How many genders are there?

[Sheldon]

@Cognostic

Were a person feeling like an equal there would be no need for the desire to feel equal.

Were a transgender feeling like their psychological gender, there would be no need to desire to change. Perhaps I wasn’t clear, your inference from the word desire appeared to simply assumed desire doesn’t reflect reality, and they are not the psychological gender they assert they are, The evidence I posted suggests otherwise, as does gender dysphoria of course.

@Cognostic

A better analogy would be a person of color wanting to be white.

I disagree, as you are again assuming that what they desire is not what they are, and this so far has been based solely on your assertion that gender identity is determined solely by biological identity, and again I have posted evidence that suggest this is not the case.

@Cognostic

You are arguing that they really are a white person on the inside because they think they are a white person on the inside.

I disagree, in fact that seems like a reductio ad absurdum fallacy to me.

@Cognostic

We are who we are.

This tautology ignores the crux of the disagreement, and so doesn’t seem to validate your assertion that biological identity is the sole determinant in sexual identity. I have demonstrated evidence that this might not be the case.

@Cognostic

“We found variants that could go along with that,” Dr. Layman says, “but you know it’s not totally confirmed whether that is a cause and effect…so you really have to have bigger numbers.”

To be fair, I never claimed anything was confirmed, I offered evidence, how compelling it is I am prepared to let science decide, however medical science currently recognises gender dysphoria as real, not a delusion and not a mental or psychiatric disorder. This view seems significant to me, and of course reflects the change in view medical science one made about assumptions about gay people.

@Cognostic

The findings, which are published on 29 August in Science and based on the genomes of nearly 500,000 people, shore up the results of earlier, smaller studies and confirm the suspicions of many scientists: while sexual preferences have a genetic component, no single gene has a large effect on sexual behaviours."

That does suggest that many scientists suspect that sexual identity might have a genetic influence, and is not therefore solely determined by biological sexual identity. Scientists cannot isolate a “gay gene” either, this does not mean gay people are delusional, or that their biological gender is the sole determining factor, pause for thought?

@Cognostic

“There is no ‘gay gene’,” says lead study author Andrea Ganna, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (I have no reason to suspect this research will do any better than the years of research into homosexuality. ) It happens in about 10% of all mamalian species on the planet and we really don’t know why.

So do you believe gay people are gay, or are they pretending or delusional? Otherwise the parallel suggests that biological gender is not the sole arbiter of either sexual desire or gender identity? Bear in mind your argument about desire is still being used to deny homosexuality by many religious groups.

@Cognostic

You want to believe the person actually is a ‘female’ in a male body.

Not rue, what I want here doesn’t feature at all, why would it? I am merely trying to understand, and of course adjust my thinking if it is morally apropos. I personally have nothing to lose or gain, as far as I can see.

@Cognostic

I am telling you that that is not the case.

Do you think i don’t understand what you are claiming, or that telling me what you are claiming will sway me?

@Cognostic

They will never be a female.

Straw man fallacy, again. You are using the word female to donate biological gender, I have never claimed this can be completely reversed. Though in the future who knows. Some species change sex under environmental pressures to aid reproduction and survival of certain species, the natural world doesn’t seem as judgemental as humans it appears.

@Cognostic

They are only a male in a male body who desires to be female.

Or a female in a male body who desires to live and express as much as is possible who they are. Simply making your claim over and over doesn’t make it more compelling. We don’t need to agree of course, but if all you can assert is they have a biological identity, then we haven’t really learned anything have we? Besides you already posted research that suggests this may not be the case, and medical science recognises gender dysphoria as real, which for me is a problem with your claim.

@Cognostic

Accepting who they are, as a person, born male, desireing to be female, is healthier than pretending to be someting you are not and can never be.

Well this is a tangential claim of course, and doesn’t address your claim that they are deluded. However the very existence of gender dysphoria and the suffering it entails suggests otherwise to me. I think a better course would be for society to become more accepting of transgenders, as of course they have done and are doing with gay men and women.

@Cognostic

but you are not and will never be female. You will never have a baby, a period, a pregnancy, ovaries.

Straw man fallacy again, sorry. I have never claimed otherwise, though again the word never there seems an absolute claim you’d be hard pressed to evidence.

@Cognostic

fe·male:
of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes.

That just seems like semantics to me, take the word gay, which once had a very different meaning. It is a fact that words change and have nuanced definitions over time. These often reflect paradigm shifts in cultural and social attitudes.

@Cognostic

Okay… We really are going round and round. And round… I’m dizzy… Your turn… I appreciated the link to the study. It is more recent than anything I had previously read.

You’re welcome, the article was interesting for me as well, as it is easy to lose sight of the fact we are talking about people as well. I wonder if people will laugh at such discussions in 50 years time?