Do we have a responsibility to accept transgendered individuals?

[begbert2]

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re kind of stuck with that. You already agreed with me a few posts back that society is obligated to tolerate, in personal and professional contexts, whatever legally valid choices individuals make about their personal sexual identities, as long as those choices do not adversely affect their job performance.
[/QUOTE]
I still don’t have to refer to anyone by either their first name or by any gender specific pronouns, though. I merely have to not be an ass to them about it, and to not interfere with that person. Believe it or not there are several people at my workplace who I basically have nothing to do with; it’s not an assault upon them that I refrain from interacting with them.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
And I’d have to say that even the absolute bare minimum of “tolerance” for other individuals’ choices about sexual identity would have to include being willing to call them by the name they have chosen and refer to them by the gender pronouns that they identify with.
[/QUOTE]
No, the absolute bare minimum of tolerance is refraining from putting iron filings in the person’s coffee cup. I don’t have to call mswas a dragon and I don’t have to call Stanton a woman, as long as I don’t bash anyone about the head and shoulders with my personal queasiness at lower abdominal surgery.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
I mean, geezlouise, dude, nobody’s expecting you to form a Transgender Support Group at your workplace and lead discussion groups about phalloplasties or anything like that. But referring to your colleague by his or her chosen name and pronouns is pretty much the least you can do, and you should be prepared to do it.
[/QUOTE]
No, the least I can do is not be an ass and vote my coworker out of office. (Was that even legal?) There’s a difference between “live and let live” and “being the nice guy”. One supposes it would be nice if I was the nice guy, but objectively speaking, I’m not that sociable or interpersonal under the best of circumstances. In this case I’d just back off.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
I don’t think so. But if you consider it an invalid comparison, then by all means change it to involve another type of voluntary modification, such as a nose job or a hair transplant, instead. Thus:
[/QUOTE]
Erm-yeah. I’m thinking that a “why’d you go and do a thing like that to yourself?” would be in order, in such a case. Assuming I was sociable enough with the person to initiate a conversation at all, of course. I wouldn’t ignore the cosmetic alteration, either way.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Oh, now I think I understand. You weren’t asking for advice on the polite way to deal with a colleague’s getting a sex change, or how to gracefully avoid the subject (and/or the colleague) so as to minimize the discomfort you inadvertently feel in dealing with the situation.

Rather, you were trying to find out how far you could get away with deliberately expressing negative reactions to your colleague’s sex change, in order to make him/her feel uncomfortable about the situation too.
[/QUOTE]
No, I was addressing the OP. And, despite your impressive mind-reading powers, the element I was specifically pursuing here was your peculiar “we as a society are obligated not only to tolerate those choices, but as far as possible to ignore them” assertion. If the person has nothing to do with us, we should certainly not chase them down and pester them, that’s true. But realistically speaking can a person reasonably expect to drastically change their appearance and identity and not at least encounter surprise, confusion, and questions? Comments? Personal privacy is all well and good but you’re talking about a member of a group here.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Sorry to disappoint you, but the answer is still the same. It is rude to express unsolicited negative opinions about any aspect of a colleague’s personal appearance, whether it be a dress, a tattoo, a nose job, filed teeth, or a sex change.
[/QUOTE]
This comment makes complete and total sense - if and only if the person is basically a total stranger to you. (In which case you needn’t call them by their first name.)

If the person is someone you work closely with and/or have a personal friendship with, they should damn well expect you to honestly express your opinions and ask them what inspired thier unexpected course of action. I can’t imagine pussyfooting around something like that with anyone I cared even half a whit about.

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
If you feel that your colleague’s individual choices about personal appearance are degrading his/her job performance, then by all means complain to a supervisor about it. Otherwise, you should mind your manners and keep your negative reactions to yourself.
[/QUOTE]
And get slapped with the label of ‘bigot’ by every kneejerk PC policeperson in the area? Not a chance. I’ll let somebody else take the fall for that one.

[Kalhoun]

[QUOTE=begbert2]
I would think that merely referring to them by their new feminine name would be explicitly noticing their gender change. And I personally (with my current lack of acclimatization) would find it difficult to refer to them by either the new name or either gender-specific pronoun after they made the change. Y’see, I, like mswas don’t classify “was (apparently) a man but has been surgically altered to resemble a woman” as “woman”; unlike him, I have a greater hangup with referring to persons by pronouns not belonging to them.

