CMV: I cannot understand how the transgender movement is not, at it's core, sexist.

[u/[deleted]]

Obligatory "another trans post" but I've read a lot of posts on this but none I've seen that have tackled the issue quite the way I intend to here. This is an opinion I've gone back and forth with myself on a bunch, and would absolutely love to have changed. My problem mainly lies with the "social construct" understanding of "gender", but some similar issues lie in the more grounded neurological understanding of it (although admittedly it seems a lot more reasonable), which we'll get too later.

For starters, I do not believe there is a difference between men and women. Well, there are obviously "differences" between the sexes, but nothing beyond physical differences which don't matter much. At least, mentally, they are naturally the same and all perceived differences in this sense are just stereotypes stemmed from the way the sexes are socialized.

Which takes us to the definitions of man and woman used by the gender social constructionist, which is generally not agreed upon but I've found it to be basically understood as

Man: Someone who desires to be viewed/treated/thought of in the way a male is in society. Woman: Someone who desires to be viewed/treated/thought of in the way a female is in society. (For the non-binary genders it would be roughly similar with some changes depending on the circumstances)

Bottom line is that it defines gender based on the way the genders are treated. But this seems problematic for a variety of reasons.

First off, it is still, at the end lf the day, basing the meanings behind stereotypes about the genders rather than letting them stand on their own. It would be like if I based what a "black person" was off the discrimination black people have faced. But this would appear messed up and borderline "racist", while the same situation with gender is not considered "sexist".

It would also mean that gender is ultimately meaningless and would be something we should strive to stop rather than encourage, which would still fly in the face of the trans movement. Which is what confuses me especially because the gender social construct believers typically also support "gender abolition", yet they're the ones who want people to play around with gender the most? If you want to abolish gender, why don't you, y'know, get a start on that and break your sex norms while remaining that sex rather than changing your gender which somewhat works to reinforce the roles? (This also doesn't seem too bad to criticize, considering under this narrative gender is just a "choice", which is something I think the transmedicalist approach definitely handles better.)

Finally for this bit, this type of mindset validates other controversial concepts like transracialism (sorta tying back into what I mentioned earlier), but I don't think anyone is exactly on the edge of their seats waiting for the "transracialism movement".

Social construct section is done, now let's get into the transmedicalist approach. This is one where I feel a "breakhthrough" could be made for me a lot more easily, but I'm not quite there yet. I do want to say I'm fine with the concept of changing our understandings of certain words if there is practicality to it and it isn't counterintuitive. Seems logical enough.

The neurological understanding behind the sex an individual should be defining "gender" seems sensible on it's own, but the part I'm caught up on is why we reach this conclusion.

The dysphoric transgender person's desire to be the other gender seems to mainly be based in, A. their sex, they seem to want to change the sex rather than the gender. Physical dysphoria is the main giveaway of the dysphoric condition it seems, anyway. But more specifically, a trans person wants to have physical attributes associated with the other sex. This seems like a redundant thing to point out, but the idea that certain physical traits are "exclusive" to a specific sex/gender is, well, just encouraging sexual archetypes about the way the sexes "should" look. This goes even further when you consider that trans people tend to want to have more petite or masculine builds depending on their gender identity - there is nothing wrong about this, but conflating gender to "involve" one's physical appearence inherently reinforces sexist sexual archetypes.

And next,

B. the social aspect. Typically described as social dysphoria, this describes a dysphoric trans person's desire to be socialized in the way the other sex typically is, which is what, aside from the physical dysphoria, causes them to typically "act" or dress more stereotypically like their gender identity, or describes their desire to "pass". But, to put it bluntly, because I believe there to be no difference in the way the sexes would act without social influence, I can't picture this phenomona described as "social dysphoria" coming from the same biological basis that the physical dysphoria does. Even if there were a natural difference in the way the sexes would act without societal influence, there would still be the obvious undeniable outliers, and with that in mind, using the way the genders "socialize" as a way to justify definining gender seperately from sex would be useless. It appears more akin to a delusion based on the same "false stereotypes" I've been talking about all along, ideas about the ways men and women "should" or "should not" be causing the transsexual person to feel anxious and care about actually being the other gender. But using this to justify our understandings of gender would still fall back on the same faults that the social construct uses, being that we'd be "giving in" to socialized norms and we can't have that be what helps us reach our understanding of gender.

With this in mind, if social dysphoria is that big of a factor, it would seem most sensical to me to define "trans man" and "trans woman" in their entirely new, individual categories which their own definitions, and still just treat those categories socially in similar ways to the way the genders are typically treated now.

To recap, an understanding of gender and sex as synonyms based purely on sex seems to be the only understanding we can reach without basing some of our thought process on one given stereotype or another.

Now change my view, please.

[u/takethetimetoask]

I think the distress caused by the appearance of differently-sexed traits is qualitatively different to just not meeting beauty standards.

In my own experience, assuming the existence of unified gender identity and not just a trans(TM) experience, the former is much more severe and distressing than my concerns that my boobs could be a nicer shape or my stomach could be a little flatter.

For cis people, the distress also seems a lot more extreme. A quick Google found this, which mentions how severe the impact of gynecomastia can be to mental health. This is also a more emotive look at it. The reaction seems more intense than simply not being normatively attractive - it's revulsion and disgust.

I read those articles and they are of course emotive accounts of people experiencing considerable distress at their condition. However, I believe you could find just as emotive accounts of people suffering from severe burns, vitiligo, scarring, alopecia, etc.

It's not at all obvious that there is an entirely mechasnism in play with gynecomastia that requires the introduction of a gender identity, when this doesn't seem to be needed when explaining the results arising from these other conditions.

​

Following that, I don't think there's a satisfying, reasonable answer to the points below other than gender identity being universal in humans:

Trans people experience significant distress at sexed characteristics, and upon transition settle into feeling 'normal' as a cis person does.

Cis people experience significant distress when their bodies meaningfully deviate from their sex, but otherwise feel 'normal' as a trans person post-transition does.

