I wish to state I believe Gender Dysphoria is an actual thing and not some sad delusion.
That being said, is this disorder something that can (even theoretically) be objectively quantified? I mean, aside from the “I say so, because I feel so” declaration?
I could imagine, with today’s technology, a trans-man or trans-woman could take an injection of radioactive sugar, place his or her head in a cat scan/pet scan/mri and be presented with a series of various stimuli, the various neural pathways light up in response to the tissue metabolizing sugar, the resulting scan can be matched against some standardized “eigen-scan” of typical male and typical female responses, and an analyst would look at the results and say,"Aha! This biological male is in fact a female!"
Barring that, can the existing work of Professor Tannen be utilized?
As children, boys generally socially interact verbally with one trying to top one another, whereas girls generally try to convey they are not better or worse, but are just the same.
Has it been established that transgendered children in fact verbalize their respective social status in alignment with their respective gender identity?
But does that behavior as children come from socialization or biology? (sorry, I will admit I’m not in a video watching mood). It also sounds like an incomplete description of a complex interaction. For
example, it may (or may not) describe the verbal aspect yet completely miss all of the non-verbal cue about who is superior in a social meeting.
FWIW, yes studies have demonstrated differences in MRI and PET of transgendered individuals. We are not to the point of diagnosing gender dysphoria solely relying on such scans, but it may provide some objective evidence in support of such a diagnosis. Linked and several other studies.
Are you suggesting that some dubious evidence is more reliable than the individual’s own testimony? Why bother? You are trying to measure a subjective state objectively.
But that’s the thing, studies show that it’s not completely subjective. Different people react differently to the pain of a broken bone but that doesn’t mean we should disregard X-rays.
As I’ve posted link for in past threads, it can be objectively quantified in many (but not all) cases. But doing so takes a significant amount of cost/expense which in no way is covered by surgery*. Even simple karyotyping is typically not covered by insurance**, and can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars out of pocket. And given that many transgender persons are saving their money trying to survive, thanks to the efforts of religious conservatives and transphobes, very few people have the money to do.
I had full brain MRIs done, and it was covered by insurance, but only because my intersex hormone disorder was so weird, they were concerned it was driven by a brain tumor. It was not a tumor, although they did find unusual structures in my brain, which didn’t really actually conclusively explain why that instead of making testosterone I was making low-cisgender female doses of estrogens.
** Note that lower-cost things like “23 and Me” don’t karyotype.
What percentage of cases can be “objectively quantified”? (Note: this applies to both transgender and cisgender people being tested.)
How valid can this “objective quantification” be if it’s not definitive? Meaning, if these criteria do not define who is or isn’t transgender, then even why assign them this meaning in the cases where they seem to demonstrate that status?