I saw a thread about this on another forum where it's mostly female posters. Many of them wanted to be boys when they were children but liked being female once they hit their teens. I think the only way to deal with a potentially transgender child is to let them know they are loved, whichever gender they are, and not let them undergo any irreversible treatment until they are really old enough to understand what it means. It sounds to me like that's exactly what happens at the moment.
I wasn't talking about him specifically, but was just saying that it's not definitely the case that a lad who plays with girls' toys will end up being transgender.
i meant` to quote bullet, did i get you by mistake? sorry.
70% of the participants stated that they were more satisfied with their lives since
transition, compared to 2% who were less satisfied
I can't think of any other clinical process that people would poo-poo because 2% of those undergoing it were dissatisfied, can you?
The satisfaction rate among trans people is actually quite remarkably high considering what a hard time trans women, in particular, are often given. Someone like Kelly Moloney was so harshly treated online that you had to hope she never looks at twitter for the rest of her life.
As the thread is in GD and not Advice i assumed we were 'allowed' to discuss/mention whatever points, trivia, info etc relating toward the topic....no matter how remotely related or 'useful'?
Why so tetchy?
Because it felt like one more attempt to diminish the topic, by writing as if gender dysphoria was somehow akin to being put in a dress without in any way inviting such behaviour. And somehow one step worse than those who seem to think it is a simple matter of girls wanting to play with toy cars or boys with toy hoovers.
It's interesting to see this thread because I see some people (a minority in reality) complain about transgender activism being included in the LGBT community. But when you look at some of the opposition displayed in this thread, it's clear to see that the struggle is very similar and in many ways, trans people are in a similar position to where gay people were a few decades ago - accusations that they were disordered or deluded/not in their right mind and general incredulity that they could even exist or that their existence is legitimate.
Yes true. I am always outraged when LGBT people are hostile to transgender people. I just can't be doing with people, calling themselves 'feminists', who are horrible to trans women on the ludicrous grounds that they have grown up with 'male privilege' so they don't qualify. It is hard to think of a less privileged person than a child growing up profoundly alienated by their own developing body and the way they are perceived by others.
I saw a thread about this on another forum where it's mostly female posters. Many of them wanted to be boys when they were children but liked being female once they hit their teens. I think the only way to deal with a potentially transgender child is to let them know they are loved, whichever gender they are, and not let them undergo any irreversible treatment until they are really old enough to understand what it means. It sounds to me like that's exactly what happens at the moment.
The main problem is that it is better to intervene before puberty rather than after, so it is best to make a decision before then.
if you mean me [and it`s clear that you do], i posted about my grandson to illustrate, not for the clueless to pull apart or start telling me what they think about him.
Never underestimate Bulletguy's remarkable ability to come along and defend whatever reactionary position is on offer.
I saw a thread about this on another forum where it's mostly female posters. Many of them wanted to be boys when they were children but liked being female once they hit their teens. I think the only way to deal with a potentially transgender child is to let them know they are loved, whichever gender they are, and not let them undergo any irreversible treatment until they are really old enough to understand what it means. It sounds to me like that's exactly what happens at the moment.
Indeed it is and this is a significant improvement on how things used to be.
To cite a real example of someone that I know pretty well.
She was born male but knew that she should be female. She tried to tell her family (I think this would have been in the early 1960s) when she was approaching puberty and her turmoil really became acute. Though she told me she had known since she was about 6 in the early 50s.
Her family told her she was being stupid and nobody could decide what gender they were. Her GP literally laughed at her when she went to see what could be done and said she would grow out of it and gave her some 'nerve pills'.
Becoming more and more unhappy she joined the army hoping that would make her a man. It just made her feel worse and she started getting physically abused and bullied.
They diagnosed her as mentally ill and sent psychiatrists to treat her. Eventually they discharged her.
It was only when Charing Cross hospital opened up a Gender Identity Clinic in the late 60s that she saw any hope after a failed suicide attempt saw her sent there as an inpatient for evaluation.
She had about 2 - 3 years of assessment and evaluation and ultimately it was decided that she was transgender and she became one of the earliest people in the UK to undergo surgery there in the early 70s.
