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On Transgender / Transsexualism

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Also if we're speaking legally, a law against transgenders using a bathroom would be a violation of rights in any context. You could only punish stupid or ugly transsexuals who, for some reason, reveal their sex to someone else in the bathroom. Generally the convincing ones will get by, whatcha gonna do, lift her skirt?

Fuck no. What I would do if there was a man playing dressup to look like a woman and they are in the men's room, is simply say to someone (staff/owners/security/police/etc), "There is a 'woman' in the men's room" And that's it. But if there is a woman in the men's room who is playing dress up and looks like a man and uses the stall, I'd say nothing to anyone, because I would have no freaking clue that that is really woman in the men's room.

Edited by intellectualammo
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A sex change surgery requires a lot more rigorous testing than being a simple whim. If a person can convince a doctor to give them hormones, a psychologist that they need them, and then after that they need a surgery, then it may go beyond a simple whim. Plastic surgeons aren't just handing out sex changes to anyone who can pay.

Um... OK. I agree. I was simply pointing out that not everyone should do it exactly for reasons that relate to how you ended that. It is a life chaging event and should be choosen with care.

The morality of homosexuality necessarily -must- be about freedom of choice. Regardless of what psychology says now, or what it might say in the future, being gay is okay because it is morally okay for a person to choose to be that way. Psychologists used to say it was a disorder, now they say it's a trait, in the future they might say it's nurture.

A person does not choose their sexual orientation. They are free to make decisions about how to pursue their sexual orientation but not what they are. I cannot grab a picture of Brad Pitt, go into my bathroom and lock the door, then choose to be attracted to him for five minutes.

No comment on his wife :whistle:

This is just the nature of science, and it's why the moral evaluation of homosexuality must divorce itself from science.

Science discoveres the nature of things. It is about learning the facts. Why would homosexuality divorce itself from the facts? If anything, you need honest observance of facts and reason to demolish the irrational religious/conservative bias against homosexuality.

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A person does not choose their sexual orientation. They are free to make decisions about how to pursue their sexual orientation but not what they are. I cannot grab a picture of Brad Pitt, go into my bathroom and lock the door, then choose to be attracted to him for five minutes.

I can't go grab the book Jane Eyre, go to a comfy, quiet room, then choose to enjoy the book for even five minutes. Do I not choose my "book orientation"? =P I certainly have volitional power to alter preferences, even though it's impossible to suddenly start liking a book on will alone. I see sexual orientation as very similar - the preference grows from initial choices as a child, as well as some biological circumstances. Sexual orientation is not really out of the realm of volition - unlike height. Perhaps some preferences are outside the norm, but that hardly makes it bad.

As far as sex reassignment surgery, I do not see it as anything more than complex plastic surgery. Wanting breast reduction surgery, wanting to alter your nose, and so on, isn't really mutilation, even though it could be viewed as such. We're talking about modern medicine, not botched jobs in a motel room (which some transgender people have stupidly done and ruined their entire life). It really is quite amazing how you can be modified without losing functionality, or even improve life as a whole. Anyone who has had major, invasive surgery is changed physically in an amazing way, and is fine later. People go through brain surgery, get hips replaced, get rods stuck in their back, or get artificial hearts implanted. I would bet sex reassignment surgery is not even *close* to as dangerous, and if modern medicine could do all that, I certainly believe sex reassignment surgery works out in the end.

Edited by Eiuol
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Also if we're speaking legally, a law against transgenders using a bathroom would be a violation of rights in any context.

Unless you are talking about government buildings you are wrong.

In a private business the owner should be able to allow or disllow anyone they so choose.

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I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone could convince all three of those professions to do wacky things to his body.

Some individuals in those professions yes, which again turns this into a case by case judgement basis of morality at best. It is not the habit or principle of modern medicine to administer these surgeries on a whim.

The morality of homosexuality involves choice, no choice, circumstance, and the individual in question. But if you mean just the sexual urges of a male toward another male, that involves no choice at all, at least by the time he is sexually mature -- and I doubt any conscious choice before then, either -- and thus is not a question of morality.

I'm not sure I understood the first sentence, but I think I agree. Just sexual urges do not a moral case make, since morality is about choices and not urges. My problem is that defining homosexuality as strictly no-choice, and then forming moral judgement on the basis that scientists tell us that it isn't a choice, doesn't sit right for me rationally. Tabula rasa, anti-determinism, and my personal experience as a homosexual who chose to be, tell me otherwise.

And before anyone goes into a thing about how I'm only a bisexual who chose to only be with men, how can that be a real distinction? I don't have sexual attraction to females, but I considered them as possible mates just the same, and I continue to do so. I find it unlikely that I'll ever find a female I'm interested in partnering with, so I look for partners exclusively in males. What backwards definition of morality would exclude me?

