Gay\transgender -- not by genetics, not by upbringing, not by choice

To use my extreme comparison again - If you woke up one day to find yourself in the body of a baboon would you accept some brain tweaks to give you the identity of a baboon as an answer to your plight?Or would surgery to give you the body that accords with your identity be preferable?How can you change the brain without changing the "me"....?

I've never suggested that there were physiological reasons for black people wanting to pass as white. I've been saying that the reasons are largely social. Remember?So, if transgenderism is caused by brain structure, why not brain surgery instead of genital surgery to "fix" it? And if cosmetic surgery is the answer to genital dissatisfaction why isn't it the answer to racial dissatisfaction?In Message 196
As I've said before, we're not talking about changing the whole brain, just one little bit. Changing a flat tire on a Subaru doesn't stop it from being a Subaru. And putting a Cadillac medallion on it doesn't make it a Cadillac either.

...because brain surgery is inherently very risky to a person's life as compared to genital reassignment surgery. And because the patient wants to fix the body and doesn't consider there to be a problem with his/her mind or identity. But mostly the inherent greater risks involved in brain surgery, not to mention the fact that not all brain-structure "problems" are possible to solve surgically.Just a guess.

That's insanity, to publically fund such ridiculous, under-reasearched surgery. I did a little search on it and it seems up until a certain point your country didn't publically fund it either. But political pressure changed that some-what. It is not fully funded at this point in your country either.In any case, I'm still skeptical as to the benefits. And since you haven't presented anything other than a hypothetical in which everything goes great, I don't find any reason to change my opinion. And again I'll ask you, should doctors give in to the demands of a patient on the basis of desperation?I am allowed to disagee with that on that basis.- Oni

what benefits other than the persons getting the surgery's psychological health? that is why a person spends years and years getting mental health treatment for gender dysphoria, to see if there is another way to help them. it depends on what you mean by desperation, if the patient is desperate enough that they will end their life out of unhappiness, then yes doctors should give into that demand.their job is to help people not rigidly stick to rules, if the patient's mental state would better after the surgery then it should be done.
in fact that is what a growing number of mental health professionals say. not due to politics as some want to claim, but due to the evidence that the people that had gender reassignment surgery were happier for it.

Yes but I presented a few links in this thread showing that in many cases patients were in fact worse off after the surgery. And you can't know which patients will benefit from it until after the surgery, so there runs a high risk that the doctors may be making people psycologically worse off than before.So my point remains that I'm skeptical as to the benefits given the above reasons. Don't you feel though, that someone threatening to end their lives needs mental care rather than aggressive surgery? There in lies the problem. Studies show many patients are worse off.- Oni

Well given that there do seem to be physiological reasons for transgenderism it seems that we should be able to agree that your comparison is a false one. So you object to people having surgery on their genitals on the basis that they should have brain surgery instead?That's just bonkers.

My point is that your claim that this surgery is only happening to make doctors rich rather than for the benefit of the patient is simply untrue. Where in the above do you see the "giving in" part? If the doctors assessment is that surgery is the only remaining viable option then I don't see how you can claim to know better. You can disagree on whatever basis you please. But I'm still not sure why feel that your opinion is in any way superior to that of those doctors who undertake such surgery on the basis that it benefits the patient.

"Seems to be" is a pretty thin excuse for questioning the comparison. When you can show that physiological differences are the predominant cause of transgenderism and when you can show that genital surgery is a reliable cure for the distress of transgenderism, it may be time to re-evaluate the comparison. Meanwhile, you could try giving an honest answer to the question: Why not use surgery to "correct" an incorectly assigned race? I think it makes sense to have eye surgery to correct eye problems and knee surgery to correct knee problems.

