RE: Transexuals
May 18, 2016 at 5:51 pm
(This post was last modified: May 18, 2016 at 5:52 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
(May 18, 2016 at 4:15 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Your misunderstanding, Chad, comes in believing that gender identity is a subjective belief.&
(May 18, 2016 at 4:15 pm)Faith No More Wrote: We know that in the development of a fetus, the sex of the brain and the sex of the genitals are determined at different times, and sometimes the two do not line up. So, a transgender person is simply someone with the brain of one sex, but the genitals of another.
Perhaps my confusion stems from inconsistent definitions of sex/gender and the simplistic notions about identity being presented. Many parts of identity are acquired by experience and reflection, others are innate biological features, and some are social constructs imposed on us. As an analogy, the form of a vessel may determine how many ounces of fluid it can hold but it does not determine what someone will put in it. Likewise the same vessel in one cultural context may suggest “coffee cup” and in another suggest “pen holder.”
(May 18, 2016 at 4:15 pm)Faith No More Wrote: It's not as if they just choose to identify as the sex opposite of their genitals. It's that their brains are literally telling them that their sex is different than their genitals, and they choose to identify with what their brain tells them as opposed to what's physically between their legs.
What you wrote seems to me like a jumble of concepts that draws on mutually exclusive assumptions about the relationship between brain states versus mental properties, cultural attitudes about masculinity versus femininity, and subjective experience versus objective reality.