Transgendered children

[Esquilax]

I can certainly sympathize with someone that has a medical issue. I also know how personally how people who do not have a specific medical condition have difficulty understanding the unique challenges faced by people with disabilities. At the same time I consider sexism a serious social evil and it seems to me that the transgender issue reinforces problematic stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Does anyone else see this tension?

Not particularly, mostly because the spectrum of what's actually happening is broader than you might think. Trans people don't necessarily wish to transition from one idealized gender stereotype to another, they simply wish to be themselves, which they view to be a different gender than their biological one; their desires, from what I've heard from trans and queer friends, have less to do with gender constructs and more to do with the literal physicality of what's happening to them. Imagine waking up in a body that isn't yours, consider the dissonance in your mind from that, and you'll have something close.

But more broadly, hypothetically, let's say you're right: what would you actually want done about that? Should potential trans folk just have to suffer to make correcting sexists an easier job? Surely there's some form of lesson about gender identity that could be drawn from that situation that aids in dispelling sexism?