Over the years she has had a settled job, a couple of relationships and is now retired with a good circle of friends from what I can see on her Facebook page. Undoubtedly she is more happy after she got help than before, but there are some regrets as far as I can tell over the 40 years or so that I have known her.
For a start her family never accepted her. Indeed they pretty much disowned her. This is her biggest regret. One of them even shopped her to a tabloid newspaper - revealing her background without her knowledge and losing her friends as not everyone in the town she had moved to knew about her life.
As a result she had to move and start all over again and build new friendships. I think she has told more of them there now about her past just in case it suddenly appears in another tabloid. Though these days that seems less likely than it was in the 80s and 90s.
I had a talk with her about this once and she told me that she would not be alive today if she had not gone to Charing Cross all those years ago as life would have been intolerable without their help in transitioning.
She has many regrets, of course. When she had long relationships in the 70s, 80s and 90s she was not allowed to marry as it was only legalised a decade ago. She was treated as a man officially right up until when she retired - again that law has now changed. And she is sad at missing out on a family life, children and many other things that most people take for granted.
But would she have changed anything I asked? Just one thing. Seek help earlier she replied. Her youth was unhappy and wasted as she had to live it as a lie.
However, she also told me that much as she has made a success out of life despite her problems she would never wish this on anyone. It almost destroyed her life and she had to stand strong for it not to do so.
She told me about one early meeting with a psychologist who had conducted various tests on her. He said that there were two possibilities - that she was a genuine transssexual or she had just convinced herself that she was.
They hoped she was the latter as they could help her to get rid of those feelings and be 'normal' then.
If she was the former then they would be deeply sad but they would do what they could to help her adjust but she would never have a truly fulfilled life because nobody could in this situation.. And so her future would be always less than it could be.
I remember her telling me that the doctor asked if his words made her hope that she was not transsexual? And she just told him she could only be what she knew she was and make the most of that. She would take whatever help they offered and be grateful.
Not everyone in this situation probably has that kind of realistic attitude and so there will be cases that work out less successfully.
Happily for today's children in her position the future prospects are far more promising and they likely will not lose the love of their family in the process.
Yes true. I am always outraged when LGBT people are hostile to transgender people. I just can't be doing with people, calling themselves 'feminists', who are horrible to trans women on the ludicrous grounds that they have grown up with 'male privilege' so they don't qualify. It is hard to think of a less privileged person than a child growing up profoundly alienated by their own developing body and the way they are perceived by others.
The trans-exclusionary feminists are the absolute worst and they seem to infest social media etc. just being relentlessly horrible and harassing trans people. Even just a couple of days ago, an article came up on the Guardian twitter feed about Elton John condemning poor treatment of trans women in American prisons and some nutter, claiming to be a feminist, was immediately commenting about how Elton John and gay men in general hate 'real' women and only stick up for 'men pretending to be women' etc. Horrific stuff.
What's more, quite a few of the usual prominent media feminists quietly hold pretty similar views and for the most part don't get called out on it.
I don't suppose there is any chance of you telling us why it is (or you think that it is) an absurdity?
Especially as it has been happening medically for 50 years or more.
You are entitled to hold this view, of course. But without evidence it is just a view.
In the same way that it is my view that this treatment is helping people in dire situations but nobody is pretending that it s a 100% transformation. Just the best fit currently possible with techniques getting better every year.
One day it actually will be 100% possible to change a persons genetic makeup I would expect. Would you then regard that as turning a man into a woman?
The argument that male transexuals have biologically female brains is a nonsense, trying to turn a man into a women is an absurdity.
Just because you find one paper (that looks at a different part of the brain to the other studies by the way) does not prove anything. The research in this area is still incomplete (that's actually an understatement - it is pre-pubescent, as is much of neuroscience).
I simply don't understand why people deny that a physical explanation for transgender is possible - is there some reason why they reject it, even when research is at such an early stage? Why assume there is a definite male/female divide in the first place when so much of human biology and behaviour presents as a spectrum?
it will be no surprise if one of my grandsons is trans when he`s grown, he`s always preferred to play with the girls, he`s into barbie, frozen etc and rough and tumble leaves him cold, if he`s indoors he`s in a frock of his mum`s with a hoody for long hair. he`s six, never been any different.
we all are just happy to allow him to be whoever he is.
