| > So we should call that sex dysphoria, gender would be a misnomer here (see above) Agree. > As you say it is like the leg amputee, clearly that is not the right course of action When you talk about the "right course of action", this is subjective. How do you evaluate that? Surely it is personal long-term day-to-day happiness, and with some consideration for the happiness of family members and then society. I think there are cases where people actually live a happier life from this amputation. It's a really strange thing. Like they are happier even though they now are disabled. I think normal people simply cannot grasp this because they don't have any analogous situations. Perhaps it could be simulated in virtual reality. It's really interesting to read interviews with these guys. https://www.thecut.com/2015/01/what-its-like-to-crave-amputa... They seem like normal people. Regarding surgery, you could also imagine that one day you grew breasts and large female nipples/areolas. Would you be embarrassed to be at the beach with a top off? Would you want them removed if you could? Absolutely yes for me. And this is very different from manboobs. I just googled that and yeh it looks very weird and its a thing. > Rather the gender change is sex conforming in this line of thought. Hmm, interesting to think about. An interesting thought experiment is to imagine having lived a life as a male, and then waking up as a female. What would you do? How would you modify your life? Would you look at surgery? I think its different with male to female and female to male. I always view the "female gender" as kind of a "male+". In that men are kind of like a default gender and then women have all these extra societal expectations. Like females can easily be males by just doing less female stuff - makeup, clothing, etc. Women dress in men's clothing all the time, but not the other way around. What's interesting is when you ask the question to trans people: "why don't you just go along with the sex you were assigned", they always talk of a very strong inner feeling that they simply can't. I haven't been able to find someone to present it in a way that is understandable for a cis person...which does make me skeptical of the need to be seen as a societal woman, vs it being related to other issues (general depression and homosexuality). But I think you are right in that a sex change shouldn't really require a gender change. |