But not gender surgery for a gender problem.Less sarcastically - brain surgery is not all-powerful, and neither is it particularly risk-free. Even when a problem can be specifically traced back to a specific region of the brain, we still cannot just "surgery" the problem away. Cutting does not create new neural connections. Gender identity problems are not like tumors. What, precisely, would you have a neurosurgeon do to the brain to resolve a problem of gender identity?Therapy has similarly proven useless. It's akin to trying to use therapy to alter sexual orientation - harmful tot he patient and useless for the intended purpose.What remains is gender reassignment surgery, which (even if you doubt how effective it is) is still both safer and more effective than nonexistent neurosurgery or wrongheaded therapy.So why, precisely, should we not use the treatment that is available? Even a 20% success rate is better than 0%.It seems to me that the real basis for arguing against gender reassignment is an emotional reaction of distaste toward the "mutilation" of genitals. I wonder if those who have used that term have ever actually seen the results of a successful modern gender reassignment?

That question is for the people who claim that transgenderism has a physiological cause. So far, we've seen little evidence that brain physiology causes transgender problems or that genital surgery cures them. I'm not squeamish about genital mutilation; I'm just calling it what it is. It seems to me that the ones who find it distasteful are the ones who are looking for a politically correct euphemism.

No, you are the one suggesting that brain surgery be used if gender identity disorders were traced to a physiological brain issue.So assuming that is true, what would you like a neurosurgeon to do about it? Most brain-based disorders cannot be resolved through surgery. Surgery cuts and removes, it does not reassign faulty connections. You can use surgery to remove a tumor, but you cannot use surgery to predictably alter one's identity.Therefore, even if gender identity disorders are caused by a physiological difference in the brain, it is highly unlikely that surgery would be able to "correct" the problem.So why use an incredibly risky form of surgery that will be unlikely to ever be able to solve the problem, when another treatment is available? If that were the case, ringo, you wouldn;t be calling it "mutilation." Gender reassignment surgery is not mutilation. It's gender reassignment. Granted, female-to-male isn;t so great at the moment, but you'd actually be hard-pressed to identify a surgically created vagina. They have normal sexual sensitivity, and even self-lubricate. Other than reproduction, they're basically fully-functional...and they look as perfect as only a cosmetic surgeon can create. Tissue is not so much removed (only the erectile tissue is removed through microsurgery to retain the fine blood vessels and nerves) as it is repurposed.As opposed to actual genital mutilation, which involves the removal of tissue, often for the express purpose of removing the possibility of sexual pleasure and for degrading the victim with no medical benefit in mind.I think your association of an actual legitimate form of surgery with a valid medical goal with genital mutilation is both offensive and factually incorrect.I;m not being politically correct - there's an actual distinction between gender reassignment and genital mutilation. Rather, you are minimizing the horror of genital mutilation and projecting your own discomfort onto transgendered individuals.Surgically turning a penis into a vagina at the behest of the patient after long years of therapy and in conjunction with hormone treatments with the intent of actually providing a real improvement to the patients life is not at all equivalent to scraping off the clitoris and labia of a screaming, unwilling pubescent girl with a rusty razor blade and no anesthesia! Associating the two with the same terminology is beyond offensive, it's detached from reality and plain wrong.

I'm the one who's suggesting that if the eye is broken, fix the eye and if the knee is broken, fix the knee; if the genitals ain't broken, don't fix 'em. It's cosmetic. So is surgically altering your eyes to make them appear Chinese. It doesn't make you Chinese. And I've never suggested that it was.Mutilation is an alteration of a body part. It covers everything from piercing an earlobe to amputating a leg. You're just special pleading for one example.

In the US where it is very lucrative it may be a huge part of the decision process. As with cosmetic surgery. If someone is theatening to kill themselves, and the only thing that will prevent that from happening is their demand for the surgery. Doing the surgery on the basis that they'll kill themselves is giving in to their demand. You don't have to say it for it to be implied in what you're saying. I provided links showing the failure in the surgery making people's lives better. Showing that it did NOT benefit the patient. Where is your proff that it does? All you locked on was one link that said in very small cases it does benefit. Which means in the majority of cases it does not. So my opinion seems to be the one reflecting the evidence. Yours is based on what exactly?- Oni

When you show me that there is any similar basis for your notion of "incorrectly assigned race" to the following I'll take it more seriously: Until then I'll just treat it as a false comparison. Then gender surgery to correct gender problems....?