What a heart warming post and what a lovely lovely grandma. You're grandson is very lucky to have you and his family. He is too young to realize just how lucky he is.(but he will one day )
I don't suppose there is any chance of you telling us why it is (or you think that it is) an absurdity?
Especially as it has been happening medically for 50 years or more.
You are entitled to hold this view, of course. But without evidence it is just a view.
In the same way that it is my view that this treatment is helping people in dire situations but nobody is pretending that it s a 100% transformation. Just the best fit currently possible with techniques getting better every year.
One day it actually will be 100% possible to change a persons genetic makeup I would expect. Would you then regard that as turning a man into a woman?
I just linked a medical paper.
That last bit is a rather far fetched question.
It's a bit like us having an argument about whether pigs can fly, I say no and you say yes. To try to end the argument you pose the question "One day, it actually will be 100% possible to genetically alter a pigs make up so they can grow wings capable of supporting flight. Would you therefore accept that pigs can fly?"
I'm.. a bit dubious about that. It's kind of a biology vs psychology thing. So there's the classical biological differentiation by chromosome, internal/external genitalia and hormones. So far, so simple as it's usually easy to figure out biological gender early on. Then you get gender identity, which can be more controversial. So it's easier to change physical gender pre-puberty, but then puberty gives you that hormone surge that reinforces the biological/physical identity. But we can stop that with drugs and surgery.
I'm dubious about how sure a child can be about their gender identity pre-puberty given the pretty drastic consequences long before maturity.
And by way of background, I was into body modification of the more extreme kind and came across the idea of gender nullification. So having all the standard sexual characteristics removed and becoming effectively asexual. Which is quite a bold move when there's so much gender politics around, even to a point where most of my friends reject the 'neutrois' label & prefer being nulls.
And a couple of them were born intersex. So in the bad'ol days, the kids were assigned a gender based on the closest biological norm. Which was sometimes wrong and luckily many countries have banned. Now it's left until the people can make a more informed choice about their own biological/gender identity.. but usually that's post-puberty.
So although it may be easier pre-puberty, I wonder if kids are rushing (or being rushed) into choices they don't necessarily understand.
I think we are talking about very small numbers of kids, and i think the clinicians dealing with these children know all the signs,I think places like the Tavistock centre in north london deal with many of them and i believe its quite a long process.
Like many other posters have stated, all the trans i have known, knew from a very young age, they weren't "camp boys" as someone has suggested (though i can understand why someone might make that assumption)
It's interesting to see this thread because I see some people (a minority in reality) complain about transgender activism being included in the LGBT community. But when you look at some of the opposition displayed in this thread, it's clear to see that the struggle is very similar and in many ways, trans people are in a similar position to where gay people were a few decades ago - accusations that they were disordered or deluded/not in their right mind and general incredulity that they could even exist or that their existence is legitimate.
I agree, i have so much respect for my transgender friends ,growing up gay was a walk in the park in comparison to what they have gone through.
It's a bit like us having an argument about whether pigs can fly, I say no and you say yes. To try to end the argument you pose the question "One day, it actually will be 100% possible to genetically alter a pigs make up so they can grow wings capable of supporting flight. Would you therefore accept that pigs can fly?"
This link was interesting, but the paper had no bearing on your comment that turning men into women was absurd.
It looked for evidence of physical structural differences in the brains of MtF transsexuals - which may or may not exist,
But whether they do is an element in the search for cause and whether prolonged hormone treatment alters brain physiology. If this limited research suggests it does not then it would need to be tested to see if application of hormone blockers pre puberty and then new gender hormones immediately afterwards if transition goes ahead has any different effects.
Or it may imply that any discovered changes in other studies are pre natal (ie occurred before birth) and not induced by a hormone regime.
Either way I am not sure how it has any bearing on the absurdity or otherwise of medical attempts to turn a man into a woman.