So you think I don't understand, and I've repeatedly asked to be "enlightened," yet you don't offer simple explanations on the benefits of this surgery and calling one's self "transgender," or even what "transgender" means.

Just because a person is "quite happy" (which can't be known for certain) after the sex "reassignment" surgery doesn't mean the surgery was a good idea, or was even responsible for the happiness. If we're comparing it to homosexuality, I'm gay because only men turn me on -- period. It doesn't have to do with the gender I "identify" with, nor my personality, nor my preferences, nor whatever. What makes a transgender person? How does this surgery help him? How is it different from any other forms of sexuality? "In the future," when humans can be altered at whim, we won't be having almost any of the kinds of discussions we're having now, will we? All of our current discussions are about humans.

My apologies, "You don't understand" was not proper in that context. I only have a problem with a blanket moral statement that any and all TGs who have surgery are immoral and irrational. I believe that judgment can only be made on a case by case basis at the individual level.

Um... OK. I agree. I was simply pointing out that not everyone should do it exactly for reasons that relate to how you ended that. It is a life chaging event and should be choosen with care.

A person does not choose their sexual orientation. They are free to make decisions about how to pursue their sexual orientation but not what they are. I cannot grab a picture of Brad Pitt, go into my bathroom and lock the door, then choose to be attracted to him for five minutes.

No comment on his wife :whistle:

Science discoveres the nature of things. It is about learning the facts. Why would homosexuality divorce itself from the facts? If anything, you need honest observance of facts and reason to demolish the irrational religious/conservative bias against homosexuality.

TGs: I object to a level of disgust shown for TGs by the public, but my objection is an interpersonal one and not a moral one. I object to using pronouns they dislike on principle because I do not see the principle. I was never taught in Grammar class: "And his and her ARE ONLY FOR THOSE SEXES, and if you see a man dressed as a woman, YOU CALL HIM A HIM." What to call them is a matter of courtesy, not preciseness of language.

Gay: I do not agree with you that orientation is not a matter of choice. But that isn't essential to the point I want to make about the morality of homosexuality and homosexuals' rights. I am saddened that civil rights for homosexuals is so little informed by enlightenment philosophy. It has taken the careful admonition of psychologists that homosexuals can't really help being how they are for society at large to really give a damn. Women's rights required no such scientific justification. Blacks' rights did not either, in fact science was against them in many cases. The civil rights movement for Blacks in America did not begin and was not predicated on some scientists stating that studies show Black people cannot help the way they act or feel. Successful movements for more rights are based on philosophical justifications, not scientific ones. I do not need empirical data to prove that it is my right to be gay, choice or no choice.

Unless you are talking about government buildings you are wrong.

In a private business the owner should be able to allow or disllow anyone they so choose.

In a private business a rule against men in the women's room would be a rule, not a law. Violation of the rules of the house could be regarded as tresspassing. I agree with the right of private citizens to dictate the rules of their house. I disagree with a state or a government's right to legislate that men cannot be in the women's room, in either public or private buildings. Such a law is unenforceable by such entities. Only a private property owner can enforce the rules correctly, morally, and objectively in his own property.

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TGs: I object to a level of disgust shown for TGs by the public, but my objection is an interpersonal one and not a moral one. I object to using pronouns they dislike on principle because I do not see the principle. I was never taught in Grammar class: "And his and her ARE ONLY FOR THOSE SEXES, and if you see a man dressed as a woman, YOU CALL HIM A HIM." What to call them is a matter of courtesy, not preciseness of language.

Gay: I do not agree with you that orientation is not a matter of choice. But that isn't essential to the point I want to make about the morality of homosexuality and homosexuals' rights. I am saddened that civil rights for homosexuals is so little informed by enlightenment philosophy. It has taken the careful admonition of psychologists that homosexuals can't really help being how they are for society at large to really give a damn. Women's rights required no such scientific justification. Blacks' rights did not either, in fact science was against them in many cases. The civil rights movement for Blacks in America did not begin and was not predicated on some scientists stating that studies show Black people cannot help the way they act or feel. Successful movements for more rights are based on philosophical justifications, not scientific ones. I do not need empirical data to prove that it is my right to be gay, choice or no choice.

Outside of a few differences on approach I'd say we agree with each other.

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I'm not talking about legality here, I'm talking about morality.

It's just so bizarre to me that you would say that genital mutilation is "matching" either sex. The organs are not grown and replaced, they are spliced and diced. I also don't believe people who say that the feeling is even comparable to intact genitals.

