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

Fair point.

I've cited the evidence based conclusions of the researchers in the field.But apparently you know better.I've also put forward a hypothetical idealised solution to see if you are objecting to surgery or simply denying that transsexualism is an issue of gender identity.You won't engage on that front either. Female brain characteristics in male bodies and vice versa. What are you suggesting the cause of transsexualism is and how are you proposing it be treated?

Are you asking how we can identify female brain characteristics in male bodies? (or vice versa)Or are you asking how we establish what gender one internally identifies with?

How do those conclusions apply to four-year-olds? If pigs could fly, I'd gladly pay for all the gender re-assignments in the world A mechanism requires connecting those characteristics with transgender "feelings". How do those characteristics cause those feelings? I think it's pretentious to suggest a cause for a specific part of the identity. What's the cause of nationalism? What causes one to identify with an ethnicity or a race? If it isn't a disease, why does it need to be treated? My proposal has always been to accept people as they are and to offer them whatever counselling and support they need so that they can be comfortable being who they are.

Speaking for myelf, I don't identify particularly strongly with either gender. How would I go about deciding what my "internal gender" is?Edited by ringo, : Splling.

What do you think it is? How do you think of yourself - as a "he" or a "she?"

I think of myself as "me". I identify as a Canadian and even more strongly as a westerner. I identify with my German ethnicity. I identify as a human being. I don't have any similar feelings about gender.

Then if we really want to label you, the closest term I could use would be "asexual," although that term is already used for those who have no sexual orientation (ie, they feel no sexual attraction at all).But unless you find yourself experiencing trauma or distress over your personal identity and its relation to your physical biology, there's not really a problem.Perhaps the point you're attempting to make is that we should not put so much significance on gender identity, since you yourself seem to get by just fine without doing so? Perhaps those experiencing gender identity dysphoria should just "get over it" and "accept themselves as who and what they are?"That would be a valid point, if everyone were like you. But your ability to disregard gender with regard to your own identity does not mean that others are capable of doing so, or that they would want to. And there seems to be no great social or personal harm in allowing them their own choice in the matter.

Everybody can aspire to be like me. You never know what you can do until you try. I've been falsely accused more than once in this thread of denying people their choice. Actually, the surgical option seems to be less successful than I might have guessed. I just don't want anybody to be sold a snake-oil miracle cure.

Would it be fair to say that any perceived opposition to gender transition on your part is primarily due to what you believe to be a low success rate for patients who undergo transition?

The success rate is a matter of record and was posted by others, not me.I would say that the "perceived opposition" is primarily due to stereotyping me as a bigot, similarly to stereotyping how males and females "should" behave. I question the politically correct line, so I must hate homosexuals and transgendered people.

That didn't really answer my question.Is the success rate of gender transition the primary concern behind any opposition you might have toward it being performed? Is there a different primary factor? Do you not actually oppose it at all?

Do you dispute the evidence based conclusions of researchers in the field that I have cited? If so - On what evidential basis do you dispute these conclusions?Don't bother replying to this post if you won't explicitly answer that question. I'm not asking you about flying pigs. I'm asking you if your objection here is to surgery or if you would object, technology allowing, to the sort of non-surgical methods of body transformation I hypothetically proposed too. I want to know exactly what it is you are objecting to here. That is what my hypothetical scenario is aimed at discerning. Only you know why you want to avoid confronting that distinction.Would you object to the hypothetical treatment detailed in Message 220 or not? If you want the biochemical interractions of synapses or somesuch you are going to have to investigate more deeply than asking people on a debate board. I know that feelings of euphoria can be caused by seratonin in the brain but I don't know the "mechanism" in the deeply technical sense you seem to be demanding. Likewise I don't know the technical mechanism that connects gender specific brain characteristics with a desire to physically be that sex. But why do you think such technicalities are relevant here? You may find it "pretentious". But many transsexuals and those researchers in the field whose conclusions you dismiss disagree with you. They consider it highly relevant. Because it is having a damaging effect on people. And if they remain deeply troubled by "who they are" because who they are in their mind and who they are physicially doesn't match then what?It's all very well preaching peace and love as an answer to all ills but what do you do when the feelings of gender dysphoria under consideration have a physiological basis in the brain rather than being the purely cultural phenomenon your "Let's just be nice to one another" approach might be able to solve?Do you really think peace and love will resolve an identity mismatch issue based on brain physiology? Or are you denying, in spite of the evidence to the contrary, that brain physiology has any role in transsexualism?Which is it?

As I said, the success rate is lower than I might have expected. Since I wasn't aware of the low success rate at the beginning of the thread, no, that is not my primary concern. It is, of course, a concern when any proposed action has a poor chance of success. If you read the thread, my initial concern was about calling the surgery "corrective" and you yourself have subsequently confirmed that there is nothing incorrect to correct. A growing concern throughout the thread has been the apparent inability and/or blatant refusal by you and others to honestly address the issues raised. I have the same attitude to gender reassignment as I do to abortion: I don't personally like the idea but I don't tell other people what to do.

Do those conclusions apply to four-year-olds like the example in the OP? It's no bother. I've answered that. In a hypothetical situation, I have no hypothetical objection to hypothetical surgery. In a real world situation, I object to doing an appendectomy to correct an inner ear problem. You claim to know that there's a connection but you don't know what the connection is. That's like claiming you know that God designed the universe but you don't know how. I'm applying the same skepticism to physiologically-caused transgenderism as I apply to a God-caused universe. I'm not dismissing anybody's conclusions. The conclusions don't appear to apply to the example in the OP. (And I don't know how those transexuals' opinions are relevant to a scientific question.) If it has a damaging effect, it is a disease. Make up your mind. Neither the "identity mismatch" nor the basis in brain physiology has been substantiated.