The techniques of attempting to do so have been on going since a case in the 1920s/1930s about to be a major movie starring UK Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne. The attempted transformation of Lili Elbe was the first step and ultimately proved fatal.
Since then reconstructive surgery has reached impressive levels and our understanding and application of hormone therapy taken off in leaps and bounds. We also have ways to change the vocal chords to adapt voice and to alter hair growth patterns etc.
Transplantation of female organs will probably occur in the not too distant future. The first person born a male who will via such methods be able to have a baby is likely a child right now.
Bit by bit the frontiers are being pushed back towards a more complete transformation.
A genetic adaptation is not as far fetched or as far away as you might think.
And my point was - where do you draw the line and say you have turned a man into a woman via science? If not now, then the day after tomorrow? Or never? Is it a complete none acceptance that it is philosophically possible however complete the physical transformation allowed by science?
I
Like many other posters have stated, all the trans i have known, knew from a very young age, they weren't "camp boys" as someone has suggested (though i can understand why someone might make that assumption)
Yes it is a common misunderstanding. Possibly the most surprising thing to many is that the often called for (on forums) attempt to get these people to 'man up' and thus 'grow out of it' is exactly the solution usually applied by many transgendered in childhood.
I cited an example of my friend who joined the army in a vain hope that this would help them forget their problems and become a man. This is actually pretty common.
Look at Kellie Maloney and her association with boxing. You might have expected her to be a ballet dancer. But that is the difference between perceptions of what a transgender person would be like and how they actually do try to integrate into the world and 'cure' themselves.
As noted by reeble most MtF transgender are not effeminate or camp but simply natural. They are also often gifted at coping mechanisms as they need them to survive years of frustration. And they tend to use these techniques to look for appropriate ways to try to conform with societial expectations.
It hardly ever helps. And it also often extends to them getting married and having children as the ultimate way to express their birth gender and appear to those around them not to have a problem.
The trouble is that stores up endless difficulties for the future and involves in this trauma numerous innocent people who will at some stage have to deal with the consequences when (as is usually the case) the problems resurface and need to be addressed once and for all.
It is far preferable in my view to adopt the current methodology where these issues are dealt with in childhood when they first emerge - as the point of this thread.
Then professionals can direct the child and parents towards the best solution and any decisions can be taken before others become embroiled in the transgender person's often doomed attempt to lead a 'normal' life.
The trans-exclusionary feminists are the absolute worst and they seem to infest social media etc. just being relentlessly horrible and harassing trans people. Even just a couple of days ago, an article came up on the Guardian twitter feed about Elton John condemning poor treatment of trans women in American prisons and some nutter, claiming to be a feminist, was immediately commenting about how Elton John and gay men in general hate 'real' women and only stick up for 'men pretending to be women' etc. Horrific stuff.
What's more, quite a few of the usual prominent media feminists quietly hold pretty similar views and for the most part don't get called out on it.
I agree. Julie Bindel actually got a Stonewall award. I'm hoping it is mainly older women, on the grounds that they will die sooner and let nicer women carry the torch.
The argument that male transexuals have biologically female brains is a nonsense, trying to turn a man into a women is an absurdity.
If you ruled the world, eh? You do realize that there is a trans woman debating in this thread, and that what is just a larky debate to you is someone trying to rubbish her whole life to her?
You're basically giving the trigger's broom argument as a get out.
And I feel you are using confirmation bias - you have yet (aside from linking to one paper that differs in findings to others) to explain why you are so certain of your views. Can you explain why you find that paper more compelling than the others?
And I feel you are using confirmation bias - you have yet (aside from linking to one paper that differs in findings to others) to explain why you are so certain of your views. Can you explain why you find that paper more compelling than the others?
I believe in facts and science.
The other papers are trying to something, and never quite find it but leave it open ended.
That paper admits where it is and sticks to the facts rather than hoping something might happen in the future.
Comments
just checked, phew
I was one of those who had something to say about it. Just making sure.
70% of the participants stated that they were more satisfied with their lives since
transition, compared to 2% who were less satisfied
I can't think of any other clinical process that people would poo-poo because 2% of those undergoing it were dissatisfied, can you?