Barring avoiding them entirely, it’d be dang hard not to "notice"the change, since you can’t even speak about them without bringing it up; either by explicitly accepting and agreeing with the change, or by overtly denying it. (Or by toggling back and forth like a twit.)

Thank god last names are gender inspecific; one can refer to Stanton that way. Of course some people view exclusively referencing someone by their last name as being impolite; one can’t win for losing.

I’m not sure that being all weirded out isn’t the normal way to react to someone who’s just swapped genders on you. Can I just be all mute, cold, and distant? Impersonal-like? Perpetually treating them like a stranger? Is that acceptable?

And, seriously now, isn’t it just a teeny bit disingenuous of you to compare a sex change to an involuntary condition like a birth defect or an amputation? All talk of suicide rates aside, it’s is still an elective surgery for a non-fatal condition, right? I’d hate to think that you’re shifting the goalposts in the process of waxing hyperbolic.

Personally I see gender reassignment surgery the same way I see tattoos, piercings, and men wearing women’s clothes. They’re elective choices people make because they want to; because they feel comfortable with the identity they see that change as representing. It’s perfectly fine for them to present themselves that way.

However, I don’t have to ignore tattoos, nose rings, or transvestite behavior. I may comment on them at will; I can be disturbed and unimpressed by them; I can even require and enforce dress codes that prohibit these things if I’m in a position of authority. This would be allowable because they’re neither unavoidable nor necessary.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if there’s a biological basis to it, I still don’t see why having the mental perception of being the other gender requires one to shunt gender roles in a physical, behavior, or appearance-related way when in a public setting, and I don’t see how doing so is any less a choice than a man choosing to wear a dress to work. I mean, most of our behaviors as, and reactions to the specific gender roles are mere societal constructions. (Excepting of course lust and reproductive urges, in which role you’ve already said I needn’t recognize transgendered persons at all.)

So: if the remaining relevant gender issues are mere social constructions, why is changing your clothes or your body necessary at all? You can have a masculine mind without using the men’s bathroom. If you want to adjust your behavior in a more masculine or feminine way, fine. You don’t want to play sports? Don’t play sports. You don’t want to play with dolls? Then don’t play with dolls. You do want to play with dolls? Then play with dolls. But why should anyone else give your doll-playing, or your desire to surgically modify yourself, any special consideration?

Me, I’m a thirty year old man who collects and plays with children’s toys. That’s one of the things I do. I don’t generally parade that around, because I expect most people to react negatively to that behavior of mine. If I do decide to announce my hobby (like I just did here), then I recognize that people have a right to react to that fact about me however they will, within the limits of legal behavior.

How would the decision to get an extensive and basically cosmetic surgery be any less comment-worthy than if I wore transformers T-shirts in public? How would it be a ‘protected’ subject? If I got my teeth filed into fangs because I was a career goth, is that a protected subject too? What if I have a chemical predisposition to being depressed?

Again, I’m not saying that you magically gain the right to fire* or attack somebody just because they decide to wear a shirt, or a dress, or they get a tattoo or a sex change; however is even reacting to it taboo? Why?

Is there something I’m missing here?

• (Unless of course a dress code or appearance requirement is pre-specified as a condition of employment, which apparently wasn’t a factor in Stanton’s case. Hell, s/he didn’t even get a change to get the operation before being canned!)
  [/QUOTE]

I don’t think anyone is expected to not notice. Actually, I think I read somewhere that most post-op transsexuals start over at a new job because the actual transition is so difficult on the job.

I don’t think the problem is that you notice, but how you notice. I would hope that if it were me going through a transition, I’d be able to talk frankly with my closer co-workers and come to some kind of expectation on both sides. They, in turn, might be able to help others understand and respond appropriately to the change.

But with regard to someone finding out that a co-worker transitioned 3 or 5 or 20 years earlier, you’ll probably never know. And a kind person would never bring it up knowing that it would cause that person pain. On the wide scale of what constitutes a woman, genetics is but a miniscule point on that line.

[Kalhoun]

[QUOTE=Sunrazor]
I have no idea how or at what point my emotional (and, I will concede, utterly illogical) reaction would kick in. I’ve never had it happen to me. I honestly don’t know what I would do or say. I can say that I find male-to-female change less tolerable to me personally than female-to-male, but that’s probably to be expected. I think I’d know a guy pretty darn well before I sat down to take his money at the poker table.

[/QUOTE]

You probably wouldn’t know. People have intimate relationships with transsexuals all the time and never know. mmmmwwwwaaahahahahahaha!

