Evan Urquhart

An aside: You might have noticed that I'm not talking about the binary or separating binary trans people out much. One area where my thinking has changed is that I've come to see the binary/NB division as much less salient than I'd thought.

Cultural and historical evidence suggests that people living as the opposite binary sex happens widely, that having some people outside of the binary happens widely, and I doubt it's possible to draw very strict lines around those two groups.

Anyway- the point about finding something like trans people in other cultures and in historical cultures, is that this is not what we expect to see in a primarily social phenomenon.

We also wouldn't necessarily expect medical transition to work as well as it does in a primarily social phenomenon, and we wouldn't expect people who transitioned to mostly stay transitioned and not want to change back.

Incidentally, this is why TERFs (OG TERFs- who knows about the newer, right-wing infected variety) believe so strongly in regret and detransition. If their theory was correct, and this was a purely social phenomenon, that's what you'd expect- lots of regret and detransition.

OK. So, I'm saying that gender dysphoria is probably not, primarily, a social phenomenon. What's left is some kind of biological/medical explanation. This does not necessarily mean it's innate, but if it wasn't innate we'd need a mechanism.

I'm pretty sure we'd know if being transgender was a communicable disease.

It *could* be some sort of environmental toxin... It would have to be something that pre-dates modernity... is all over the world... eh, but even then you'd probably have to bring in an innate susceptibility to explain why it's so rare but also so widespread.

Basically, as someone who believes in physical reality and scientific ways of knowing, it's hard not to conclude that an innate physical condition relating to gender dysphoria/discomfort gives rise to the social phenomenon that, in our culture, we call "being transgender".

And, while I won't go into the evidence on this already long thread, it's perhaps even harder to dismiss the fact that medical interventions are useful and successful for a large number of people who experience gender dysphoria, and that these people rarely experience regret.

Buying into a scientific/medical framework has strengths and drawbacks. It's not the only useful way to think about or talk about these questions.

But, in my opinion, it is one of a few useful ways. It's drawbacks shouldn't overshadow its strengths. Medical transition is a gift, and those of us who pursue it need and in fact DESERVE real research, with rigorous standards, to get the best outcomes.