The satisfaction rate among trans people is actually quite remarkably high considering what a hard time trans women, in particular, are often given. Someone like Kelly Moloney was so harshly treated online that you had to hope she never looks at twitter for the rest of her life. Because it felt like one more attempt to diminish the topic, by writing as if gender dysphoria was somehow akin to being put in a dress without in any way inviting such behaviour. And somehow one step worse than those who seem to think it is a simple matter of girls wanting to play with toy cars or boys with toy hoovers.
Yes true. I am always outraged when LGBT people are hostile to transgender people. I just can't be doing with people, calling themselves 'feminists', who are horrible to trans women on the ludicrous grounds that they have grown up with 'male privilege' so they don't qualify. It is hard to think of a less privileged person than a child growing up profoundly alienated by their own developing body and the way they are perceived by others.
no, it was when he tried to start assessing him, that`s a bridge too far.
The main problem is that it is better to intervene before puberty rather than after, so it is best to make a decision before then.
Never underestimate Bulletguy's remarkable ability to come along and defend whatever reactionary position is on offer.
Indeed it is and this is a significant improvement on how things used to be.
To cite a real example of someone that I know pretty well.
She was born male but knew that she should be female. She tried to tell her family (I think this would have been in the early 1960s) when she was approaching puberty and her turmoil really became acute. Though she told me she had known since she was about 6 in the early 50s.
Her family told her she was being stupid and nobody could decide what gender they were. Her GP literally laughed at her when she went to see what could be done and said she would grow out of it and gave her some 'nerve pills'.
Becoming more and more unhappy she joined the army hoping that would make her a man. It just made her feel worse and she started getting physically abused and bullied.
They diagnosed her as mentally ill and sent psychiatrists to treat her. Eventually they discharged her.
It was only when Charing Cross hospital opened up a Gender Identity Clinic in the late 60s that she saw any hope after a failed suicide attempt saw her sent there as an inpatient for evaluation.
She had about 2 - 3 years of assessment and evaluation and ultimately it was decided that she was transgender and she became one of the earliest people in the UK to undergo surgery there in the early 70s.
Over the years she has had a settled job, a couple of relationships and is now retired with a good circle of friends from what I can see on her Facebook page. Undoubtedly she is more happy after she got help than before, but there are some regrets as far as I can tell over the 40 years or so that I have known her.
For a start her family never accepted her. Indeed they pretty much disowned her. This is her biggest regret. One of them even shopped her to a tabloid newspaper - revealing her background without her knowledge and losing her friends as not everyone in the town she had moved to knew about her life.
As a result she had to move and start all over again and build new friendships. I think she has told more of them there now about her past just in case it suddenly appears in another tabloid. Though these days that seems less likely than it was in the 80s and 90s.
I had a talk with her about this once and she told me that she would not be alive today if she had not gone to Charing Cross all those years ago as life would have been intolerable without their help in transitioning.
She has many regrets, of course. When she had long relationships in the 70s, 80s and 90s she was not allowed to marry as it was only legalised a decade ago. She was treated as a man officially right up until when she retired - again that law has now changed. And she is sad at missing out on a family life, children and many other things that most people take for granted.
But would she have changed anything I asked? Just one thing. Seek help earlier she replied. Her youth was unhappy and wasted as she had to live it as a lie.
However, she also told me that much as she has made a success out of life despite her problems she would never wish this on anyone. It almost destroyed her life and she had to stand strong for it not to do so.
She told me about one early meeting with a psychologist who had conducted various tests on her. He said that there were two possibilities - that she was a genuine transssexual or she had just convinced herself that she was.
They hoped she was the latter as they could help her to get rid of those feelings and be 'normal' then.
If she was the former then they would be deeply sad but they would do what they could to help her adjust but she would never have a truly fulfilled life because nobody could in this situation.. And so her future would be always less than it could be.
I remember her telling me that the doctor asked if his words made her hope that she was not transsexual? And she just told him she could only be what she knew she was and make the most of that. She would take whatever help they offered and be grateful.