MtF: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TSgallery1.html

Scroll down for FtM: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TSsuccesses/TransMen.html

[MrDibble]

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
You probably wouldn’t know. People have intimate relationships with transsexuals all the time and never know. mmmmwwwwaaahahahahahaha!

[/QUOTE]

A point some posters(Siam Sam was one, I think) have made on a couple of occasions in relation to the Bangkok sex industry. Some of those are just transvestites, but some pre-op and post-op transexuals too.

Hell, I thought Ms.Was was a woman, myself.

[mswas]

[QUOTE=MrDibble]
Hell, I thought Ms.Was was a woman, myself.
[/QUOTE]

It’s intentional.

[mswas]

Miller You are presenting me only with a false dichotomy now. Either it is all materialistic or it is not materialistic. I explained both the material and non-material concerns I had. It seems like every example I come up with you then act as though it’s the ONLY example I made unless there is one you can use out of context to make my argument seem pointless and arbitrary. There are many systemic MATERIAL aspects that make a woman a woman. Hormone production, a Uterus, a Vagina, Hypothalamus, etc… Now, a woman can have a deficiency in one of these areas and remain a woman. From a physical standpoint the issue is whether or not they overwhelmingly lack these characteristics. A person only with an abnormal hypothalamus in a male body is a variant on male. Now obviously most people give a lot of importance to a penis or a vagina. If I have a penis, I can walk naked in the men’s locker room, if I have a vagina I can walk naked in the women’s locker room, regardless of what the rest of the anatomy is. I recognize that there are many cases both natural and due to cosmetic surgery where this outward attribute is the minority in their sexual makeup.

As far as non-material things go, there are a lot of issues of experience that define a woman. There is a reason we define a woman as being different from a girl. It is the sum of all attributes that defines the person’s gender, not individual characteristics like an abnormal hypothalamus.

I am for accepting the person as they are, not for pretending that they fit into a category that they really don’t.

[mswas]

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Good. And that’s all anybody is entitled to expect from you. Nobody has a right to monitor how we privately think about gender, as long as we are appropriately respectful of other individuals’ gender-identity choices in public and professional contexts.
[/quote]

Good.

So why the hell are you trying to defend the behavior of the anti-transgender folks on the Largo City Commission, who stubbornly refused to be appropriately respectful of other individuals’ gender-identity choices in public and professional contexts?

I took a side in a debate because I wanted to explore the notion of tolerance and how much we are required to tolerate other people versus how much they are required to tolerate us. It’s sort of zero sum in this case. Either the people in her office tolerate Ms. Stanton or Ms. Stanton tolerates them and leaves. The issue is who is tolerated in this case.

Could you tell us, as Bricker has now twice requested, how you use the word “woman” in the context of a person with CAIS (Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome)?

The answer is, I don’t really know. I would probably default to whatever they appear and leave it at that functionally. Otherwise, we modify gender to account for the aberration. We don’t simply call them a woman. Calling someone a transgender woman is a modification. We don’t need to necessarily come up with new categories.

I.e., a person with XY chromosomes, undescended testes, and no uterus, but otherwise a typically and naturally developed female body including breasts and a vagina, who self-identifies as a woman and presents as a woman.

Well, isn’t that essentially a hermaphrodite? Something we have a word for.

Is such a person a man, a woman, or something else? I’m not asking about whether you would treat such a person as a woman if you met her personally, because you’ve already explained that you would. I’m asking for your opinion about what that person “REALLY IS”, in terms of gender categories.

Socially a woman, functionally a hermaphrodite.

And if you aver that that person is neither a man nor a woman, then how should the person’s non-male-non-female gender category be classified in our society? Should people with CAIS use the men’s restroom, the women’s restroom, or a separate restroom of their own? Should they be referred to with masculine pronouns, feminine pronouns, or a different set of pronouns altogether?

I would eliminate gender assigned restrooms altogether if I had my way. It’s a pointless waste of resources to seperate them IMO. ;p I think we’ll default to appearances as far as gender pronouns go.

Please clarify for us how your use of the word “woman” relates to this context.

I’d go with functionality.

[Miller]

[QUOTE=begbert2]
And, seriously now, isn’t it just a teeny bit disingenuous of you to compare a sex change to an involuntary condition like a birth defect or an amputation? All talk of suicide rates aside, it’s is still an elective surgery for a non-fatal condition, right? I’d hate to think that you’re shifting the goalposts in the process of waxing hyperbolic.
[/QUOTE]

It’s not remotely disingenuous. Transgenderism is a birth defect. A sex change operation is the treatment for the defect. Being born with a club foot is also a non-fatal condition, but no one tries to make its correction into a moral argument.