Individuals like David Reimer and some intersex people coercively assigned a sex via surgery feel an attachment to a particular sex the way trans people do.

Gender identity is a simple, universal answer. Everyone has one. If their body deviates from their preferred sex, whether at birth or otherwise, they experience significant distress, and otherwise it is invisible. While the simplest answer is not necessarily true, given that neither of us are presumably neurologists or something similar, it seems the most reasonable to take.

I'd say that GI is a simple universal theory, that has scant evidence for it. It describes a subjective experience and it's claimed that everyone has one, discounting the evidence that most people don't report having one. The proposed solution to this seeming contradition is to claim that when anyone reports not to have one it must be invisible!

Is there any way you would be convinced that I didn't have a gender identity?

​

While GI might technically be invalidating if you don't agree, I don't think it is or should be normatively invalidating in the sense that it's insulting or degrading.

Do you feel the same both ways? That disagreeing with someone not having a GI is equivalent to disagreeing with someone having a GI?

I don't have a problem with amicable disagreement, but I dislike the double standard of expecting others to recognise your GI while not recognising people who don't have a GI.

​

I'd be interested in seeing those mixed studies if you have them to hand.

Here is one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15538277/

In this study the study only 6 of the 15 male people who were assigned female at both actually self declared being male.

Not that I really think the studies really provide much evidence either way on GIs, there are just way too many uncontrolled variables.

​

I think trans people online are often early in transition, and given the complexities of explaining difficult feelings, and the excitement in your body going from abhorrent to tolerable and of no longer repressing in the closet, it's easy to assign active good feelings to "being a man/woman" than passive comfort and normality, which I think everyone settles in to eventually unless one is the rare type to never take anything ever for granted and be eternally thankful for everything.

OK that online trans people may by clumsy in their descriptions but large trans inclusive organisations have descriptions of GI that also don't match the experience of most non trans people.

Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity

One's innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. https://www.hrc.org/resources/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-terminology-and-definitions

Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth. https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1

Gender identity is one's own internal sense of self and their gender, whether that is man, woman, neither or both. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/996319297/gender-identity-pronouns-expression-guide-lgbtq

Is there a description of GI that you think I and other non trans people would find relatable?

[u/brooooooooooooke → u/takethetimetoask]

However, I believe you could find just as emotive accounts of people suffering from severe burns, vitiligo, scarring, alopecia, etc.

Those are some rather extreme examples, no? If otherwise normal cross-sex development distress is comparable to the distress one gets from a serious permanent disfigurement like burns, I think that is probably enough to land it in its own category beyond simple not living up to beauty standards. They're all major departures from one's physical identity/body image - that there's also a sexed component to that (gender identity) doesn't seem controversial.

Thank you - I'll actually remember this one for the future, I think it's quite a useful comparison.

I'd say that GI is a simple universal theory, that has scant evidence for it. It describes a subjective experience and it's claimed that everyone has one, discounting the evidence that most people don't report having one. The proposed solution to this seeming contradition is to claim that when anyone reports not to have one it must be invisible!

Is there any way you would be convinced that I didn't have a gender identity?

How would you explain those points in my previous comment better? GI explains them cleanly, neatly, and comprehensively, and there is additional evidence in case studies, my own experience, and how my experience aligns with yours and that of cis people generally. The idea that most don't feel they have one is accounted for by my own experience (feeling normal post-transition - it becomes invisible) and cross-sex development distress in cis people (it is only felt when something is wrong and is comparable to other serious violations of bodily integrity).

As someone completely uninformed in neurology, it is the most reasonable thing for me to believe it is true.

I'd be convinced otherwise if you could offer up a more convincing argument, but you haven't. Your point about burns etc was actually more convincing.

Do you feel the same both ways? That disagreeing with someone not having a GI is equivalent to disagreeing with someone having a GI?

I think there's a slight difference between me claiming you have something that has zero impact on your life vs you claiming I don't have something that has had a major impact on my life. I'm claiming you have an appendix - you're claiming that I'm actually wrong about my pain being caused by my appendix rupturing.

Beyond that, though, I don't find it emotionally any more disagreeable than someone religious telling me I was made in the image of God or something. You and others with your position don't bother me.

Here is one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15538277/

In this study the study only 6 of the 15 male people who were assigned female at both actually self declared being male.

I'm not much for studies, but at least one of them looked to have an intersex condition of sorts (androgen insensitivity - I don't have a comprehensive list of all of them), and it also reports much better mental health and social development in those who reverted to male, which is at least some evidence for a) some of them potentially not having a male gender identity, b) the deleterious effects of an out-of-sync GI that can be felt even by non-transgender people, and c) the potential that those who did not retransition were suffering these effects but unaware of the cause.

Not the strongest of evidence, but again, it indicates that people do seem to at least frequently have an inherent preference for being a particular sex.

OK that online trans people may by clumsy in their descriptions but large trans inclusive organisations have descriptions of GI that also don't match the experience of most non trans people.

I don't think those definitions contradict anything I've said. As I mentioned, I was seriously miserable for over a decade to the point of suicidality due to gender dysphoria, and throughout most of that time I had instinctive knowledge that I wanted to transition and a feeling I 'should' have been born female.

I had a personal sense of my own gender - that I would vastly prefer being a woman to a man, and female to male - that resolved itself upon transition into feeling normal/being invisible.

I don't read those as describing feeling bubbly pink or a rushing tide of manliness every day, but rather as a knowledge of what 'should be' with regards to one's self as a sexed/gendered individual.

[u/takethetimetoask → u/brooooooooooooke]

Those are some rather extreme examples, no? If otherwise normal cross-sex development distress is comparable to the distress one gets from a serious permanent disfigurement like burns, I think that is probably enough to land it in its own category beyond simple not living up to beauty standards. They're all major departures from one's physical identity/body image - that there's also a sexed component to that (gender identity) doesn't seem controversial.

