I believe all trans people. I do believe that all trans people have gender dysphoria (otherwise there wouldnāt be a reason to transition) though many do not recognize it and believe they are trans (which they are) but do not experience dysphoria (which they do). Think of this in a pure motivation sense. One does not make major life changes without something informing that decision, which is what dysphoria is.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that arenāt just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I donāt think you can provide this, because gender abolitionists do believe people have an intrinsic gender (or rather, one may have an intrinsic gender, wrt agender individuals) they just donāt believe that oneās gender should be defined by someone else and that a lot of the roles and behaviors attributed to gender are regressive and need abolished. To which I agree. I am a woman but I am not gender conforming (rarely wear dresses or skirts, present relatively butch, and reject all gender roles).
Your rigid line of thinking here could easily convince someone that conversion therapy is a reasonable treatment for gender dysphoria, which it most certainly is not. Because why would it not be, if it could work? My answer to that is that my intrinsic gender is too much a part of me to rip out: you canāt change my gender. I would not be me if you tore my gender out of me.
Frankly, Iām kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people, especially when they keep telling me Iām biased (āI know why youāre so defensive about thisā). I have a gender, if you donāt then that is good for you, but you canāt take my gender from me. Please genuinely consider that this is based on my life experiences, whereas your view is informed second hand on othersā lived experiences, if you wish to continue this discussion with me.
You canāt ābelieve all trans peopleā while also not believing the trans people who say their experience is not gender fluidity but an actual mid-life change in gender.
Ultimately you can only be one or the other.
As for those people without dysphoria, several of them will openly say they think they can choose one or the other, but prefer one, but donāt think this is the same as gender fluidity. Are they wrong?
āI believe all trans peopleā while having a biological gender essentialist belief is not possible.
I am seriously interested in gender abolitionist takes that arenāt just abolishing the strict roles/styles/behaviors affiliated with gender. I donāt think you can provide this
This is the basis for literally all cyberpunk and transhumanist takes on gender as the elimination of biological limitations turns the entire of sexuality into something of an avatar swap. If youāve spent any time in VR, where some insight into behaviours of people and culture has played out, you start to get a sense for where this could go. What gender is that person with the smoke avatar? No gender. Which, for the record here, is a gender that a lot of people say they already are, which does not at all fit into the gender biological essentialism. You NEED to exclude people who say they have no gender at all (not non-binary, those with explicitly no gender) in order to fit this concept together.
Frankly, Iām kind of growing tired of discussing trans issues with cis people
I am not cis. Not sure why youāve decided this, fucking disgusting response and the reason I waited days to bother responding to this tbh. The way this part of your response makes me feel is unlikely to ever go away when I see you elsewhere on this site, wtf were you thinking.
I believe all trans people.
I want to say, once again, that this is a platitude. It does not fit into the view that youāre taking. You genuinely canāt believe all trans people while having this view.
Sorry I assumed you were cis. Nothing you said implied otherwise, you never talked about your experience with gender and referred to trans people in a way that made it sound like you werenāt a part of them. This conversation isnāt going to go anywhere because you are insistent on telling me what I believe and donāt care when I say otherwise. I donāt believe in all that stuff you said I do. I will know to avoid the topic of gender when I see you on this website in the future as well. Goodbye.
What Iām telling you is that youāre stating things that are incompatible views.
You canāt ābelieve all trans peopleā while explicitly saying that you disagree with trans people who say they have no gender, or trans people that say they are not gender fluid and very much feel like they can and have changed gender at a later point in life.
These are not compatible things. One of these things MUST be untrue.
You want to by hyper-inclusive and nice to all people, I get that you donāt want to exclude people which is why you are saying āI believe all trans peopleā (because youāre not a bad person). But at the same time you are stating a position that is not open to a certain position, largely for good reasons, you are defensive about how it could be used to harm us and have a naturally protective reaction that wants to reject the very idea of it because of the danger it also opens us up to. This has explicitly been the only reason youāve presented for opposing it āthis could be used to argue in favour of conversion therapyā - purely a position taken from a trans activism perspective. What I am trying to get at is that you shouldnāt approach this from the trans activism position but rather than from a philosophical perspective analysing gender.
Doing a āI donāt wanna talk to you anymoreā doesnāt make any of the things Iāve pointed out here any less true. You canāt hold incompatible positions simultaneously. They need to be more deeply examined.