[Telemark]

[QUOTE=mswas]
I’d go with functionality.
[/QUOTE]

What are the functional requirements to be a woman? To be a man? Be specific, because I think you’ll eliminate a lot of people with any functionality based definition.

[Der_Trihs]

[QUOTE=begbert2]
And, seriously now, isn’t it just a teeny bit disingenuous of you to compare a sex change to an involuntary condition like a birth defect or an amputation? All talk of suicide rates aside, it’s is still an elective surgery for a non-fatal condition, right?
[/quote]
Um . . . isn’t that basically saying, “It’s non-fatal except for the dying part” ?

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if there’s a biological basis to it, I still don’t see why having the mental perception of being the other gender requires one to shunt gender roles in a physical, behavior, or appearance-related way when in a public setting, and I don’t see how doing so is any less a choice than a man choosing to wear a dress to work. I mean, most of our behaviors as, and reactions to the specific gender roles are mere societal constructions. (Excepting of course lust and reproductive urges, in which role you’ve already said I needn’t recognize transgendered persons at all.)

So: if the remaining relevant gender issues are mere social constructions, why is changing your clothes or your body necessary at all? You can have a masculine mind without using the men’s bathroom. If you want to adjust your behavior in a more masculine or feminine way, fine. You don’t want to play sports? Don’t play sports. You don’t want to play with dolls? Then don’t play with dolls. You do want to play with dolls? Then play with dolls. But why should anyone else give your doll-playing, or your desire to surgically modify yourself, any special consideration?
[/quote]
Because they tend to suffer and die otherwise. Also, while the details of male/female behaviors and dress are cultural, the fact of those differences are likely biologically hardwired ( note how universal they are to humans ). And as for the surgery, how would you like it to feel like your entire body is a huge deformity ?

[QUOTE=mswas]
Well, isn’t that essentially a hermaphrodite? Something we have a word for.
[/QUOTE]
IIRC one term used for them ( and other not-quite standard males and females ) is “pseudohermaphrodite”, because they don’t qualify as a hermaphrodite. After all, they look female, act female, and have the brains of females ( and are arguable “more female” in the brain than normal females ), with a few missing internal bits and undeveloped internal male parts. They are not hermaphrodites.

[Miller]

[QUOTE=Telemark]
What are the functional requirements to be a woman? To be a man? Be specific, because I think you’ll eliminate a lot of people with any functionality based definition.
[/QUOTE]

Don’t bother, we already tried that tack with him. Apparently, a woman with a birth defect that leaves her without a womb is still a woman, unless the birth defect also gave her a penis, in which case she isn’t. But his definition isn’t based on materialism, it’s based on the person’s “life experience.” Of course, if gender isn’t based on materialism, there’s no particular reason that person couldn’t have grown up as a woman who simply had the outward appearance of being male, even though she was “really” female, because she had a penis, which always and without exception means she’s a male, no matter what she does, but that’s not a materialist argument when mswas makes it.

Clear?

[Anne_Neville]

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Erm-yeah. I’m thinking that a “why’d you go and do a thing like that to yourself?” would be in order, in such a case… I wouldn’t ignore the cosmetic alteration, either way.
[/QUOTE]

Do you say the same thing to your friends if they get a new pair of glasses or a new haircut that you think is ugly? I’m pretty sure that’s not what Miss Manners or Emily Post would say was the polite thing to do. Didn’t your mother teach you that “if you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all”?

If someone wants to be called by a nickname or their middle name instead of their legal first name, do you have a hangup about that, too? If someone changes their name, do you insist on seeing the marriage license or court papers before you’ll call them by the new name? Do you give them a hard time about wanting to be called something other than their legal name?

I’m not sure that being all weirded out isn’t the normal way to react to someone who’s just swapped genders on you.

So is being disappointed when the card you get from your grandmother has a $5 bill in it instead of the $20 you were hoping for, and expressing your disappointment to her. So is grabbing the biggest piece of cake for yourself instead of letting your guest have first choice. So is scratching your genitals without looking around to see who’s watching. Just because those are natural and understandable behaviors doesn’t make them polite.

[Steve_MB]

Really, it’s easier to ponder the question if you reduce it to its root:

Do we have a responsibility not to act like dickheads?