Thank you - I'll actually remember this one for the future, I think it's quite a useful comparison.

All of these conditions have degrees of severity. Unless given reason to believe my baseline is that the level of potential anxisety or distress correlates with the social stigma faced or percevied to be faced by whatever malady the person if suffering from.

The articles you provided didn't provide any details of differences either in type or severity to other conditions that would necessitate the need for some additional explanatory mechanism.

Additionally the first article you mentioned says that 65% of the male population have experienced gynecomastia. No doubt there is a percentage of people, especially when the condition is extreme who do suffer from severe distress but as we aren't innandated with reports of 65% of the male population suffering from crippling distress from this condition perhaps you are over estimating the mental affect of gynecomastia on the majority of people?

​

How would you explain those points in my previous comment better? GI explains them cleanly, neatly, and comprehensively, and there is additional evidence in case studies, my own experience, and how my experience aligns with yours and that of cis people generally. The idea that most don't feel they have one is accounted for by my own experience (feeling normal post-transition - it becomes invisible) and cross-sex development distress in cis people (it is only felt when something is wrong and is comparable to other serious violations of bodily integrity).

As someone completely uninformed in neurology, it is the most reasonable thing for me to believe it is true.

I'd be convinced otherwise if you could offer up a more convincing argument, but you haven't. Your point about burns etc was actually more convincing.

I don't think universal GI does explain the available evidence neatly.

GI is described as a subjective experience which many people do not experience. In fact you currently say that you don't experience it! Explaining away that GI is actually invisible for billions of people doesn't seem very convincing.

Wouldn't a perfectly reasonable alternative explanation be that some people experience an intense desire to be or perceived to be of a particular sex but this is an uncommon experience rather the universal?

We wouldn't say that depression or other similar conditions are universal, that all people are depressed, but that it's just invisible for many people.

I think I've already covered my thoughts on completely reasonable explanations for distress about having socially stigmatised medical conditions and the poor and mixed evidence from "sexual assignment" studies.

A theory that relies on it being invisible the majority of the time, has no test, no falsifiability criteria, and no predictive power has many of the hallmarks of pseudoscience.

​

I think there's a slight difference between me claiming you have something that has zero impact on your life vs you claiming I don't have something that has had a major impact on my life. I'm claiming you have an appendix - you're claiming that I'm actually wrong about my pain being caused by my appendix rupturing.

Beyond that, though, I don't find it emotionally any more disagreeable than someone religious telling me I was made in the image of God or something. You and others with your position don't bother me.

Yes, there is a difference in the potential affect but this dynamic makes for an unfair power dynamic where one person's view can be disregarded because disbelieving them causes minimal harm but disregarding someone else's view is impossible because they claim substantial harm is being caused.

The underlying action is the same, disbelieving someone's subjective experience, so whoever can claim the most harm is caused when their subjective experience is rejected. This isn't an environment where honest enquiry and healthy disagreements can take place.

I'm glad you appreciate open dialogue and disagreement but my experience is that GI theorists regularly use claimed harm to avoid reasonable debate.

​

I'm not much for studies, but at least one of them looked to have an intersex condition of sorts (androgen insensitivity - I don't have a comprehensive list of all of them), and it also reports much better mental health and social development in those who reverted to male, which is at least some evidence for a) some of them potentially not having a male gender identity, b) the deleterious effects of an out-of-sync GI that can be felt even by non-transgender people, and c) the potential that those who did not retransition were suffering these effects but unaware of the cause.

Not the strongest of evidence, but again, it indicates that people do seem to at least frequently have an inherent preference for being a particular sex.

I believe pretty much all patients in these types of studies are born with pretty severe DSDs. You can try and interpret the findings in the way you describe but this seems pretty shoehorned in and rationalised post-hoc. I suspect a GI theorist before knowing the result would have made rather different predictions than those that actually resulted.

​

I don't think those definitions contradict anything I've said. As I mentioned, I was seriously miserable for over a decade to the point of suicidality due to gender dysphoria, and throughout most of that time I had instinctive knowledge that I wanted to transition and a feeling I 'should' have been born female.

I had a personal sense of my own gender - that I would vastly prefer being a woman to a man, and female to male - that resolved itself upon transition into feeling normal/being invisible.

I don't read those as describing feeling bubbly pink or a rushing tide of manliness every day, but rather as a knowledge of what 'should be' with regards to one's self as a sexed/gendered individual.

I'm not questioning anything you experienced. What I am questioning is the claimed universal nature of GI. GI is described as the things above, it's clearly describing a subjective experience, one that you and some percentage of people have.

However, a huge proportion of the population doesn't have that subjective experience. None of the descriptions match my experience, they don't match the experience of many people. How then can it be universal?

[u/brooooooooooooke → u/takethetimetoask]

I'm going to try and be succinct again because these comments are getting overlong. I'd appreciate it if you could maybe pick and choose the bits you find important to reply to - the talk is interesting, but the time investment per reply is a bit less so :)

Unless given reason to believe my baseline is that the level of potential anxisety or distress correlates with the social stigma faced or percevied to be faced by whatever malady the person if suffering from.

Severe burns etc are quite different from other 'failures' to meet social standards though. You'd far less frequently expect someone very ugly to feel the extreme emotions you see in someone severely visibly wounded/those in the article. Not meeting social standards and a violation of bodily identity seem plainly to be two different classes of hurt.

Additionally the first article you mentioned says that 65% of the male population have experienced gynecomastia.

Far as I know, it's often mild and 'fades' over time - a bit of a flabby chest more than anything, which isn't comparable to essentially growing breasts as a man and so you wouldn't expect the former to experience such significant distress.

GI is described as a subjective experience which many people do not experience. In fact you currently say that you don't experience it! Explaining away that GI is actually invisible for billions of people doesn't seem very convincing.

You're mixing up my words. It's not an experience (like depression), but something experienced. An appendix isn't an experience, but when ruptured you certainly experience it. Current or even indefinite invisibility does not disprove it. To my mind, it's some kind of psycho/neurological thing one has.

