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[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

How is that the same as wanting to kill/exterminate/eliminate people like you?

Fewer people transitioning = fewer people willing to live as cis with no recourse for their dysphoria = fewer trans people.

Saying it would be good thing to reduce the numbers of people who suffer from painful conditions and experience trauma and distress, or who engage in a particular activity that has negative effects, is not the same as advocating the elimination and extermination of those people.

Except transness is not a mental illness, it is a state of being. It's not negative. Dysphoria is negative, but transition helps alleviate it for many. Saying that you want to reduce the number of trans people is super paternalistic and presumes that you know better and should decide our healthcare.

You're the one advocating that trans-identified people be rendered unable to reproduce by subjecting them to de facto eugenics, not GC.

I sterilized myself because the idea of having biological children that way makes me want to vomit. Trans people living happy lives without having children is not elimination. It's not like our kids would be trans; the vast majority of trans people are born to cis parents. So whether we're sterile or not we're in no danger of dying out as a group.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Except transness is not a mental illness, it is a state of being.

If transness is a state of being, why not just be then? Why the demand for Big Pharma hormones and surgeries, and your claim that medical interventions are absolutely essential for trans people?

Why the desperate, never-ending need for others to validate and affirm your state of being by giving signs and signals that you can choose to take as evidence that in their heart of hearts and hidden recesses of their minds they really do see you as you wish them to see you? Why so much dependence on the perceptions and judgments of others - or rather what you imagine and assume to be their perceptions and judgments?

Why not just be in your state of being and try to be at peace with it?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

If transness is a state of being, why not just be then?

My body doesn't allow me to be, without exogenous hormones to let me feel okay.

Gosh, I would love to just be, to not have my whole sense of self dependent on what others think of me, to be secure in the knowledge that how I feel matches what I "am", and that no one could change the facts. I don't have that, because I hate my body and have spent a lot of effort changing it, and whether people see me the same way I feel, depends on how well I conform to their expectations.

Just living with the knowledge that I'm supposed to be born female, and doing nothing about it, is incredibly lonely and isolating. I grew up always feeling detached from other kids, a deep sense of wrongness.

We cannot "just be" anymore than lgb people can be content in the closet. Transitioning was coming out, for me, my state of being is of a person on hormone therapy who others mostly see as a woman. I can't do that if I'm stuck forever in a body I hate.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

You know, lots of people who aren't trans hate their bodies. Lots of people who aren't trans are lonely and isolated. Lots of people who aren't trans feel disconnected from others, and have a deep sense of wrongness. Lots of people feel, as we used to put it, that the words and music don't match, that there's an intolerable gap between the "as is" or real self and the "should be" or ideal self.

Sorry, but the whole idea that you get to chose your body and you can become a woman just by doing some remake/remodel work seems very male and pie-in-the-sky to me.

Most important, the vast majority of people who feel incredibly insecure and base their sense of self on how others perceive them grow out of it. Because it's a way of thinking that is most commonly found amongst adolescents and young adults. But it's far less common amongst people who are older and more mature because people's sense of self really does change with time. Most people feel very differently about themselves at 30 compared to at 21. There are good reasons that the process of maturing is often described by such phrases as "coming into your own" and "growing into your own skin" and "finally feeling at home with yourself."

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Sorry, but the whole idea that you get to chose your body

What's wrong about this? Why shouldn't everyone get to choose their bodies? Wanting people to have that choice shouldn't be intrinsically male or whatever

Most people feel very differently about themselves at 30 compared to at 21. There are good reasons that the process of maturing is often described by such phrases as "coming into your own" and "growing into your own skin" and "finally feeling at home with yourself."

This reasoning is used by older generations to remove or ablate the agency of young adults though... Yeah obviously I'll feel different at 30, but how I feel now matters too! and if I regret the choices I've made then future me will live and deal with that.

Lots of people who aren't trans feel disconnected from others, and have a deep sense of wrongness.

I don't think it is exactly the same. But I have never met a cis person who I felt really understood that, so. Lots of trans people have, at least.

I think the difference is that you presume that sense of wrongness is temporary, that it can be "worked through" or "grown out of", whereas I see it as a core part of who I am as a person, a feeling that's colored my life from the start, and something that I hold so closely to myself that I won't yield it up no matter what. I wouldn't take a "cure" for dysphoria because I don't want to be a cis man--it feels antithetical to my existence. I'd rather reach for something, and be half a woman half the time, to some subset of people, than conform to what I'm "supposed" to be.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Why shouldn't everyone get to choose their bodies?

Sheesh, talk about ableist, arrogant and entitled! And the kicker is that in the next breath you say that your unhappiness with your sexed body is

something that I hold so closely to myself that I won't yield it up no matter what. I wouldn't take a "cure"

On the one hand you say you and other trans people must be permitted go to whatever extreme lengths you want to alter your body, even if doing so has terrible negative impacts on self and others, all supposedly to alleviate the distress of "dysphoria," a distress you see as so special, singular and unique to trans people that you insist no one "cis" can possibly imagine it or have ever experienced anything like it. But on the other hand you say you relish and revel in your distress and hold it so dear that you you're never gonna give it up. Sounds to me like you're in love with being "dysphoric." Reminds me of the famous Rick Astley song:

Never gonna give you up, Never gonna let you down, Never gonna run around and desert you, Never gonna make you cry, Never gonna say goodbye

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Sorry, do you have a reason that people shouldn't be able to choose their bodies or are you just going to say I'm bad for suggesting it?

And the kicker is that in the next breath you say that your unhappiness with your sexed body is

That's why I don't want the body I'm in. I'd rather be a robot or in a computer or something, honestly. So many people make do with chronic pain or other bodily issues that make life harder for them, why is it wrong to say we should work towards giving everyone the option to fix that?

[–]Juniperius 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

So many people make do with chronic pain or other bodily issues that make life harder for them, why is it wrong to say we should work towards giving everyone the option to fix that?

Now you want to eliminate people with chronic pain? Seems a little inconsistent.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I said to give everyone the option, not to push it on them. And it might be the case that people with chronic pain might have a unique culture that's worth preserving, in which case it might be unethical to encourage that option.

Also, it's kind of telling if you see transness as a condition of illness, like chronic pain. Being trans is wonderful, being dysphoric sucks, but the former is how I deal with the latter.

[–]HouseplantWomen who disagree with QT are a different sex 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I’d like to assure you that chronic pain has no culture around it. It’s just hurting. That’s the only commonality and we aren’t celebrating it.