I Honestly Don't Get Transgender

I completely agree! It reminds me of the words of one of my dearest History teachers regarding the catholic far right’s frequent claims on the “spiritual decadence” of modernity here in our country – “These men have spent centuries obsessed with the state of every woman’s hymen, yet they dare to say they are spiritual and care less than we do about the body? We, materialist as we are, are much more ‘spiritual’ than them”. I’m an agnostic atheist, and an inveterate materialist myself, and I do believe our mind is defined by our brain function and all of the information it has stored during our growth. However, people of the religious and/or racist right, it seems to me, only pretend to care about biology at all, happily ignoring all of the complexity of the brain and all the different ways it defines who we are. And if our brain and its cognitive byproduct, our mind, is to face irreversible, even lethal changes in order to conform to their beliefs, they don’t even care. They care only about that which is publicly observable and important to their personal belief system.


True. That goes not only for HRT, which presents a far greater propensity to adverse effects than SR itself, but also for the social and psychological dimensions of the transition. That still does not mean HRT and identity acceptance are not viable options, however. TG people are already TG before the process begins, and they are informed about the possible adverse effects beforehand. Some choose not to undergo HRT, and they are no less TG for that, while others choose to do so nevertheless, because having compatible minds and bodies is still more important for them. If OP and other anti-TG people were to acknowledge that, however, they would also have to account for other variables and, worst of all, actually face the legal implications of their "arguments", thus threatening their preset beliefs, which is probably part of the reason why they don’t. Deep down, they care only about their own rules about how the human body should be. Nothing else about TG people matters to them.


So you want to freely compare TG people to drug addicts and even the KKK, but you still wants to be treated nicely? Awfully convenient, isn't it? In your transphobia, and in the mindset that underlies it, you are no different than any right-wing priest or nazi sympathizer out there, and, if anyone here is close in attitude to the KKK, it’s you. You suggest TG people are harming themselves, but you present no evidence whatsoever to your bold claims, ignoring meanwhile all of the evidence presented otherwise. The truth is, you do not even care at all about whether TG people are harming themselves or not. After all, you conveniently ignored all of the evidence regarding TG suicide under identity control. You care only about whether they live in accordance to your conservative personal rules on how other people should live their lives, and if they have to die for it, so be it. I know why you ignore every argument cast against you. It’s because you have neither the courage nor the rationality to actually face the implications of your speech, which still helps to kill and segregate people all over the world. What cowardice!

And no, we don’t think people should do whatever they want to as long as it makes them feel nice. That’s what you believe in. You believe you can and should fight TG people’s rights despite the harm your behavior brings towards society, only because it makes you feel nice to think people are “accepting themselves”. Yay, good for you! And worse, unlike being TG, your attitude is your choice. Granted, it is influenced by society and your upbringing, but it still is your choice. You are harming yourself by making that choice, yes, though the harm you do to yourself is insignificant enough for you to prioritize keeping your irrational beliefs intact. The harm you do to thousands of people all over the world, however, is both unimaginably damaging and, in thousands of cases, lethal. So do forgive us if we fight you and your attitudes and if we don’t treat you as nicely as you think we should. You are contributing to the death and despair of other people both by your choice of expression and by its consequences on law and societal pressure, and, while you are not ready to face it, we are.

TG people are TG whether or not we do anything to them. The reason we offer them the opportunity to transition and to relocate and, if they feel the need to, to undergo HRT and SRS is because we would be harming them otherwise. We would be causing them to feel unimaginable despair and we would be driving them to suicide. We do procedures with a far greater propensity to adverse effects on other people in order for them to have better chances at living the life they want to, but people do not argue against that because, even in the extremely problematic society we live in, that would right away be seen as absurd. You are not entitled to decide what counts as harm and what doesn’t, and the fact you don’t even have the courage to face the implications and consequences of your speech only makes all your views on the matter null by default. And, do recall, you are harming others! Not according to anyone's irrational opinion, mind you, but according to all the social, clinical and psychological data we have about TG and the negative consequences they face due to this kind of attitude, including suicide. People like me should speak against you. Casting all of the evidence at you at every opportunity is my social responsibility. After you ignore all of it and continue spouting your nonsensical, dangerous, repressive dogmas, treating you like the controlling and harmful bigot you act as is the least, really, that one can do. Which does not mean we should stalk you online and throw insults at you, but it does mean that, every time you make a statement like that, we are completely entitled to oppose you.

And do bear in mind that you are in no place to criticize religious people for believing in what they believe. Being religious, more often than not, is against a proper parsimonious/probabilistic/Bayesian interpretation of scientific data, but it isn’t, by itself, harmful. Your beliefs, for their part, since they throw all of the available data in the trash can, are even more irrational, and, by their implications and consequences, are unconceivably, really, unconceivably harmful. At least on this point, you are no better than any of the most destructive religious posters we have at IMDB, and you are not acting like you deserve a different treatment than the one they do.

And, finally, we don't even fight heroin addicts. We offer them medical and psychological support, and, during the rehab program, we even offer them other drugs in order to diminish their suffering. Not that you actually care one iota about addicts or TG people, either way. You only care about whether or not they are living according to your rules and whether or not they make you feel nice by conforming to your personal irrational beliefs about the need of “self-acceptance”.