Discuss.

[begbert2]

[QUOTE=Miller]
It’s not remotely disingenuous. Transgenderism is a birth defect. A sex change operation is the treatment for the defect. Being born with a club foot is also a non-fatal condition, but no one tries to make its correction into a moral argument.
[/QUOTE]
I find it difficult to believe that a sex change is a treatment at all in anything other than a psychological perspective, in which case liposuction, nosejobs, and tattoos are “treatments” too.

I mean, there are sort of two cases: those who have malformed sex organs (hermaphrodites, for the sake of having a term) and those whose condition only exhibits itself as part of their mentality or personality. Now, the hermaphrodites have a condition for which physical surgery is an obvious response; they have a physical deformity. Of course, the treatment’s not good enough to fix the deformity; no functional organs yet, right? So it can only put on appearance. So it’s not a treatment; it’s a cosmetic alteration. Elective cosmetic surgery.

The others…well, I’m certain they visualize themselves as being the other gender. I visualize myself as being thinner than I am, myself. And if I cared enough, I could get liposucked and tucked and whatnot. But that would be an elective cosmetic surgery. Just like a sex change.

Am I missing something?

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Um . . . isn’t that basically saying, “It’s non-fatal except for the dying part” ?
[/QUOTE]
Nope. It is my (possibly incorrect: show me) belief that the cause of the suicides is the massive and pervasive intolerance, fear, hatred, and oppression that we charming humans lavish upon persons who challenge our views of sexual identity. This oppression then drives the victim to depression and suicide. (I gather that extreme obesity in teens can have the same result.)

This is rather too many intermediate steps, with too obvious an alternate cause, for me to describe transsexualism as a condition leading to death. Now, if there was a significant frequency of transsexuals raised in a non-oppressive environment (mars maybe) glancing down, saying “oh my, I’ve got the wrong genitals” and then offing themselves as a result, then my opinion
would be different.

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Because they tend to suffer and die otherwise. Also, while the details of male/female behaviors and dress are cultural, the fact of those differences are likely biologically hardwired ( note how universal they are to humans ). And as for the surgery, how would you like it to feel like your entire body is a huge deformity ?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t buy for a moment that the tendency to wear dresses or play with dolls are hardwired. They’re too easily modified by upbringing and societal pressure. And heck, women seem to have gotten over their aversion to pants pretty thoroughly, at least around these parts.

And as for one viewing one’s body as being a huge deformity…I occasionally look in the mirror, and think, “when did that happen??” There’s really no part of me that matches my self-image. Now, I’m not equating obesity with transsexualism; in most cases nobody gives you any trouble if you’re fat anymore, whereas society is pretty unrelenting about gender-bending. If I got continuous shit from everyone up to and including my parents, I might off myself too. And the obesity wouldn’t be the cause.

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
Do you say the same thing to your friends if they get a new pair of glasses or a new haircut that you think is ugly? I’m pretty sure that’s not what Miss Manners or Emily Post would say was the polite thing to do. Didn’t your mother teach you that “if you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all”?

If someone wants to be called by a nickname or their middle name instead of their legal first name, do you have a hangup about that, too? If someone changes their name, do you insist on seeing the marriage license or court papers before you’ll call them by the new name? Do you give them a hard time about wanting to be called something other than their legal name?
[/QUOTE]
You bet I comment, and comment honestly. My mommy taught me to be honest. Not to mention, new glasses or a new haircut are slightly less drastic changes than a sex change. Would it be too much to ask to have been warned first? To have a chance to get used to the idea? I mean, this is a friend, right? (I don’t generally converse with non-friends at all.)

As for names, there are legal names I can barely stand. Case in point my sister’s daughters, Angelia and Gloriana. (Emphases on li and an.) Gack. My whole family was rooting for their next kid to be a boy. (We won: Samuel joins Ben as sanely-named members of their family.)

If my hypothetical friend Benjamin Vivian Daniels asks me to refer to him as Ben, that’s fine. Vivian, not so fine. Daniels is fine. BV, that’s not bad. BVD is right out. Silly nicknames would depend on the nickname.

I generally don’t call people by things that make me uncomfortable; that just makes associating with them unpleasant. And you might be surprised how long you can associate with someone without referring to them by name at all. (When you have as bad a memory for names as I do, you cultivate the skill.)
Steve MB, that’s a different question, a strawman. The actual root:

Do we have a responsibility to put on an act of accomodation and walk on eggshells around anyone who chooses to act in a way that disturbs or distresses us?

