To challenge your point at 29:29 about "what was the sociologial origin of the idea of having a gender identity that is different than biological sex? [...] they were never taught that growing up so where is that even coming from?". I have one possible hypothesis but no evidence to support nor discredit it, but I think it does leave much less room for ambiguity and personal interpretation than the vague term "gender identity".
The only theoretical model I can think of that could explain gender as neurological is if what is really meant with it is instinct. If you look at other animals it is clear that every animal has instinctual gender expressions, behaviours in relation to mates, behaviours in relation towards children (parental "role" preference), attraction, and phenotype-enabled behaviours. The relevant question then becomes "where is instinct in the brain?".
I believe that no person is born with an identity at all, they develop it through observation. But that itself doesn't discredit gender-sex incongruence. A child for example doesn't understand seeing themself in the mirror, or object permanence, but eventually they get it. Their identity slowly develops.
So to me there are two factors at play here, the sexed brain and other sexed-organs. The only part of the brain that is sexed is the instinct, as brain connectivity to sexed-organs is completely plastic and adaptable as is proven by any organ transplant. Where is instinct? Is it entirely in the brain stem? Is it "interwoven" throughout a person's entire cerebral cortex?
If brain gender/sex instinct is persistent, it cannot be memory, because memory is entirely developmental thus not persistent. The only persistence mechanism in the brain is its physiological limits, or practically non-rewireable neural pathways/networks (i.e. rewiring them would kill a person or be a serious health risk).
So sexed-instinct must be either physiological/neurological or practically non-rewireable psychology.
I think a person's sex determining chromosome (X/Y) is not relevant for a person's established biology, I see that like a recipe that is already baked, the body is already developed so if you'd change a person's DNA now it won't effect anything anymore, it only matters during development, like changing a blueprint after finishing a building won't change the building. But if my theoretical concept of this is not coherent with reality I'd be open to being corrected.
You could then ask some more questions, such as, if you change a person's primary sexual organs will that change a person's instinct? That is a tricky subject, because if you'd interpret homosexuality as incongruence between sexed instinct and other sex organs, you'd be entering the grey area of conversion therapy. As in, if you'd change a homosexual person's primary sexual organs, would their instinct change to stop being homosexual?
Another question could be what is the evolutionary argument as to whether a person has a sexual self-perception at all? Shouldn't their sexuality be entirely driven by attraction alone? What is the advantage of having sex as part of self-perception? Homosexuality is outside this debate here as it is purely limited to attraction, not involving self-perception. If there is no sex as part of self-perception, then you can conclude that "seeing yourself as the other gender" is not accurate.
But this would not be finished still, because even if own-sex-perception is not part of instinct, sexed-instinct behaviours still can be. It does then become a question, why would changing a person's reproductive system, phenotype and sex-hormone "composition" treat disturbance/disease caused by sexed-instinct inability to properly function within available limits? What are the mechanisms? Well it is a start to say that suppressing a person's homosexuality has been proven to cause inability to properly function within a person's sexed-instinct, thus that already proves that inhibiting sexed-instinct CAN cause pathology (internalized homophobia). The question then becomes, in the way that internalized homophobia can be pathological for a person with a "trans" attraction part of their sexed-instinct, can these other three factors, reproductive system, phenotype and sex hormones, be pathological too? Phenotype I am not sure, because can't people who for example have been attacked with acid live happy lives despite severe phenotype damage? But, phenotype can be within ethical limits of offering to patients as a choice, like a woman who has undergone breast amputation could be offered to have an implant. Sex hormones requires much greater understanding than I can study as a person who is not a biologist. Reproductive system I don't know either, though of all these three reproductive system is the only one that has instinctually behavioural implications, such as ability to breastfeed, give birth in women, and sexual behaviour/roles in both sexes. If appearance can be considered instinctual then phenotype plays a role too (beard, size, body outline, voice), but I don't know if it makes any sense for appearance to be part of instinct. Then again, if observing animals such as birds, they seem to be instinctually very aware of their appearance? Or are they merely instinctually aware of their mating behaviours without being aware of their appearance? I don't know. It is clear that they are instinctually aware of the appearance of OTHERS, and homosexuality falls under that.
