only get mental health help and not access to drugs or surgery?

If anyone had offered me a specialised psychotherapy to deal with my discomfort, I would have jumped on it - even more so if they intended to investigate the source of that discomfort, and possibly treat it.

But the only treatment offered was surgery and hormones, and the trans association I went to for information left no room for thinking any other way, so I went along with it. I don't regret any of my decisions, because they did bring my discomfort down, but if any doctor offered to look into the cause of my discomfort, I'd happily accept.

So yes, I think research should be done into why trans people are trans to begin with, and whether that's something that's treatable. An effective psychotherapy, or some kind of work on rewiring the brain, would be immensely preferable to the current offer of surgeries and hormones.

This!
Many people dislike aspects their appearance or posts of their bodies /I would smaller feet, smaller nose, longer hair, less of a tummy, but it isn’t an obsession that defines my existence or that I inflict on others /just get on with life and think about more important things and am grateful that I am not ill or disabled.
There is absolutely nothing in the western world now to stop anyone doing a traditionally ‘male’ or female job, wearing whatever clothes they like, socialising with any group. Yet I don’t see transmen doing typically ‘male’ things like seeing a piece of wood in s skip and taking it home and making cupboards out of it, or turning to the back page of the newspaper first… it’s all about the body.

No. I meant only in relation to what can be done to oneself. Manipulating others is by definition doing things to others, which is completely different.

But manipulating others is to pretend they are something they are not is what trans is mostly about. And it seems to be women and children who are told they must change their bodies; the men leading trans mostly don’t seem to feel any such need.

In terms of feeling better, steroids can do that directly.

100% with you on your last paragraph. And honestly I feel sympathy for your situation- it sounds desperately sad and Its hard to imagine that a partial beard and generally being referred to as Ma'am is preferable and a more comfortable situation to what you had before. I'd like to live in a world where being read as a woman is not such an unbearable experience for some, and I feel as if that's as much outside us as within us. Much of our 'wiring' (and a lot of social damage) is done between birth and 6.

But manipulating others is to pretend they are something they are not is what trans is mostly about.

Not for me, and not within the context of the thought experiment presented on this thread.

I agree that there's been a huge and extremely worrying change in the population seeking trans treatment these last decades or two. It used to be that it was mostly older men, who did want to change their bodies. Not so anymore, and it seems to me that trans "experts" should be eager to understand where that change comes from, before pushing all those young women on a path that might not be the right one at all.

Thank you for the sympathy, but please don't think there's anything sad with my situation. It is much preferable and far more comfortable than what I had before! Both because there's less incongruence between what I see in the mirror and what I "see" in my mind, and because I don't feel like I'm lying to people all the time by presenting as a woman when I "see" myself as a man. Now I can be entirely honest: "I am a woman who sees herself as a man, wishes to present as a man, and if you're okay with it, be addressed as a man." That's the complete truth, instead of the partial truth I was presenting before.

This thread irresistibly reminds me of Sorry-oo in Moominland Midwinter.

Children raised by wolves (in the rare cases when this has happened) tend to have extreme difficulties learning language, learning social norms and integrating into human society.
Given the current tendency for any and all social awkwardness to be interpreted as gender dysphoria.....I wouldn't be surprised if a child raised by wolves ended up identifying as trans after contact with human society.

They have, but not wolves. Read the original "Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It's a lot more thoughtful than any of the films have been.

You can go back further than that: Romulus and Remus, twin sons of god Mars. Romulus founded Rome, story from around 4th century BC.

A child raised by wolves would probably conceive of themselves as a wolf, they would have no other frame of reference and wolves don't have the gender stereotypes that human societies have so I can't seem them conceptualising of trans in our terms 🤔

I'm thinking of the fictional Carrot Ironfoundersson (Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett) a human who was adopted by dwarfs. He thought of himself as a dwarf all his life and was really surprised when his parents told him he was actually human. (I love the fact that his dwarfish name was Kzad-bhat, which means "Head Banger", because he was too tall for dwarfish architecture, and in my own interpretation probably also because the other dwarves thought he was mad for thinking he was a dwarf 😊 )

Edited: missing words

A child raised by wolves would probably conceive of themselves as a wolf, they would have no other frame of reference

Indeed, the alternative to wolf would probably be ‘food’