yes. you also have a recent history of being a sealioning edgelord. if somehow the 1:1 overlap between your regular trolling and the way you approached this particular conversation was a complete coincidence, you have my sincerest apologies.
man, i wonder if anyone is buying this charade.
take your genuine apprecation and go to hell with it.
I’m gonna go forward trying to be good faith. I will clearly signal where I have gaps in my understanding of things and where I’m not sure about things. I will concede where you demonstrate a more nuanced, in-depth understanding of things, of course, and I’m gonna get pissy where it’s obvious you’re exaggerating, deflecting, omitting or relying on fallacies wrt important points. I need you to hold me to the same standard
if we care about mutual understanding. If something I say is unclear or sounds obfuscating, it’s perfectly possible that I’ve simply articulated it poorly. Let me know when this happens and where I need to elaborate. I’ll do the same for you.
1. Gender expression
I think that you misunderstood what is meant with gender expression. Gender expression does not imply that one
arbitrarily chooses a set of expressions.
Gender expression merely suggests that your gender
manifests in some type of set of behaviour, mannerisms, interests, and appearance. Your expression can manifest due to intrinsic, biological, psychological or social reasons. It Occam's razors/circumvents any discussion about WHY an expression occurs. It merely looks at the
effects, the actual manifestation of the preferred expression.
This is important because it legitimizes transgender people whatever the reasons for the transitioning may be. To suggest otherwise is to centre the legitimacy of transgender people around biology/psychology/sociology or whatever may be the current discussion it surrounds atm. Slightly related but important to note I think is that it’s also very, very, very important to understand that biology does not exist separately from psychology. You shouldn’t make that distinction if you want a holistic understanding of things.
This is the most inclusive, correct way of talking about transgender people. To say that transitions occur due to purely biological reasons is to exclude transgender people that have transitioned due to non-biology-driven reasons. You would be denying them their preferred gender. From your own source
: ‘’Many transgender individuals suffer no dysphoria but still require medical and/or surgical interventions to align their bodies with their gender identities.’’ To suggest that one needs to feel dysphoric to be truly trans is transmedicalism. Which is notoriously trans-exclusionary, afaik.
2. Gender identity
To clarify, I never suggested that your
‘’intrinsically-driven’’ (ie biological/psychological) gender identity was formed purely due to social factors. What I said was that you can have a certain gender identity that does not conform to expectations. Still, society
IMPOSES expectation from your at-birth-assigned gender arbitrarily, which does not necessarily conform to your gender identity/expression. You may feel like you like to dress up (due to biological/psychological etc. reasons) but society still expects you to wear suits and not act in certain ways. This is what triggers dysphoria. The inability to express oneself according to their gender in identity/expression, which is in part a manifestation of a biological/psychological mismatch.
Relevant excerpts:
‘’The specific causes of gender dysphoria remain unknown, and treatments targeting the etiology or pathogenesis of gender dysphoria do not exist.’’ – Wiki Gender Dysphoria
‘’Compelling studies have demonstrated that “gender identity”—a person's inner sense of self as male, female, or occasionally a category other than male or female—is not simply a psychosocial construct, but likely reflects a complex interplay of biological, environmental, and cultural factors.’’ -
https://academic-oup-com.proxy.library.uu.nl/jcem/article/99/12/4379/2833862
‘’What causes gender dysphoria? The exact cause of gender dysphoria is unclear. Gender development is complex and there are still things that are not known or fully understood…’’ -
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/gender-dysphoria/overview/
3. Gender dysphoria
Your gender is not binary. It’s a spectrum like you said. Likewise, gender dysphoria (GD) is most likely not binary either. You are in truth not either-or dysphoric or a-dysphoric. Like with autism, we’re all somewhere on a spectrum because no one is MAN or WOMAN. It’s helpful to not look at autism or GD as some kind of condition or wrong that needs to be corrected. It’s something that needs to be treated
IF it affects the quality of your life severely enough. It’s not some kind of weird irregularity. And it’s perfectly fine to hypothesize that your dysphoria can be alleviated the better you can express your gender-related characteristics. The more you feel comfortable with yourself, the less likely your dysphoria is going to bother you, the less likely you’ll need to transition.
If we can look at my gender in my brain and the body separately and conclude that I’m actually ‘’female’’ in the head but my body is ‘’male’’, BUT I don’t care because I barely feel dysphoric, then I don’t have to transition. I don’t even have to identify as a ‘’female’’, if I don’t want to. These people exist and have normal, peaceful good lives. Acknowledging their existence (which is what I did) is not transphobic.
There’s no stigma attached to it for me personally and I will talk about it in a confident way because everything follows logically that transwomen are women through whatever prism you’re looking at it. There’s no need to be afraid to confront transphobic remarks when people are open to being corrected because everything in the literature, be it scientific, liberal/ideological-driven, or philosophical logically concludes that transwomen are women. To deny it is most likely to be irrational.
4. Relevant
‘’People who are transgender may pursue multiple domains of gender affirmation, including social affirmation (e.g., changing one’s name and pronouns), legal affirmation (e.g., changing gender markers on one’s government-issued documents), medical affirmation (e.g., pubertal suppression or gender-affirming hormones), and/or surgical affirmation (e.g., vaginoplasty, facial feminization surgery, breast augmentation, masculine chest reconstruction, etc.). Of note, not all people who are transgender will desire all domains of gender affirmation, as these are highly personal and individual decisions.
It is important to note that gender identity is different from gender expression. Whereas gender identity refers to one’s psychological sense of their gender, gender expression refers to the way in which one presents to the world in a gendered way. For example, in much of the U.S., wearing a dress is considered a “feminine” gender expression, and wearing a tuxedo is considered a “masculine” gender expression. Such expectations are culturally defined and vary across time and culture. One’s gender expression does not necessarily align with their gender identity. Diverse gender expressions, much like diverse gender identities, are not indications of a mental disorder.’’
-
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria
Taking studies in support of BODILY dysphoria being biology-driven to suggest that the mainstream literature (which is what I have continuously referred to) is transphobic somehow is NOT how to engage with the subject, for the record.
Is there any room for a little bit of DEESCALATE or perhaps even LET GO modes?
o7
EDIT:
5. Explaining the charitable approach to MadVader's kinda transphobic comment
This will sound very head-up-my-ass but what I've learned is that if you ever want to convince someone of something, you absolutely have to acknowledge where they are touching on some kind of truth. You have to empower people, make them feel confident in their ability to deal with subjects in order to have them genuinely investigate things and acknowledge where
you are correct in kind. You should not try to shut them up and make them resent you and your ideas. I acknowledge what MadVader said as being transphobic, at the same time I prioritize that he'd genuinely engage with the subject if he displays openness. What I tried to do is tell him that what he said was poorly formulated but at the same time, I tried to acknowledge where he might have been touching on a kennel of truth, instead of antagonizing him. Not saying this method is flawless or that I know **** because I'm super flawed and uninformed on plenty he knows very well, obviously. But this is generally my approach to subjects I feel comfortable talking about.