In conclusion, I think gender identity is a very vague term. I think identity is relevant though, the same way that a person isn't born with a "homosexual identity", they are born with a homosexual instinct I think and as they grow up they learn about their body and that becomes part of their identity.
Really, the only thing that matters is gender transition medicinally effective. If you look at it is really a hypothesized natural medicine, where the body's own chemistry and psychology is used to heal itself from either gender dysphoria, or other poor quality of life as a person of the current sex that cannot be labelled gender dysphoria.
Other natural medicines have worked, opioids, psychedelics. Sure they have been very dangerous if used recklessly, but they have legitimate uses. Before opioids people undergoing surgery would never be anesthetized.
One of your criticism on this podcast was "there is no one debating", but are you debating? I think it is not most important whether you expect gender transition to be justifiable effective enough as a medical procedure, because research is not about "trying to confirm your expectations", it is about further exploring something that has shown initial promise.
It might be a very difficult ethical dilemma the same way the restriction of psychedelics is. A lot of people with severe mental health issues (often much less cute or loveable than children with gender dysphoria, which is not judgment of those children, just a reality) don't have access to psychedelic assisted treatment that given current science could very likely change their lives. But I believe that taking psychedelics without a therapeutic framework can be adverse in most cases (don't take my word on that, I think that should be fact checked by someone who knows more about it).
There is absolutely no justification for saying "trans women can never be women/trans men can never be men". I think it is reasonable to believe that sex is primarily defined by a person's reproductive system, but even there babies have already been born from womb transplants, thus gender transition might be possible in the near future under that definition too. I don't see a reason to say that "gender is entirely a person's X/Y chromosome", to me the recipe becomes irrelevant ones a person's body is developed. Transplanting a man's lung into a female recipients body is already possible, so those chromosomes don't seem significant.
I think the reason transphobic opposition is not taken seriously is because it is toxic. Merely having questions doesn't give you the right to ask those questions at any expense. It's unethical to ask a grieving person very confronting questions questioning what they believe about death. It's unethical to say "this treatment will never work", taking away a person's hope, when there is no evidence to back that up.
There are very toxic people promoting under regulated or even unregulated gender transition. Medicine other than stuff you can buy at a pharmacy should never be unregulated.
You said in this podcast you feel like "people don't discuss enough" and "that they aren't asking hard questions", but I don't hear you ask very hard well-thought out questions either, yet this organisation has a very aggressive approach. Just because you feel under attack, which maybe in some cases misapplication of gender transition CAN result in encouraging internalized homophobia, but as far as I know treatment plans in credible institutions already include exclusionary criteria such as other diagnoses and a person's relationship with their sexuality.
By the way, from this theoretical perspective it is a 100% understandable that a trans person can feel attracted to a woman-in-appearance (regardless of their instinct) because that is how I expect attraction to work. But it is also understandable that a lesbian woman-in-appearance doesn't feel attracted to a lesbian man-in-appearance. It would be unfortunate, but a reality. The only solution would be compromise, date a bisexual person who can be attracted to the mixture of both phenotypes in the absence of more advanced technology that can change phenotype beyond this "uncanny valley".
wow, really good stories this week. for sure gac is consumer fraud. an entire industry that refers to evidence based response to normal psych issues that most grow out of as "conversion therapy" ? a complete scam.
i dont buy it when any of these "providers" publicly say they are stopping these harmful practises. they probably have a waiting list they can operate from for quite a while.
NY times podcast is riddled with misinformation. when media "both sides" this issue they give validity to harmful quackery. there is zero evidence gac helps anyone. not even one person.
the dutch protocol "study" participants were cherry picked. we know that now. and the pod cast also completed biased.