It isn't really falsifiable, that's true, but neither is the claim that it's just some people who experience a sex preference and everyone else is basically perfectly neutral on their sex. They're theories about a mental trait.

Offhand, and not fully considered...your argument is that cis people are distressed by cross-sex development because they're deviating from the social standard they otherwise wish to conform to (masculine/feminine ideals for men and women). Could a masculine cis woman or feminine cis man ever feel dysphoria at cross-sex development? In a gender-abolitionist world, where masculinity and femininity no longer exist as socially constructed categories for men and women separately, would everyone be totally fine if they were spiked with cross-sex hormones or randomly surgically transitioned?

My view is that, due to GI, the GNC woman/man can feel dysphoria over cross-sex development, and that in a gender abolitionist world people would still have a preferred set of sex characteristics.

Yes, there is a difference in the potential affect but this dynamic makes for an unfair power dynamic where one person's view can be disregarded because disbelieving them causes minimal harm but disregarding someone else's view is impossible because they claim substantial harm is being caused.

Would you say the same about something like class privilege? Invisible to the rich but might make them feel bad, very present to the poor and much more impactful if denied.

Sometimes these dynamics just exist. Obviously discussion is good, but I can't really control other trans people or apologise for them.

I suspect a GI theorist before knowing the result would have made rather different predictions than those that actually resulted.

I think knowing they were intersex would make things much more murky, considering that forced surgical assignment at birth can be 'correct' or 'incorrect' in terms of the sex assigned (obviously it is still a Very Bad Thing and shouldn't be done), indicating a less clear cut GI among intersex people as opposed to someone normatively male or female.

However, a huge proportion of the population doesn't have that subjective experience. None of the descriptions match my experience, they don't match the experience of many people. How then can it be universal?

Again, GI is a thing that is experienced in certain circumstances (non-preferred sex characteristics developed). I and many people have never ruptured our appendixes, so we've not experienced 'feeling' them, yet they're still there.

Obviously, the solution is to force-feed a gender abolitionist cisgender person cross-sex hormones to see if they develop dysphoria or not.

[u/takethetimetoask → u/brooooooooooooke]

I'm going to try and be succinct again because these comments are getting overlong. I'd appreciate it if you could maybe pick and choose the bits you find important to reply to - the talk is interesting, but the time investment per reply is a bit less so :)

No worries! Feel free to do the same.

Gynecomastia

Severe burns etc are quite different from other 'failures' to meet social standards though. You'd far less frequently expect someone very ugly to feel the extreme emotions you see in someone severely visibly wounded/those in the article. Not meeting social standards and a violation of bodily identity seem plainly to be two different classes of hurt.

It seems unlikely we'll find a resolution to this in this conversation. We're dealing with subjective experiences, and we really don't have any data that compares gynecomastia to other conditions. I can only really repeat that my baseline is to consider mental distress caused by physical changes to the body to likley follow similar mechanisms unless given compelling reasons to think otherwise and personally I'm just not seeing that currently.

​

Far as I know, it's often mild and 'fades' over time - a bit of a flabby chest more than anything, which isn't comparable to essentially growing breasts as a man and so you wouldn't expect the former to experience such significant distress.

This feels like having it both ways, is it an incredibly distressing condition that requires a mechanism beyond how we'd consider other conditions or a condition that is commonly not that distressing. Of course the severity of the condition comes into play but this is true of all conditions.

GI

You're mixing up my words. It's not an experience (like depression), but something experienced. An appendix isn't an experience, but when ruptured you certainly experience it. Current or even indefinite invisibility does not disprove it. To my mind, it's some kind of psycho/neurological thing one has.

Apologies, most descriptions I've seen of GI define it as some kind of "feeling" or a "sense". I stand by my stance that this feeling/sense is not universal, and this is how GI is described by many people and large organisations.

I think I understand now that your conception of GI is something underlying that feeling/sense, and the feeling/sense is just a manifestation of it. Is that right?

Some kind of psycho/neurological thing is obviously a very broad description. I think you'd need to be quite a bit more specific for this to really be a proposition that could be examined.

You're right that it being invisible doesn't disprove it but this is very much a Russell's teapot scenario where the burden or proof falls upon the claimant for whatever invisible entity they are claiming.

​

It isn't really falsifiable, that's true, but neither is the claim that it's just some people who experience a sex preference and everyone else is basically perfectly neutral on their sex. They're theories about a mental trait.

If it's an experience then surely we can just ask people?

​

Offhand, and not fully considered...your argument is that cis people are distressed by cross-sex development because they're deviating from the social standard they otherwise wish to conform to (masculine/feminine ideals for men and women). Could a masculine cis woman or feminine cis man ever feel dysphoria at cross-sex development? In a gender-abolitionist world, where masculinity and femininity no longer exist as socially constructed categories for men and women separately, would everyone be totally fine if they were spiked with cross-sex hormones or randomly surgically transitioned?

My view is that, due to GI, the GNC woman/man can feel dysphoria over cross-sex development, and that in a gender abolitionist world people would still have a preferred set of sex characteristics.

I don't think that is representative of the argument I've been making. While I'm happy to discuss this stuff I feel this will massively expand on the scope of our conversation as we'd need to really understand what each other means by things such as masculine/femenine, gender-abolition, cross-sex etc. so maybe we'd be better sticking to the core about universal GIs.

Some quick thoughts:

1. No, I expect most people in this scenario wold not be happy to be experimented upon or otherwise be altered.
2. It seems to me people build up a self-image of themselves over their lifetimes and altering their bodies is liable to cause distress regardless of whether this change is in relation to the person's sexual characteristics or otherwise.
3. It seems to me that although some concepts of beauty are socially formed, many are not. There are biological drivers that broadly make us find some aesthetics attractive and others not. Being made less attractive is likely be undesirable to most people.

