One thing that’s becoming clear is that not every transgender person is transgender for the same reason. Certainly “born in the wrong body” is a reason for some people, but there are too many counter examples for that to be true for everyone. There are transwomen who seem very happy with their male presenting bodies and are not interested in things like surgery and hormone treatments to have a more female appearance. They may even maintain traditionally male features like body hair, facial hair, male hair styles, male clothing styles, etc. With gender encompassing both biological and cultural aspects, it seems like it would be reasonable for transgender people to relate to those aspects in varying degrees. It seems like transgender is comprised of varying aspects of transbiology and transculture, and each component is different in each transgender person. The social gains for transgender people have been led by the transbiology component, but all transgender people are accepted no matter their reason for being transgender. The transgender person who has undergone extensive medical treatments is accepted, but so is the transgender person who is fine with their body but just feels more comfortable in the culture of the opposite gender.
Even if transracial doesn’t have a biological component, it does seem similar to some of the non-biological aspects for being transgender. Humans all want to feel like they belong and we seek out groups where we feel like we fit in. Even in transgender this is true. Even if a person born male feels their body is wrong, that should just mean correcting their body. But they may also adopt the cultural norms of that gender, which have nothing to do with biology. There’s no genetic component or brain region which compels women to wear makeup and earrings. But transwomen do so, likely for the reason that all women do, which is to feel like they fit in with other women. Transracial seems aligned with that aspect. Someone who feels a strong affinity to the culture of a specific race may have a strong desire to be that race. Looking like a race is a way to visibly demonstrate that a person is part of the culture. If society is going to accept all transgender people no matter their reason or brain development, then it seems like transracial should also be accepted (provided the person is sincere).
I think as to this last narrow tit-for-tat we are making a mistake by using the word “brain” when we IMO should be using the word “mind”.
“Brain science” today, as advanced as it is, has barely scratched the surface of what brains are. Much less what they do. And “mind science” is darn near a joke; a pious hope for where we may get after another 500 years’ progress.
Take as a given that males have smaller corpus callosums than women. But larger overall brains. Or, ref Rippon, that they do not. Neither of those assumptions are informative as to the difference in minds. Which are the things having the feelings, beliefs, etc., which are at issue.
Is mind a consequence of brain? Sure. But we know so little of the details of how that works that it’s ludicrous to make assertions about details of this feature causing that effect.
IMO getting stuck talking about brains is far too reductive. It’s barely one step up from focusing on external genitalia as the be-all and end-all of gender.
ETA: @filmore just above was not here when I started typing. I think that’s a real nice summation of my POV.
That is a linguistic problem. If the whole thing is “believe what people say about themselves” then our linguistic issues should not negate their personal experience. If the 2m tall person with a beard, y chromosome and a penis says “I’m a woman” I’m supposed to say “Yup, you go girl!” but if the very-dark skinned person says “I’m white” I have to say “I don’t accept that”.
Cirque du soleil.
I have no problem identifying that legal a social issues of multi-ethcnic peeople are different in differen countries, because, you know, cultures are different. A Uruguayan player who play in England was punished for an text he wrote in his Instagram thanking another Uruguayan telling him “Gracias, negrito”. “Negro” and “Negrito” are very common terms of endearment in their country, but because using racial terms in England is frowned upon, he got a three month suspension.
I know about lots of condition that affect how people percieve you or whatever, that’s not the issue.
“Believe what people tell about themselves” cannot work when you have obviosuly different organs and then NOT work when it’s just a protein.
It is disingenous, to say the least to play the “it’s all social conventions” for genes and organs and then say “SCIENCE!!!” for a protein or two.
Cirque du Soleil.
But unless you espouse some magical mind-body dualism, mind and brain are completely synonymous and interchangeable here.
The fact that brain features with some gross physiological manifestation are mentioned is not because they are necessarily important, it’s just because the tools of neuroscience are so primitive and that’s all we can detect by direct physical inspection. Most differences in neuronal configuration and connections probably have no macroscopically visible manifestation at all. But they still have just the same basis in physical reality.
The mind is the physical brain. When we discern someone’s neuron configuration by talking to them, that is just as much probing the physical reality of their brain as doing an fMRI. Talking to someone is currently the only way we have to discern how someone’s neurons are joined together, although in principle with advances in technology we could one day inspect the “wiring” directly.
And I think it’s very important to spell this out, because of the common ignorant transphobic trope that “basic biology” tells us that somebody with a penis is a man. In part, this rests on the misconception that the mind (which is the brain) is somehow less objectively physically real than the genitalia.
I agree. But we are not limited to brain scans to investigate minds/brains; we can also observe people and look at their personality, behaviour, performance on various measures, and their interests. That is what led me to my conclusion.
I think you’re quite wrong to say the blank slate theory was only popular in the 20th century. It’s still the default assumption, and any deviations are agreed reluctantly if at all. IMO more people subscribe to mind/body duelism, something like the ‘gendered soul’ theory, than agree with you. But you still didn’t answer my questions on whether you think this belief is important for transgender acceptance, and whether your own opinion would change if your hypothesis was show to be incorrect.
I responded to the exact same question just a few posts above where you asked it again; and I was already repeating responses I had made earlier. Read the thread. See posts #173 and #175.
This is just the stupid “I identify as a helicopter” trope over again in pseudoscientific language. You’re making the exact error that I pointed out just above:
Your brain has just the same objective physical reality as your genitalia. While it is not scientifically credible that someone with a human body is a helicopter or really has the brain of a cat, it is perfectly scientifically credible that somebody with a penis really does as an objective factual matter have a mind that is (in whatever key respects) more similar to the mind of a typical cis woman than a typical cis man.
