(April 19, 2016 at 7:14 pm)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: Okay, since you have trouble imagining the "wake up with a vagina" scenario, let's try it the other way.
You wake up one day, just as you are. Just as you have always been. You KNOW who you are...
...yet everyone you meet calls you Susan. They refer to you as "she" and "her", and expect you to wear dresses. When you explain that you're really a guy named Paul, you get the most horrible reactions, are cast aside from friends and family and social circles, and are subject to constant fear of attack if you try to just do what you do.
Yes, I'm proposing a similar "magical" scenario, where the roles are reversed, but you really need to understand that in every way that your brain tells you who you are, including what your sense of gender is, they feel the same... the only difference being that their bodies develop according to the chromosomes, not according to the DNA-set which dictates how the "normal" (I use that word loosely, since everything that happens in biology is "normal"; some things just occur more commonly than others) brain develops. Instead, your genetics/epigenetics caused your brain to develop in the way that the female brain normally develops, instead.
Try... try very very hard... to listen to what the trans community is actually telling you about their experiences, instead of projecting your own opinions onto them and failing to empathize. That's why we constantly have to reprimand the theists who come here for doing to us, when they say we "really" worship Satan and are angry at god, or whatever.
I didn't have trouble with the other question, I answered it. Ok so in this episode of the twilight zone I wake up and I'm being taught a lesson about my not wanting tax money to go towards gender re assignment surgery in most circumstances by remaining who I am but people are calling me Susan and saying "Hey Paul, try this dress on."
I might assume I've gone insane and try and get myself therapy, either that or go out and leave my family and friends and get some new friends.
Me having a different opinion from other people about what taxes should go on doesn't automatically mean I lack empathy. It means I've thought about it and my opinion is that due to the state of the NHS and the waiting times for medical emergencies and lack of funding I'd prioritize emergencies over emotional distress that may or may not be solved by sex re assignment surgery.
It's really arrogant for people to just say "Ok you disagree with me so I know you haven't thought about this as much as I do, you aren't understanding and you lack empathy."
And when people ask "But what about this guy who comes in who's got no penis but a vaginal opening in the middle of his chest and he's got tits on his forehead." Ok yeah, give him surgery, I already said I'm not rigid in my opinion on this and it would change if circumstances changed.
Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.
Impersonation is treason.