There’s a lot of tough questions surrounding this topic that I kinda wanna open the floor of discussion to because I think it’s really really really interesting.
From within the internet debate community I inhabit, I’ve managed to hear quite a few opinions from different, well known, trans voices. People such as Blaire White and Zinnia Jones have tackled the subject, and I really don’t feel like this conversation is going to end soon. Which I think is great, this is an awesome philosophical and ethical question to ponder over and I want to hear what more trans people think — hopefully without getting offended by each others responses. *crosses fingers*
Lets discuss the “against” a cure side first. The arguments against that I’ve heard focus on the trans identity and whether its okay to try and medicate that out of existence. Its been likened to “trans-genocide” and it harks of conversion therapy. All around seeming like a bad idea.
We’ve tried “curing” things like this before and its always been unethical and barbaric. Its like trying to cure something deeply embedded within your psyche, something that somewhat defines who you are. Which I think it would be silly for any trans person to argue it doesn’t, even if we don’t want other people to define us by it. Though because of dysphoria analogies which compare this to gay conversion therapy don’t work so well.
Dysphoria being the motivation for why most transsexuals desire transition at all. Transition which is not perfect and does come with a lot of issues, especially for those who transition later in life. This cannot be denied.
Now to discuss the “for” a cure side. The argument here is that dysphoria is a bad thing and that we should aim to cure it. Which as a trans person myself I can confirm, dysphoria sucks and the best you can hope for is managing it down to a level where it doesn’t really upset your day much. For a lot of trans people, this is the utility of transition, it aims to minimise the things you feel dysphoria about & in ideal circumstances it works pretty darned well too. With a lot of trans people being able to live relatively normal lives.
However that ‘relatively’ is pretty important, because it won’t be exactly “normal”. By this I mean the average experience, before anyone hounds me in the comments about it. Transition isn’t perfect, you don’t become 100% biological female or male, you don’t sprout ovaries or testes, your voice won’t unbreak and you won’t ungrow tits. Oh and of course, in some cases, there’s sterilisation. There’s a lot of problems with medical transition which I think are great grounds on which to try and seek something better.
When it boils down to it, really the argument is that we should accept that what we have isn’t ideal. Then start thinking about what’s possible and what’s better? I think that in an ideal world curing dysphoria outright, from the moment you noticed it, even if it put your sense of self at risk, your whole ‘identity’, even then, is a pretty solid option. Dysphoria is bad and we should seek to stamp it out in my opinion. Of course, providing you’re pre-transition I guess. Though here’s the kicker; what if that just… isn’t possible? what if it is possible, but we have easier options that are just as good?
From what we know of transsexualism, it appears to be caused by some kind of brain differences. We know that brains are a mosaic of sexed features, and tend to follow patterns. We also know that in studies trans women appear to show demasculinised regions with feminised regions and vice versa for trans men. Some studies even suggest that early onset gender dysphoria could be an intersex condition of the brain.
Much like with intersex conditions of the anywhere else, perhaps this is just beyond our capabilities to fix right now? Perhaps we’re going to put far more people in danger and hurt far more trans people by trying? See: the intersex lobby against “corrective” genital surgery, policies which were foolishly supported by Dr John Money’s failed experiment on David Reimer. I think these are absolutely fair concerns too.
Ones which I agree with. The whole reason transsexuals change our bodies so drastically with hormones and surgery is because we, currently, cannot change our brains. There’s no option for that. The ‘distance’ between body and brain causes dysphoria so we seek to minimise that distance.
Being able to manipulate the brain to control something as fundamental as self-identity with the accuracy required to “untrans” a transsexual is beyond sci-fi level stuff. So if we’re gonna talk sci-fi stuff, why not talk about something that’s a little more within our reach, albeit, still far off in the future and skates far less ethical boundaries.
The issue is “transition is faulty” so instead of arguing for a cure for dysphoria, why not make a case for better transitions? We already know that manipulating the body is far easier than manipulating the brain. We have techniques like CRISPR which can edit chromosomes, we have artificial ovaries in mice and vaginas in humans being transplanted. We even have lab grown penises ready to be tested in humans. We’re not masters of the body and biology by any means yet, but we’re so much further ahead in this field than we are in comparison to where we are in trying to manipulate the brain.
This fulfills the goal of “curing dysphoria” because its bad and removes the faults with transition. This is better and far more possible than the brain editing stuff. It also doesn’t stray into the philosophical and ethical abyss of whether its okay to cure who someone is as a person, to alter their fundamental sense of self. But that’s just my 2c I guess, what do you think?
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