To challenge your point at 29:29 about "what was the sociologial origin of the idea of having a gender identity that is different than biological sex? [...] they were never taught that growing up so where is that even coming from?". I have one possible hypothesis but no evidence to support nor discredit it, but I think it does leave much less room for ambiguity and personal interpretation than the vague term "gender identity".
The only theoretical model I can think of that could explain gender as neurological is if what is really meant with it is instinct. If you look at other animals it is clear that every animal has instinctual gender expressions, behaviours in relation to mates, behaviours in relation towards children (parental "role" preference), attraction, and phenotype-enabled behaviours. The relevant question then becomes "where is instinct in the brain?".
I believe that no person is born with an identity at all, they develop it through observation. But that itself doesn't discredit gender-sex incongruence. A child for example doesn't understand seeing themself in the mirror, or object permanence, but eventually they get it. Their identity slowly develops.
So to me there are two factors at play here, the sexed brain and other sexed-organs. The only part of the brain that is sexed is the instinct, as brain connectivity to sexed-organs is completely plastic and adaptable as is proven by any organ transplant. Where is instinct? Is it entirely in the brain stem? Is it "interwoven" throughout a person's entire cerebral cortex?
If brain gender/sex instinct is persistent, it cannot be memory, because memory is entirely developmental thus not persistent. The only persistence mechanism in the brain is its physiological limits, or practically non-rewireable neural pathways/networks (i.e. rewiring them would kill a person or be a serious health risk).
So sexed-instinct must be either physiological/neurological or practically non-rewireable psychology.
I think a person's sex determining chromosome (X/Y) is not relevant for a person's established biology, I see that like a recipe that is already baked, the body is already developed so if you'd change a person's DNA now it won't effect anything anymore, it only matters during development, like changing a blueprint after finishing a building won't change the building. But if my theoretical concept of this is not coherent with reality I'd be open to being corrected.
You could then ask some more questions, such as, if you change a person's primary sexual organs will that change a person's instinct? That is a tricky subject, because if you'd interpret homosexuality as incongruence between sexed instinct and other sex organs, you'd be entering the grey area of conversion therapy. As in, if you'd change a homosexual person's primary sexual organs, would their instinct change to stop being homosexual?
Another question could be what is the evolutionary argument as to whether a person has a sexual self-perception at all? Shouldn't their sexuality be entirely driven by attraction alone? What is the advantage of having sex as part of self-perception? Homosexuality is outside this debate here as it is purely limited to attraction, not involving self-perception. If there is no sex as part of self-perception, then you can conclude that "seeing yourself as the other gender" is not accurate.
But this would not be finished still, because even if own-sex-perception is not part of instinct, sexed-instinct behaviours still can be. It does then become a question, why would changing a person's reproductive system, phenotype and sex-hormone "composition" treat disturbance/disease caused by sexed-instinct inability to properly function within available limits? What are the mechanisms? Well it is a start to say that suppressing a person's homosexuality has been proven to cause inability to properly function within a person's sexed-instinct, thus that already proves that inhibiting sexed-instinct CAN cause pathology (internalized homophobia). The question then becomes, in the way that internalized homophobia can be pathological for a person with a "trans" attraction part of their sexed-instinct, can these other three factors, reproductive system, phenotype and sex hormones, be pathological too? Phenotype I am not sure, because can't people who for example have been attacked with acid live happy lives despite severe phenotype damage? But, phenotype can be within ethical limits of offering to patients as a choice, like a woman who has undergone breast amputation could be offered to have an implant. Sex hormones requires much greater understanding than I can study as a person who is not a biologist. Reproductive system I don't know either, though of all these three reproductive system is the only one that has instinctually behavioural implications, such as ability to breastfeed, give birth in women, and sexual behaviour/roles in both sexes. If appearance can be considered instinctual then phenotype plays a role too (beard, size, body outline, voice), but I don't know if it makes any sense for appearance to be part of instinct. Then again, if observing animals such as birds, they seem to be instinctually very aware of their appearance? Or are they merely instinctually aware of their mating behaviours without being aware of their appearance? I don't know. It is clear that they are instinctually aware of the appearance of OTHERS, and homosexuality falls under that.