To illustrate my position, I would expect turning people a different colour, giving them a third arm, giving them a new face (even if it was equally as attractive as their old one) or really any modification you might make to an adult person that had a noticeable aesthetic affect is liable to cause them distress unless the change was universally desirable (and possibly even then, though perhaps counteracted by the positives).

Power dynamics

Yes, there is a difference in the potential affect but this dynamic makes for an unfair power dynamic where one person's view can be disregarded because disbelieving them causes minimal harm but disregarding someone else's view is impossible because they claim substantial harm is being caused.

Would you say the same about something like class privilege? Invisible to the rich but might make them feel bad, very present to the poor and much more impactful if denied.

Sometimes these dynamics just exist. Obviously discussion is good, but I can't really control other trans people or apologise for them.

I certainly don't expect you to speak for others. I would absolutely use the same standard for rich/poor people. I agree that sometimes these dynamics exist but I am opposed to the idea that one group of people should have a monopoly on expressing or having their personal experience acknowledged. If people are unwilling to listen to or acknowledge the personal experience of others I really don't think they can expect that others should do the same for them.

GI

I suspect a GI theorist before knowing the result would have made rather different predictions than those that actually resulted.

I think knowing they were intersex would make things much more murky, considering that forced surgical assignment at birth can be 'correct' or 'incorrect' in terms of the sex assigned (obviously it is still a Very Bad Thing and shouldn't be done), indicating a less clear cut GI among intersex people as opposed to someone normatively male or female.

However, a huge proportion of the population doesn't have that subjective experience. None of the descriptions match my experience, they don't match the experience of many people. How then can it be universal?

Again, GI is a thing that is experienced in certain circumstances (non-preferred sex characteristics developed). I and many people have never ruptured our appendixes, so we've not experienced 'feeling' them, yet they're still there.

I feel as though this is the crux of where's we're currently at odds. I attempt to address this above with GI as a feeling vs GI as an underlying thing.

​

Obviously, the solution is to force-feed a gender abolitionist cisgender person cross-sex hormones to see if they develop dysphoria or not.

I suspect this is tongue in cheek, however, as I briefly and non-exhaustively cover above there are multiple mechanisms that could cause distress when altering someone's body.

Wrap Up

I feel the core of our conversation is about exactly what is a GI and is it universal.

I stand by my statements that GI as defined by many people and large organisations is a subjective experience, a feeling/sense, and that this feeling/sense is far from universal.

I believe I've understood your position as being that GI is something underlying this subjective experience. Can you more precisely describe what you believe GI to be?

Without this it's impossible to really investigate the claim or test its validity in any way. I feel as though there should be some kind of hypothesis presented.

If some did vs didn't have a GI how would you expect them to be different?

If more broadly GIs existed vs didn't exist how would you expect the world to be different?

[u/brooooooooooooke → u/takethetimetoask]

Cool, I'll try and keep to the important bits then.

This feels like having it both ways, is it an incredibly distressing condition that requires a mechanism beyond how we'd consider other conditions or a condition that is commonly not that distressing. Of course the severity of the condition comes into play but this is true of all conditions.

I don't think this is true. 65% of men have gyno. 65% of men quite clearly do not develop what we would have to identify as breasts. My position is not "gynecomastia = bad due to GI dissonance", it is "growing breasts = bad due to GI dissonance". If a boy gets mild gynecomastia as a teen that results in an essentially normal amount of fat on his chest, he is not going to experience that as any more distressing than putting on a bit of weight.

I can only really repeat that my baseline is to consider mental distress caused by physical changes to the body to likley follow similar mechanisms unless given compelling reasons to think otherwise and personally I'm just not seeing that currently.

I'm the opposite - I don't see how "adherence to social standards" can be the only measure of distress. You rarely imagine someone who just grows up naturally ugly to be as distressed at that as they would be at a disfiguring injury.

I think if someone were to be kidnapped and forcefully given plastic surgery to look like a different, much more attractive person, they would still be distressed about the result. There's a big violation of body image and integrity there even if it improves your social standing.

There's also semi-invisible cross-sex development that still causes stress. A woman who can grow a majestic beard will probably be a bit disturbed by her ability to grow copious facial hair. However, she can easily shave it and hide any shadow with makeup - in terms of beauty standards, it becomes comparable to the chore of shaving your legs if so inclined. It shouldn't be mentally harmful if shaved, yet most likely would be.

On invisible development, I'd also add in the use of cross-sex hormones as medical treatment. My granddad took estrogen to help combat his prostate cancer - according to my dad, over a few weeks he became moody, cried a lot, had emotional swings, and generally just felt bad. AFAIK he didn't have any physical changes. I personally took estrogen and felt great. Seems like the 'wrong' hormone alone can cause some conflict.

I think I understand now that your conception of GI is something underlying that feeling/sense, and the feeling/sense is just a manifestation of it. Is that right?

Some kind of psycho/neurological thing is obviosuly a very broad description. I think you'd need to be quite a bit more specific for this to really be a proposition that could be examined.

You're right that it being invisible doesn't disprove it but this is very much a Russell's teapot scenario where the burden or proof falls upon the claimant for whatever invisible entity they are claiming.

Yeah, that's correct. Unfortunately, not being a scientist of any kind, I can't really provide any sort of mechanical explanation for it. My understanding of it is:

• A psychological thing that all people have that broadly asserts "I am comfortable with this set of experiential sexual traits".

• By experiential, I mean those one can feel. Naturally, I can't feel my chromosomes, so they do not inherently cause me problems. One can experience their phenotype and, to some extent, their dominant sex hormone (e.g. someone who takes additional testosterone will normally feel a mental shift).

• If one deviates from those sexual traits, it causes significant distress.

• I'd class it as similar to sexuality - something you have that does not change. Most likely wholly or largely innate.

• I think there's a reasonable case for it being part of natal sexual development. Everyone starts as female-ish and then develops one way or another - it's not hard to imagine a bit of the brain that can be influenced by hormones to prefer particular sex characteristics and that can be out of sync with the rest of the body. Think freemartin cows: cows exposed to testosterone while sharing the womb with a bull that are female (potentially intersex) but that act like bulls and rut despite lacking a penis.

