If changing sex became easy, should society allow it?

[ByTheRiverside]

This is a hypothetical question that lives in a sci-fi like future.

Transgender people currently don't have access to an awful lot of options to change sex characteristics. Early intervention prevents a lot of secondary sex characteristic development. Other than that, there's hormonal and surgical interventions that do not change a lot of their underlying anatomy and genetic/epigenetic sex traits.

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.

Then the question becomes less 'have they changed sex' but rather 'ought society to allow it'?

What are your thoughts?

Or changing already fully developed and differentiated existing tissues and organs.

If it were possible, and a man genuinely wanted to go through periods, menopause, the possibility of pregnancy etc. then why not? I doubt many actually would. It's one thing to look like a woman, another actually to be one with all the pain and misery it entails.

If it were possible it wouldn't be a case of it being allowed.

Because the man would have become a woman.

Its just a nonsense question (no offense OP).

A similar one would be 'if I could age backwards should I be allowed in school').

We can 'allow' or 'forbid' a legal definition or a fiction.

Our allowing or forbidding has no impact on material reality, which just is.

Without the experience of being a girl and young woman, how can an adult man 'become' a woman? His experiences, memories and attitudes will still be male.

I think you have to imagine something like shape shifting/regeneration.

A bit like being able to turn into a bat if you are a vampire.

This is like asking me should society allow it if it became easy for us to become cartoon characters instead of live humans, or if it became easy for us to change into birds.

But ok, sure, if somehow it became possible then my answer would be the same as the ones in the cosmetic surgery threads. Legal, but not funded by the NHS or equivalent, and you have to pay for insurance that would cover any related care you would need afterwards. You cannot expect others to fund your magical change, any complications that arise, or any health needs that occur because of it.

You may as well have a poll called 'If you could change into a horse, should it be allowed'

It is impossible to change sex or to change into a horse.

This is my problem with the idea. And I've come to the conclusion that because you can't change your earlier experiences, then you still shouldn't be allowed on female only shortlists or in female sport.

If Wishes were Fishes…

Not all hypothetical questions serve any useful purpose. Here’s a nice song.

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

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.

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?

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.)

Sea horses are horses.

😂😂😂

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?

@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.

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?

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.

That does make a lot of sense!

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.

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

it’s FAIRYTALE FICTION.

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?

”Yay! Imagination Christmas!” 🙄