Curing Dysphoria part 3: the body

Cursed 👌
Jul 27, 2017 · 5 min read

So its kinda been a while since I wrote part 2 and 1 of this sci-fi trilogy. I should really get on with the third part right? Sorry its taken so long, had quite a few stressful weeks and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Woo me.

In part 1 I laid out the general basics of where trans medical care would go in the future. In part 2 I discussed the ethical and philosophical implications of curing dysphoria by changing people’s brain. I also made comment on how this seems very very far off in the future as we barely know anything about the brain. Today I want to discuss the other option for curing dysphoria, changing our bodies.

This is basically what transition does already. It isn’t a perfect system and leaves a lot to be desired, but its the best we’ve got and according to a lot of the studies we have is enough to make significant improvements in the quality of life of trans people. This must mean that the soul crushing dysphoria, to some extent, has been cured. Though I think any trans person will tell you it hasn’t entirely left the room and sometimes you can still hear it roaming the corridors outside. For the most part though we are able to live pretty happy lives.

But in our sci-fi future “pretty happy” and “for the most part” aren’t good enough. We need a total cure for dysphoria! Worry not, the sci fi future doesn’t actually seem to be that far away.

When we’re discussing changing the body in relation to trans, what we’re actually discussing is changing the sexed characteristics of the body to the opposite sex. Sex determination in humans follows a pretty simple path, typically speaking. We start with your parents doing the love-cuddle. Your chromosomes are decided based on what the sperm that penetrates your mum’s egg is carrying. If your dad gives you a Y you’re likely male. If an X, you’re likely female. From here on the bundle of cells that is you divides and divides and divides until its basically a human shape. At which point it interacts with the hormones in utero. Depending on the genes in your “body” you will go down one of two main developmental pathways. Your body starts out somewhat developmentally female, and if there’s an SRY gene present your body starts developing more male characteristics, genitals and gonads form. With no SRY gene your body continues down the female pathway and again, gonads and genitals form but this time female ones.

Nothing much really happens for a while after this. Your body finishes developing and you’re born as an infant. Sexually immature. It will take about 10 years for your body to start gearing up for its next big sexual change. This is puberty and its when your gonads start pumping out hormones which push your body into developing secondary sex characteristics.

If you read the bold words backwards you’ll find the 5 main things we use to determine someone’s sex.

Already we can claim to have somewhat a mastery of secondary sex characteristics and hormones. We understand these fairly well and can control them to a pretty good degree. Main problem for our sci-fi future is that they’re not produced within us and have to be taken as medication. This will not do. Hormones are typically produced by the gonads, so we’re going to need to alter those too. Early sex reassignment surgeries had aimed to do just this, although all have failed.

Its been a theme of medical science for a very long time, even pre 21st century we had meta studies of many studies discussing this exact question. Can we transplant reproductive systems? A lot of the studies are fairly optimistic that you can transplant penises from dead people to alive people. Reminder that this was over 20 years ago.

We already have studies suggesting that full uterus transplants will be available “within 2–3 years”. We also have vagina transplants in women. Some of these advances aren’t even just ones we’re hoping for in the future. Remember the dead guy penis thing I said? Yeah? That’s actually happening already. The rate at which we’re learning new things is exponential and I have no doubt that within a couple hundred years we will have totally nailed “cross-sex” reproductive organ transplants, and I mean the full package.

That only leaves chromosomes, which personally I don’t think are all that important though I hear a lot about them online and apparently they matter to a lot of people. No idea why. So lets discuss how we could change this too. Apparently your genes are rigid and fixed and can’t be altered. But that’s being proven wrong with CRISPR. Which in short is kinda like copy and paste for altering gene sequences. In theory once the technique is advanced enough it could be used to change the chromosomes of people. Though chromosomes aren’t really all that important once your body has developed. Their job is basically to tell your body how to develop. Then in the game of sex determining Chinese whispers, your gonads develop and pump out hormones to tell your body how to develop further. Realistically your chromosomes are of no use to you once your baby body has developed.

I think that’s all of the important parts of sex covered. So what does all of this really mean and is it the right option for our future trans to take?

Well it avoids the ethical pitfalls of changing someone’s sense of self, and given that this procedure exists in the future its not unreasonable to assume we have a 100% diagnosis rate for it. Even if we didn’t, our sci-fi future mastery would allow us to change back at will anyway right? For me as a trans person this seems like the holy grail of trans medical treatment. I can’t see any downsides to it and perhaps I’m bias in that, but I’ve really tried to think of any and I can’t.

It seems to me that were both options possible, changing someone’s brain wholly to match their body or changing someone’s body wholly to match their brain. The latter would be the most ethical and best one to follow. It doesn’t require sort of killing someone to achieve it, though may require someone to have died — in the case of the DEAD PENIS. Sorry, still can’t get over that.

Anyway, as always let me know what you think and if you like this kinda conversational style of blogging about deep trans heck, feel free to hit up my blog over here.

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