Chris--- I don't agree with you on this trans issue. Deal with it.
If I have to put up with your ignorance and prejudice toward transpeople, you have to put up with my anger and passion about it.
You are the one threatening friendships and threatening to "run away and never speak to anyone again" whenever someone disagrees. Lol.
Dear
ChrisL I know you are trying to be fair in engaging others. But I would agree with the criticism it still comes across as prejudging to assume all cases of transgender are the same as the examples you cited. As I explain ed to Abikesailor look at other diseases
Some cancer is caused by genetics and some are purely environmental exposure to toxic substances. Those two cases are different and the treatment for cancer varies also. Why can't this be true of transgender conditions?
Some may be like Walt heyer where it wasn't his natural self. Like the homosexual cases of people saying it was caused by abuse and wasn't natural for them after all. But for other gay couples they are soul mate born as the same sex to go through that experience and that's a different process and different story and path in life. They may find it is natural for them, unlike cases where it wasn't right or natural for them. Why can't both cases exist
ChrisL who says it has to be all one explanation to be right. You can be right on some cases it explains, and that does not contradict a different case that is caused by other factors. Both explanations are true, so why fight?
In either case that you mentioned, there are "physical" manifestations of disease.
Performing potentially dangerous surgery and giving potentially dangerous hormones to a person who has a healthy body is unethical.
Dear
ChrisL I totally agree it is unethical where the person is mentally not in a position to give informed consent. But for people fully consenting, even if it is unhealthy, it is not unethical for them to choose that for themselves if they are of sound mind. You are assuming they aren't.
One of my transgender friends described it this way: if the body is the temple of the spirit, the house in which it lives. Then the same way we can decorate our house any way we like, why not change our bodies to be the way we like? So this person has spiritually let go, and is at peace, very happy and sees this as a creative process.
The angle you depicted is as an ESCAPE from mental issues.
That is LIKE the difference between someone abusing ALCOHOL to self medicate instead of solving issues.
And someone using ALCOHOL creatively in the kitchen to make Amaretto cheesecake or beer fried chicken.
Not all uses of a process have to be the abusive addictive kind.
I personally don't like tattoos myself. But some people use them to mark when they have reached a milestone in life, left one thing behind and taken on another goal. And reward themselves with one as a trophy that means something special to them. That doesn't change how I feel about it as unnecessary when you can do a temporary substitute instead. But if it means something to THEM as part of THEIR life process,
then maybe the pain and suffering is PART of what they are releasing or working through.
I can't take their karma from them. I can only trust they only go through
as much pain and suffering as needed to work that off, similar to excess weight.
Whatever your process is, I hope that works for you and I can't judge if it does.
ChrisL I mostly agree with you, I just don't fear it as much as I used to because I see that people DO have more access to personal counseling to talk through these issues. The chances of being railroaded into unnecessary procedures are becoming less and less, in part because of people like you reaching out and pushing more dialogue and education on this from all sides. I really appreciate that, I don't want to discourage you at all. I just think you will reach more people by being open instead of closed, so more people will receive your information. The negativity drives people away and shuts down the channels, so I don't want to see you caught up in that when you could reach people more effectively by remaining more positive in approach.