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by LadyCailin 444 days ago
That’s mostly correct, that “gender identity” doesn’t matter for physical medicine. But hormone levels and actual internal organ sets matter a huge amount, more than genes or original genitalia, in general. There are of course genetically linked diseases, but there are people with XX chromosomes that are born with a penis, and XY people that are born with a vulva, and genetically linked diseases don’t care about external genitalia either way.

You simply can’t reduce it to birth sex assignment and that’s it, if you do, you will, as you say, end up with wrong and potentially harmful treatment, or lack of treatment.
1 comments
nonethewiser 444 days ago
>But hormone levels and actual internal organ sets matter a huge amount, more than genes or original genitalia

Or current genitalia for that matter. It's just a matter of the genitalia signifying other biological realities for 99.9% of people. For sure more info like average hormone levels or ranges over time would be more helpful.

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LadyCailin 444 days ago
Yeah, sure, and for most people it’s a fair enough proxy. But if it has to be boiled down to exactly one of “M” or “F”, then “birth sex” must not be the deciding factor. If it must be a single criteria, it should be current hormone levels, artificial or not. And, since most trans people who actually transition and live as their preferred gender identity are on hormones, “gender identity” is a good proxy for 99.99% of the population, including the set of people for who “birth genitalia” is also a good proxy. But ideally, it doesn’t get simplified this much in the first place. And of course, it doesn’t, in practice, because most people actually form a relationship with their doctor, and they treat holistically, based on individual factors, and not simply whether the medical record says M or F.

But, if we must over generalize, “gender identity” really is the most useful proxy, in fact, and it also happily happens to be quite inclusive too.

Of course this conversation started from a transphobic viewpoint, which doesn’t actually care about any of these distinctions anyways, regardless of the merit, it’s just someone being triggered about someone respecting someone else’s gender identity.

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