In conclusion, I think gender identity is a very vague term. I think identity is relevant though, the same way that a person isn't born with a "homosexual identity", they are born with a homosexual instinct I think and as they grow up they learn about their body and that becomes part of their identity.
Really, the only thing that matters is gender transition medicinally effective. If you look at it is really a hypothesized natural medicine, where the body's own chemistry and psychology is used to heal itself from either gender dysphoria, or other poor quality of life as a person of the current sex that cannot be labelled gender dysphoria.
Other natural medicines have worked, opioids, psychedelics. Sure they have been very dangerous if used recklessly, but they have legitimate uses. Before opioids people undergoing surgery would never be anesthetized.
One of your criticism on this podcast was "there is no one debating", but are you debating? I think it is not most important whether you expect gender transition to be justifiable effective enough as a medical procedure, because research is not about "trying to confirm your expectations", it is about further exploring something that has shown initial promise.
It might be a very difficult ethical dilemma the same way the restriction of psychedelics is. A lot of people with severe mental health issues (often much less cute or loveable than children with gender dysphoria, which is not judgment of those children, just a reality) don't have access to psychedelic assisted treatment that given current science could very likely change their lives. But I believe that taking psychedelics without a therapeutic framework can be adverse in most cases (don't take my word on that, I think that should be fact checked by someone who knows more about it).
There is absolutely no justification for saying "trans women can never be women/trans men can never be men". I think it is reasonable to believe that sex is primarily defined by a person's reproductive system, but even there babies have already been born from womb transplants, thus gender transition might be possible in the near future under that definition too. I don't see a reason to say that "gender is entirely a person's X/Y chromosome", to me the recipe becomes irrelevant ones a person's body is developed. Transplanting a man's lung into a female recipients body is already possible, so those chromosomes don't seem significant.
I think the reason transphobic opposition is not taken seriously is because it is toxic. Merely having questions doesn't give you the right to ask those questions at any expense. It's unethical to ask a grieving person very confronting questions questioning what they believe about death. It's unethical to say "this treatment will never work", taking away a person's hope, when there is no evidence to back that up.
There are very toxic people promoting under regulated or even unregulated gender transition. Medicine other than stuff you can buy at a pharmacy should never be unregulated.
You said in this podcast you feel like "people don't discuss enough" and "that they aren't asking hard questions", but I don't hear you ask very hard well-thought out questions either, yet this organisation has a very aggressive approach. Just because you feel under attack, which maybe in some cases misapplication of gender transition CAN result in encouraging internalized homophobia, but as far as I know treatment plans in credible institutions already include exclusionary criteria such as other diagnoses and a person's relationship with their sexuality.
By the way, from this theoretical perspective it is a 100% understandable that a trans person can feel attracted to a woman-in-appearance (regardless of their instinct) because that is how I expect attraction to work. But it is also understandable that a lesbian woman-in-appearance doesn't feel attracted to a lesbian man-in-appearance. It would be unfortunate, but a reality. The only solution would be compromise, date a bisexual person who can be attracted to the mixture of both phenotypes in the absence of more advanced technology that can change phenotype beyond this "uncanny valley".
But again, this is still theoretical.
wow, really good stories this week. for sure gac is consumer fraud. an entire industry that refers to evidence based response to normal psych issues that most grow out of as "conversion therapy" ? a complete scam.
i dont buy it when any of these "providers" publicly say they are stopping these harmful practises. they probably have a waiting list they can operate from for quite a while.
NY times podcast is riddled with misinformation. when media "both sides" this issue they give validity to harmful quackery. there is zero evidence gac helps anyone. not even one person.
the dutch protocol "study" participants were cherry picked. we know that now. and the pod cast also completed biased.