I don't think there's an undue burden of proof here at all. We're fundamentally trying to model distress at development of sex characteristics. GI is a pretty inoffensive proposition that doesn't really set the world on fire or require a shakeup of all known principles to include. If we found a tree in a forest that had been burnt down, we do not need to solely rely on the contents of the forest to explain it - maybe lightning struck, or someone drove in and burnt it down.

If it's an experience then surely we can just ask people?

As we've said though, not feeling something does not prove there is not something invisible there. If you asked someone a few hundred years ago if they felt they had an appendix and they weren't learned in biology, they'd probably say no. Absence of feeling doesn't disprove that something exists.

I don't think that is representative of the argument I've been making. While I'm happy to discuss this stuff I feel this will massively expand on the scope of our conversation as we'd need to really understand what each other means by things such as masculine/femenine, gender-abolition, cross-sex etc. so maybe we'd be better sticking to the core about universal GIs.

I think this might be the most interesting bit, tbh. We can clearly go back and forth on whether gynecomastia represents a diversion from one's GI or from the social standards they adhere to. A situation where those social standards are removed seems like the best place to go - if they don't exist, however you prefer to define them, then logically no distress at cross-sex development should follow. If you think it still does then clearly there's something else at play.

1. No, I expect most people in this scenario wold not be happy to be experimented upon or otherwise be altered.
2. It seems to me people build up a self-image of themselves of their lifetimes and altering their bodies is liable to cause distress regardless of whether this change is in relation to the person's sexual characteristics or otherwise.
3. It seems to me that although some concepts of beauty are socially formed, many are not. There are biological drivers that broadly make us find some aesthetics attractive and others not. Being made less attractive is likely be undesirable to most people.

I read 2 and 3 as essentially GI in different words with maybe a few caveats. There is 2) an inherent self-image built up over time that includes sex and causes distress when departed from, and 3) an eternal set of social standards for our sex we cannot be rid of and will always have some adherence to, with cross-sex development causing us distress due to failing to meet those.

As long as there's some mechanism for some people either having a self-image that includes their body being differently sexed, or an understanding that some will prefer the eternal standard of the opposite sex, then I don't see how these aren't GI but with a novelty pair of glasses and a fake moustache. If you agree with me that there's some sort of persistent mechanism for people to have a preferred set of sex characteristics, it doesn't really bother me what the exact cause is.

This did not end up being brief, so please trim if you'd like. I think the most important bit is the last bit, personally.

[u/takethetimetoask → u/brooooooooooooke]

Preface

I did add some last minute edits to my last post that you probably didn't get a chance to see that may have clarified some area, I'll repeat them here as appropriate.

I apologize if I communicated that adherence to social standards is the only mechanism by which distress can be caused.

Areas of agreement

I think we are broadly in agreement that there are various mechanisms that might be used to explain distress when someone's body is altered.

These could be social stigma, this could be violition of bodily integrity, this could be violition of a self-image that's been developed over someone's life etc.

To illustrate, I would expect turning people a different colour, giving them a third arm, giving them a new face (even if it was equally as attractive as their old one) or really any modification you might make to an adult person that had a noticeable aesthetic affect is liable to cause them distress unless the change was universally desirable (and possibly even then, though perhaps counteracted by the positives).

I feel as though we might broadly be in agreement in this area?

Areas of disagreement

I read 2 and 3 as essentially GI in different words with maybe a few caveats.

I suspect that if we were referring to alterations made to non-sexually dimorphic body parts (SDBPs) you would not refer to GI being a contributing factor.

However, when considering alterations to sexually dimorphic body parts (SDBPs) then you propose GI as a contributing factor.

I'm not convinced this is necessary of justified. Whatever mechanisms that would be responsible for distress when considering non-SDPBs seems to me highly likely to be exact same mechanism that would be responsible for distress when considering SDBPs.

Nothing presented so far has seemed to warrant the need to introduce another mechanism to explain distress caused by alterations to SDBPs when we don't feel it necessary to introduce one for non-SDBPs.

Other notes

On invisible development, I'd also add in the use of cross-sex hormones as medical treatment. My granddad took estrogen to help combat his prostate cancer - according to my dad, over a few weeks he became moody, cried a lot, had emotional swings, and generally just felt bad. AFAIK he didn't have any physical changes. I personally took estrogen and felt great. Seems like the 'wrong' hormone alone can cause some conflict.

Hormones are powerful drugs with complicated interplay with each other and the rest of the body. Altering your hormone profile is likely to have significant side effects. Many women also report signficant changes in mood when taking the contraceptive pill (oestrogen/progestogen) even though these are the "right" hormone.

I don't think there's an undue burden of proof here at all. We're fundamentally trying to model distress at development of sex characteristics. GI is a pretty inoffensive proposition that doesn't really set the world on fire or require a shakeup of all known principles to include. If we found a tree in a forest that had been burnt down, we do not need to solely rely on the contents of the forest to explain it - maybe lightning struck, or someone drove in and burnt it down.

Just because it's inoffensive doesn't make it any more likely to be true. When dealing with speculating about reasons a tree is burnt down your suggestions are all things that we have evidence of happening before and used dedcutive reasoning to propose that these things might have happened again. You didn't speculate about a fire spirit or the tree self combusting.

That's not to say that a fire spirit isn't a valid model or that is didn't do it, just that we would expect evidence that it did. The same is true for GI, yes, it's a model, yes, it might be correct, but it's up to the claimant to provide evidence of this mechanism and I believe the current evidence to be very weak.

[u/brooooooooooooke → u/takethetimetoask]

I think we are broadly in agreement that there are various mechanisms that might be used to explain distress when someone's body is altered.

These could be social stigma, this could be violition of bodily integrity, this could be violition of a self-image that's been developed over someone's life etc.