Discuss.

[Lemur866]

Let me guess, mswas. You probably don’t believe in adoption either, right? I mean, just because someone cares for a child doesn’t magically transform the child’s DNA. Therefore, adoptive parents shouldn’t be called “mother” or “father”, adoptive children should never be called “son” or “daughter”, because such terms are lies.

Anything other than precise terms would be violating reality. So one should never say, “I’m her father”, one must always say “I’m her adoptive father”.

Right?

[mswas]

[QUOTE=Telemark]
What are the functional requirements to be a woman? To be a man? Be specific, because I think you’ll eliminate a lot of people with any functionality based definition.
[/QUOTE]

I refer you to the 228 posts that preceded yours. You’re just not going to get very far with the idea that the definition of gender is all that mutable. It has a pretty stable definition, like I said an artificial vagina and hormone supplements do not rank.

[mswas]

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Let me guess, mswas. You probably don’t believe in adoption either, right? I mean, just because someone cares for a child doesn’t magically transform the child’s DNA. Therefore, adoptive parents shouldn’t be called “mother” or “father”, adoptive children should never be called “son” or “daughter”, because such terms are lies.

Anything other than precise terms would be violating reality. So one should never say, “I’m her father”, one must always say “I’m her adoptive father”.

Right?
[/QUOTE]

Holy projection Batman!

[Kimstu]

@mswas

You’re just not going to get very far with the idea that the definition of gender is all that mutable. It has a pretty stable definition

For the vast majority of individuals, it does. The trouble is that this “stable definition” just is not useful when applied to a small minority of individuals who don’t conform neatly to the stable gender categories.

You yourself admitted just a few posts ago that you don’t even really know how to gender-classify a person with CAIS (that is, a person with a normally developed female anatomy including breasts and a vagina but lacking a uterus or ovaries, with undescended testes and XY chromosomes). The “stable definition” of gender is useless in this case: at least, you yourself acknowledge that you don’t know how to use it.

So when you repeatedly insist that “gender has a stable definition”, you’re missing the point. The problem is that that “stable definition” just does not work for a small but non-zero population of individuals.

Therefore, either we have to let the definition of gender be more mutable—i.e., dependent on factors other than just what genital organs an individual was born with—or we have to figure out whole new ways of categorizing people for whom the “stable definition” of gender isn’t adequate.

[mswas]

Miller Limiting it to the argument about the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus regulates hormones and deals with reproductive organs. A leather vagina made out of a former penis does not rewire the hypothalamus to any reproductive organs and it does not regulate the hormones in the proper manner. No matter how many specious arguments about women with irregularities you make that fact does not change. A sex change removes but it does not add. It removes a penis and testes, but it doesn’t add a vagina or a uterus in their place. That’s the issue with this context. If something were added other than hormone therapies, the story would be a bit different.

This charade is going on a little too far. You all are using normative properties of a real woman to make your arguments. If it were not for these normative properties you would not have an argument to make. The notion of a ‘woman’s’ hypothalamus implies that there is a property of a hypothalamus that makes it ‘womanly’. The same is true for the rest of the body. The fact that there are deviations in varying degrees is irrelevant to the argument. There is a divide in the middle where there exists a thing called a ‘hermaphrodite’. If you want to argue that gender is a form of averaging as opposed to a specific concept, then they have to cross the line of hermaphrodite to become the other thing. It is clear that Stanton was on the male side of hermaphrodite and lived that way for his entire life until she made the change. A bit of cosmetic vivisection does not change that fact.

If you went to medical school they would provide you with models charts and diagrams of what a normal healthy woman is, and what a normal healthy man is. They don’t deal in the fuzzy logic realm that you are haranguing me to accept. Sure there are variants on those, but that doesn’t change the fact that medically and socially, the words have accepted definitions.

[mswas]

[QUOTE=Kimstu]
For the vast majority of individuals, it does. The trouble is that this “stable definition” just is not useful when applied to a small minority of individuals who don’t conform neatly to the stable gender categories.
[/QUOTE]

Well they are lucky that the Doctors who give them a sex change operation think that it does. If they didn’t then they wouldn’t know which body parts to remove. However, since they do, they remove the masculine parts, such as the penis and testes. So for the sake of their health after surgery, and the sake of my health your health and my families health, I am glad that the medical establishment has a solid grasp on the definition of what is a normal female and what is a normal male.

For the variations, that’s what ‘qualifiers’ are good for.