I suppose if we want to make up some reality where human bodies and body parts can be grown and swapped out with an hour-long medical procedure safely, even routinely, then I have no argument against that, and the world we would live in would be a lot different than the one we live in now. But we're talking about now, where the unknowns are many and the benefits uncertain/nonexistent.

No, I'm not interested in legality, and don't know how you got the notion.

Morality, through metaphysics, is all I emphasize here.

Perhaps, I should explain the "conservative" reference.

It is the religious, conservativist element that opposes any intervention in the

human body, based on their metaphysics of 'God's Plan'(roughly.)

Objectivist metaphysics of Man contains no supernaturalism, or fatalism.

Rational, autonomous, self-generating and directing, fallible and a-mystical.

Just to remind you,there is no place for gender or sexuality in our metaphysics.

Now, if Dr Peikoff had called the operation a "physical assault",then he'd have had

a point - but less of a moral argument.

Whatever the neuro-science or DNA composition that determines the transgenderist,

and there certainly is more for professionals to learn, the opposition to it on

moral grounds is surprisingly "conservativist" coming from him.

He doesn't know enough, and nor do I - but what makes anyone believe that this

is all that rare a phenomenon in the first place? or, that it is not an

extremely powerful "urge" - for a gender change, primarily, with sexuality secondary?

Judging the surgical procedure as "immoral" might well condemn a person to a lifetime of misery.

Now THAT is irrational.

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I can't go grab the book Jane Eyre, go to a comfy, quiet room, then choose to enjoy the book for even five minutes. Do I not choose my "book orientation"? =P I certainly have volitional power to alter preferences, even though it's impossible to suddenly start liking a book on will alone. I see sexual orientation as very similar - the preference grows from initial choices as a child, as well as some biological circumstances. Sexual orientation is not really out of the realm of volition - unlike height. Perhaps some preferences are outside the norm, but that hardly makes it bad.

No matter how many times I try to better inform myself I cannot like the Communist Manifesto enough to want to finish it, so I'm not sure that is valid. Although to play devil's advocate for your possition I did choose my value system that makes me revolted by it. I'll also admit that my only reference I have to go off of is myself and the people I know, and in those cases I don't see any case of someone who could wake up one day and decide to sleep with a different sex. I could grant this might be possible is some exteme cases, which would once again demonstrate the need to know someone before passing judgement on their situation, but it I would think it would be rare. I simply don't see people switching sexual orientation like they do other choices in life.

As far as sex reassignment surgery, I do not see it as anything more than complex plastic surgery. Wanting breast reduction surgery, wanting to alter your nose, and so on, isn't really mutilation, even though it could be viewed as such. We're talking about modern medicine, not botched jobs in a motel room (which some transgender people have stupidly done and ruined their entire life). It really is quite amazing how you can be modified without losing functionality, or even improve life as a whole. Anyone who has had major, invasive surgery is changed physically in an amazing way, and is fine later. People go through brain surgery, get hips replaced, get rods stuck in their back, or get artificial hearts implanted. I would bet sex reassignment surgery is not even *close* to as dangerous, and if modern medicine could do all that, I certainly believe sex reassignment surgery works out in the end.

Was this directed at me? Because I agree. I think the only observation I made was that it was life altering as well as a life long commitment to treatment so someone should be damn sure before they did it. This is something you don't do on a whim. Otherwise, the fact man is supposed to make nature adjust to him certainly applies here. If you are mentally predisposed to be a female and you were born with man equipment then you should use technology to bring mind and body back into harmony. Mind and body integration is a corner stone of Objectivist philosophy after all.

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No matter how many times I try to better inform myself I cannot like the Communist Manifesto enough to want to finish it, so I'm not sure that is valid. Although to play devil's advocate for your possition I did choose my value system that makes me revolted by it.

Right, it's your value system that leads to your dislike. Your value system is in your power to alter, but you can't make changes in a day. The more integrated a choice, the harder it is to choose a different one. Sexuality as a sense of life topic is one where the choice is so integrated that it's difficult to change (and may be influenced - not caused - by biology). Aesthetic preferences are quite similar. You will be unable to will yourself to like it, just as a communist would be unable to simply start reading Rand and enjoy it immediately. Changing ideas and preferences take time, and a lot of the time changes never happen. Volition isn't the power to make a choice at a moments notice; It's the ability to direct your course of life in the long-term.

The rest of my previous post was directed at the OP in general, and some of what Jaskn wrote.

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That is a great statement.

I second this. Man's nature, as any other nature , to be commanded. Man lives by adjusting nature to his own needs. Everything man does, could be called a metaphysical assault. There is no reason whatsoever to treat man's physical nature in any different way.

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