Your insistence that the objective physical reality of a penis or a chromosome somehow trumps the equally objective physical reality of the mind is without scientific merit.
Those posts doesn’t answer my question at all. You haven’t even considered the possibility that your hypothesis might be wrong.
It’s also perfectly possible that somebody with a penis may identify as a woman when as an objective factual matter they do not have a mind that is more similar to the mind of a typical cis woman than a typical cis man. What then? Would this invalidate their identity in your opinion?
Thanks for that link. It’s interesting to see that maybe this is being taken seriously as a phenomenon beyond isolated stories like Dolezal. Still, there seems to be very little substance to what the UCU statement actually means in practice. They haven’t addressed any of the practical questions that @Miller laid out above.
Not to trivialize, but can I deem myself disabled and get the parking permit?
Certainly not. Those are issued by the government, and the government requires evidence. And you can forget about getting disability benefits, even seriously disabled people struggle to qualify.
I think there is another aspect to this, which is that is still much more acceptable to discriminate based on sex than on race. Why are sex-based dress codes still allowed, for example? I think it would be much better to eliminate things like that than to make an exception only for people who identify differently to their birth gender (and how does it work with non-binary people?).
My posts above precisely address your question. You’re persisting with the same misrepresentation of the way scientific explanation works as when @AHunter3 suggested that the facts are somehow “anchored” in the theory, and that the facts would somehow be at risk if the theory turned out to be wrong.
My acceptance and respect for the dignity of trans women/men as real women/men is based on the facts, not the explanatory hypothesis. The facts are that most people develop a firmly established gender identity in the first few years of life, something that seems to be an intrinsic part of their very being; and that most trans people consistently and persistently assert their trans identity despite strong social pressure to conform to a “conventional” cis-binary identity, often to the point of persecution and misery. I respect gender identity as real because all the evidence points to it being objectively real, just as objectively real as genitalia. Trans people are clearly not pretending, they are not play-acting, they are not doing this for shits and giggles.
The hypothesis of sexual dimorphism is offered as an (obvious) biological explanation that grants insight into the facts. If the hypothesis is wrong, it would not change the facts any more than gravity would stop if our theory of gravity were wrong.
At the same time, it’s not a coincidence that there is (to any biologist) an obvious and plausible scientific hypothesis to explain what we observe. Nobody is going to great lengths to invent some convoluted ideologically-driven hypothesis to fit the data here. It’s a good explanation for what we observe.
And it’s important to point out that the phenomenon of transgender people is perfectly consistent with actual scientific knowledge, contrary to the ignorant trope that it’s “basic biology” that what’s between your legs fully determines whether you “are” a man or a woman.
No, this is not the helicopter problem but simply of social convention.
There is no reason for the “believe people what they say they are” to accept that the super-dark-skinned person is white, none, except that it makes them uncomfortable due to its destroying the “I’m a woman” side.
Unless you are saying that being black has clear sicentific value that is greater than that of being a woman. If a transwoman who hasn’t done any surgery or hormones or even change the way they dress, their name or anything say “I’m Guy McTestosterone and I’m a woman” we have to accept their womanness no questions asked. But, just a tinge of melanin makes you indelibly black, no matter what.
Sorry, Cirque du Soleil.
This is simply incorrect. Your understanding of the facts is wrong. I am disagreeing with you based on the facts of the matter, and if your views are really based on science then you should be able to say what evidence you would accept as disproving your hypothesis, and consider how you would respond if it was indeed falsified.
He would never dream of such a thing. This is why I think explanations based on biology are a red herring. Ditto explanations based on harms or rights, as these are far more problematic for the concept of transgender than transrace. If there were lots of people insisting they were transracial and campaigning for acceptance, then most likely they would be accepted. But there are not.
Nothing I have said there is outside the mainstream scientific understanding of the (psychological) facts about gender identity. WIkipedia:
(Gender identity - Wikipedia) John Money suggested children might have awareness of and attach some significance to gender as early as 18 months to 2 years; Lawrence Kohlberg argued that gender identity does not form until age 3.[12] It is widely agreed that core gender identity is firmly formed by age 3.[12][13] At this point, children can make firm statements about their gender[12][14] and tend to choose activities and toys which are considered appropriate for their gender[12] (such as dolls and painting for girls, and tools and rough-housing for boys),[15] although they do not yet fully understand the implications of gender.[14] After age three, core gender identity is extremely difficult to change,[16] and attempts to reassign it can result in gender dysphoria.[17] Gender identity refinement extends into the fourth[16] to sixth years of age,[12][18] and continues into young adulthood.[16]
If new facts emerged that were inconsistent with my explanatory hypothesis, I would respond by looking for a better explanatory hypothesis, of course.
And I’ve already made quite clear that nothing about my respect for the dignity of trans people would change in the least, since the existing body of facts already conclusively shows that they are simply expressing their intrinsic nature, and that their trans identity is just as substantial and objectively real a cis person’s identity. Any theory of how gender identity develops does not alter these facts.
Firstly, gender identity is not fixed by early childhood, as every study ever done shows:
Secondly, many trans people only realise they are trans (or arguably only become trans) later in life. This is not consistent with the idea of a fixed and unchangeable gender identity set in infancy. (Although I should mention that I don’t believe it is changeable by external means like therapy.)
Thirdly, many (but not all) trans people were unexceptional as their original sex, having gender-typical jobs, interests, relationships and behaviour, and these traits are mostly not changed by transtion. This argues against them having a brain typical of the opposite gender.