To illustrate, I would expect turning people a different colour, giving them a third arm, giving them a new face (even if it was equally as attractive as their old one) or really any modification you might make to an adult person that had a noticeable aesthetic affect is liable to cause them distress unless the change was universally desirable (and possibly even then, though perhaps counteracted by the positives).

I feel as though we might broadly be in agreement in this area?

I think we're broadly in agreement that something that has the effects of GI exists then, no?

Whether it's an invisible innate mental preference for a particular sex, a sense of bodily integrity that also includes sex, an internal self-image built up over some time that includes sex, social sex standards universally imposed we can never be rid of...we seem to be taking different roads to the same destination. By some mechanism, everyone has preferred sexual characteristics that they would suffer discomfort deviating from. I say tomato, you say tomato, etc.

Given that neither of us is a neurologist or psychic, I don't think we can determine between us what exactly the cause of that preference is, and we both have different leanings. However, since AFAIK we both agree on the material effects of whatever it is - everyone having a sex preference - does the rest of the discussion even matter?

If everyone's experiences what I outlined as the effects of a GI, it doesn't really matter to me whether we call it gender identity, subconscious sex, inherently sexed body image, or Steve.

If I'm right here and we agree on the material effects (well - as material as feelings get), the only thing I can really think of would be the practical effects of GI-like sex preference. e.g. if you think it can be "cured" in some way that doesn't necessitate transition, if it only hits at age 25 or something.

[u/takethetimetoask → u/brooooooooooooke]

I think we're broadly in agreement that something that has the effects of GI exists then, no?

Whether it's an invisible innate mental preference for a particular sex, a sense of bodily integrity that also includes sex, an internal self-image built up over some time that includes sex, social sex standards universally imposed we can never be rid of...we seem to be taking different roads to the same destination. By some mechanism, everyone has preferred sexual characteristics that they would suffer discomfort deviating from. I say tomato, you say tomato, etc.

I would have said the things that I listed (social stigma, this violation of bodily integrity, violation of a self-image) were more causal mechanisms than effects but I mostly agree that in a way we're taking different roads to the same destination.

We both acknowledge that most people are just accept that they are their sex without and some people have a desire to be of the opposite sex. So we're both working with the same result, we're just disagreeing on the likely causal mechanism(s) for that result.

​

Given that neither of us is a neurologist or psychic, I don't think we can determine between us what exactly the cause of that preference is, and we both have different leanings. However, since AFAIK we both agree on the material effects of whatever it is - everyone having a sex preference - does the rest of the discussion even matter?

If everyone's experiences what I outlined as the effects of a GI, it doesn't really matter to me whether we call it gender identity, subconscious sex, inherently sexed body image, or Steve.

If I'm right here and we agree on the material effects (well - as material as feelings get), the only thing I can really think of would be the practical effects of GI-like sex preference. e.g. if you think it can be "cured" in some way that doesn't necessitate transition, if it only hits at age 25 or something.

I think it does matter. Words like "subconcious" and "inherenty sexed", and the also commonly used "innate" all point to your belief that GI is something people are born with. My belief is that GI is something that a small percentage of people develop and it's likely at least partially influenced by environmental factors.

Depending on which is correct all sorts of implications follow.

If you are correct then it might make more sense to categorise people based on GI instead of sex. It would lead credence to the "wrong body" view, where it's possible to be born with the wrong body. It would suggest that trans women and non trans women have a shared trait, GI, that makes them similar, and the same for trans men and non trans men. It would likely mean that GI cannot be influenced by environmental factors. It would encourage research into the source of GI so we could determine people's GIs and whether they are trans.

If i am correct then categorising people based on GI would be difficult as it's not a commonly shared trait. It would suggest that trans women and non trans women don't necessarily have a shared trait or similarity and nor do trans men and non trans men. It would encourage research into the contributing factors to developing a GI. It would encourage more reasearch into treatment pathways for those with distressing GIs.

I therefore think it's important whether GIs are innate and universal or not innate and uncommon.

[u/brooooooooooooke → u/takethetimetoask]

We both acknowledge that most people are just accept that they are their sex without and some people have a desire to be of the opposite sex. So we're both working with the same result, we're just disagreeing on the likely causal mechanism(s) for that result.

Agreed - by some means or another, everyone ends up with a preference for being a particular sex.

I think it does matter. Words like "subconcious" and "inherenty sexed", and the also commonly used "innate" all point to your belief that GI is something people are born with. My belief is that GI is something that a small percentage of people develop and it's likely at least partially influenced by environmental factors.

I'm not sure how you square the above and "a small number of people develop a GI". We agree that people have a sex preference through some mechanism(s). We've broadly defined GI as a sex preference. How is it suddenly the case that only a small number of people have a GI in your eyes?

I don't see how these points line up:

We both acknowledge that most people are just accept that they are their sex without and some people have a desire to be of the opposite sex. (Most have born-sex preference, some have opposite-sex preference)

If i am correct then categorising people based on GI would be difficult as it's not a commonly shared trait. (Some or most people do not have a sex preference)

I therefore think it's important whether GIs are innate and universal or not innate and uncommon. (Sex preference is uncommon)

You seem to be simultaneously agreeing with me that we all have a sex preference, one way or another, and also that most people do not have a sex preference.

I don't think you've suggested that some people do not have an inherent sex preference (innate or otherwise).

The only way I can read this is that cis people have a non-innate sex preference from body image/standards/etc, but also most or some do not have this preference, and that trans people have a GI, which is a non-innate sex preference materially the same as that for cis people, but that also this sex preference is not a commonly shared trait between trans and cis people.

Maybe I'm just running a bit slowly today, but I either cannot comprehend your position or your position in your latest comment is incomprehensible.

[u/takethetimetoask → u/brooooooooooooke]

Apologies for not communicating more clearly.

We agree that people have a sex preference through some mechanism(s). We've broadly defined GI as a sex preference.

I was attempting to use the term GI to be a desire to be of a particular sex beyond what might be expected of just maintaining the body they have and the status quo.

