A Comment On Transgenderism

[Glidergun]

The thing with transgenderism is that our available means of addressing it are so very limited.

Right now, we can either treat the hormone imbalance - which many transgendered individuals do not want, because they feel it would be forcing them into a person that they don't want to be, and requires continued medication - never an optimal process.

(This is, by the way, the reason why some right-wing mouthpieces refer to it as a 'mental disorder'. They feel this is the correct treatment choice because to them, the other option is worse.)

The alternative - gender reassignment surgery - is even more controversial, of course. It rarely provides the desired physical result, still requires hormone medication, and the result is effectively sexually nonfunctional. The prejudice faced by such individuals is extremely painful, and is often used as justification for those who want to mandate alternative treatments - in the name of avoiding that particular prejudice.

I do not think that this will be resolved until we are able to provide some surgical means of a complete, fully-functional transformation, a la Dono Vorrutyer (cf Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign).

Transgenderism doesn't have a hormone imbalance to treat any more than phantom limb syndrome does. (That needs qualifying - the hormones are not out of balance relative to the birth sex, though those hormones are probably quite unwanted.) We don't have any good treatment other than transition at the moment. Deliberately editing anything as complicated as gender identity is very far beyond our capabilities at the moment; we're still pretty much at the "crude amputations" stage of mental surgery.