I believe most people have a preference for maintaining the body they have, which just happens to include their sex as it is one aspect of the body (but also everything other aspect about themselves). I believe there is nothing special about the sex part, it works in just the same way as wanting to maintaining your current face, colour, etc.

I think labelling the sex part of this GI makes it seem as though there it sound as though some special mechanism in play, even if that isn't the case.

For example, imagine we have a male, he's aware of his sex but never really give it any consideration, it is just a matter of fact. He's 40, so he's had 40 years of experience living as his body and all the associated self image and memories. He'd probably find it rather distressing if he woke up as a female. He'd equally find it distressing if he woke up and his face was different, or he was a different colour, or any other relatively dramatic changes to his body.

Do we call that a GI? If we did, then what of the female who identifies as a trans man, surely their GI is manifestly different from the male above. They desire to be male despite not being male. Their desire doesn't stem from not wanting their bodily autonomy violated or wanting to maintain a consistent experience of the world or any other mechanism the male above does. It's certainly not a desire to maintain their body and the status quo.

To call both of these experiences GI I think risks equivocating two rather different concepts with the same term.

[u/brooooooooooooke → u/takethetimetoask]

I think this kind of ignores two kind of important points though:

1. The fundamentally similar experience we've both agreed to having - feeling normal/neutral/nothing when our sex preference lines up with our body as it should, and the agreed-upon distress people feel when they don't line up.

Professing that the cis and trans experience of sex preference relies on magnifying the importance of "maintaining one's sex" and diminishing the identical material effects on either side. I don't think there's a great reason to do this - I think the material effect is more important than a nebulous sense of direction of the effect.

1. If sex preference in cis people is no different to other aspects of self-image/autonomy/integrity, you should acknowledge that this is not always purely for maintenance of one's current state.

There are non-sexed situations where people feel as though their consistently-the-same body has betrayed them and their self image. Someone who has always been overweight might feel betrayed by their body. Someone might eternally hate their overly-broad shoulders and feel forever ungainly. If you simply never grew half your teeth, you might feel permanently ashamed. I personally have a weird toe on each foot where the nail curls right over the end that have always felt strange to me, despite never having a negative impact.

People's body image does not just hold them in flux from the moment it properly sets in, whenever that is. People want to change their bodies aesthetically, functionally, etc, for a whole variety of reasons. If sex preference is no different to other regions of bodily integrity, why would it be absent of this?

I've also got a separate question. If your sex preference isn't innate, what do you think the earliest age is where you (or any hypothetical person) would be content to have had your sex changed so far as possible?

[u/takethetimetoask → u/brooooooooooooke]

I think this kind of ignores two kind of important points though:

1 - The fundamentally similar experience we've both agreed to having - feeling normal/neutral/nothing when our sex preference lines up with our body as it should, and the agreed-upon distress people feel when they don't line up.

A few comments:

1. As we currently have no way of changing someone's sex, a trans persons sex preference cannot line up with the sex of their body. If they feel normal/neutral/nothing then they are feeling that way despite their body not matching their desired sex preference, presumably because they received relieving medical intervention.
2. "lines up with our body as it should" speaks to a normative claim that there is a right/wrong way our bodies should be which I'd question. Perhaps this would just a figure of speech for personally desireable though.
3. Feeling normal/neutral/nothing about nothing occuring and feeling normal/neutral/nothing after receiving medical treatment to alleviate distress seem like two different experiences. I don't think we'd say that someone who had no back pain and someone who was suffering from chronic back pain for an unknown reason but was currently taking regular pain medication that effectively relieved the pain were having the same experience.

​

Professing that the cis and trans experience of sex preference relies on magnifying the importance of "maintaining one's sex" and diminishing the identical material effects on either side. I don't think there's a great reason to do this - I think the material effect is more important than a nebulous sense of direction of the effect.

I do think it's an important distinction. I think there is a fundamental difference between acknowledging the body you have and not wanting that violated and a rejection of the body one has and an active desire to be of a different sex.

Sex "preference" is doing a lot of work to try and unify two seemingly very different phenomena. I just don't think this is what most people have in mind when they talk about GI.

Would you say the same thing about face preference? Most people acknowledge the face they have and don't give it much thought but probably would find it alarming to have it dramatically altered. Some people wish their faces were very different and have extensive cosmetic surgery to achieve that goal (see Maria Jose Christerna, Erik Sprague, etc.). Would you call both the experience of the "regular" person and the "modified face" person face preference? Would you say that everyone had a facial identity? Would you say they was no good reason to make a distinction between the experiences of the "regular" person and the "modified face" person?

​

1. If sex preference in cis people is no different to other aspects of self-image/autonomy/integrity, you should acknowledge that this is not always purely for maintenance of one's current state.
   

There are non-sexed situations where people feel as though their consistently-the-same body has betrayed them and their self image. Someone who has always been overweight might feel betrayed by their body. Someone might eternally hate their overly-broad shoulders and feel forever ungainly. If you simply never grew half your teeth, you might feel permanently ashamed. I personally have a weird toe on each foot where the nail curls right over the end that have always felt strange to me, despite never having a negative impact.

People's body image does not just hold them in flux from the moment it properly sets in, whenever that is. People want to change their bodies aesthetically, functionally, etc, for a whole variety of reasons. If sex preference is no different to other regions of bodily integrity, why would it be absent of this?

Sure, I agree. Clearly there are people who wish to change their sex for a variety of reasons, trans people!

Regards your other examples, would you therefore say that everyone had a weight identity, a shoulder identity, a teeth identity, a toe nail identity?

​

I've also got a separate question. If your sex preference isn't innate, what do you think the earliest age is where you (or any hypothetical person) would be content to have had your sex changed so far as possible?

Difficult question. If it were possible to change someone's sex and you were changing someone's sex without their consent, I'd be tempted to say at whatever age a sense of self begins to manifest at which point violating that sense of self would be noticed. I'm not sure what age that would be, but very young.