Not everyone in this situation probably has that kind of realistic attitude and so there will be cases that work out less successfully.
Happily for today's children in her position the future prospects are far more promising and they likely will not lose the love of their family in the process.
That, for me, seems like excellent progress.
The trans-exclusionary feminists are the absolute worst and they seem to infest social media etc. just being relentlessly horrible and harassing trans people. Even just a couple of days ago, an article came up on the Guardian twitter feed about Elton John condemning poor treatment of trans women in American prisons and some nutter, claiming to be a feminist, was immediately commenting about how Elton John and gay men in general hate 'real' women and only stick up for 'men pretending to be women' etc. Horrific stuff.
What's more, quite a few of the usual prominent media feminists quietly hold pretty similar views and for the most part don't get called out on it.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21467211
MtF-TR = Male to Female transexuals BTW.
The argument that male transexuals have biologically female brains is a nonsense, trying to turn a man into a women is an absurdity.
I don't suppose there is any chance of you telling us why it is (or you think that it is) an absurdity?
Especially as it has been happening medically for 50 years or more.
You are entitled to hold this view, of course. But without evidence it is just a view.
In the same way that it is my view that this treatment is helping people in dire situations but nobody is pretending that it s a 100% transformation. Just the best fit currently possible with techniques getting better every year.
One day it actually will be 100% possible to change a persons genetic makeup I would expect. Would you then regard that as turning a man into a woman?
Just because you find one paper (that looks at a different part of the brain to the other studies by the way) does not prove anything. The research in this area is still incomplete (that's actually an understatement - it is pre-pubescent, as is much of neuroscience).
I simply don't understand why people deny that a physical explanation for transgender is possible - is there some reason why they reject it, even when research is at such an early stage? Why assume there is a definite male/female divide in the first place when so much of human biology and behaviour presents as a spectrum?
its a 'feeling' of correctness....
I just linked a medical paper.
That last bit is a rather far fetched question.
It's a bit like us having an argument about whether pigs can fly, I say no and you say yes. To try to end the argument you pose the question "One day, it actually will be 100% possible to genetically alter a pigs make up so they can grow wings capable of supporting flight. Would you therefore accept that pigs can fly?"
Like many other posters have stated, all the trans i have known, knew from a very young age, they weren't "camp boys" as someone has suggested (though i can understand why someone might make that assumption)
This link was interesting, but the paper had no bearing on your comment that turning men into women was absurd.
It looked for evidence of physical structural differences in the brains of MtF transsexuals - which may or may not exist,
But whether they do is an element in the search for cause and whether prolonged hormone treatment alters brain physiology. If this limited research suggests it does not then it would need to be tested to see if application of hormone blockers pre puberty and then new gender hormones immediately afterwards if transition goes ahead has any different effects.
Or it may imply that any discovered changes in other studies are pre natal (ie occurred before birth) and not induced by a hormone regime.
Either way I am not sure how it has any bearing on the absurdity or otherwise of medical attempts to turn a man into a woman.
The techniques of attempting to do so have been on going since a case in the 1920s/1930s about to be a major movie starring UK Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne. The attempted transformation of Lili Elbe was the first step and ultimately proved fatal.
Since then reconstructive surgery has reached impressive levels and our understanding and application of hormone therapy taken off in leaps and bounds. We also have ways to change the vocal chords to adapt voice and to alter hair growth patterns etc.
Transplantation of female organs will probably occur in the not too distant future. The first person born a male who will via such methods be able to have a baby is likely a child right now.
Bit by bit the frontiers are being pushed back towards a more complete transformation.
A genetic adaptation is not as far fetched or as far away as you might think.
And my point was - where do you draw the line and say you have turned a man into a woman via science? If not now, then the day after tomorrow? Or never? Is it a complete none acceptance that it is philosophically possible however complete the physical transformation allowed by science?
if folk can see that its possible to be born with an incompatiblity between software and hardware, off you pop.
ive gotta concetrate on my happiness....
Yes it is a common misunderstanding. Possibly the most surprising thing to many is that the often called for (on forums) attempt to get these people to 'man up' and thus 'grow out of it' is exactly the solution usually applied by many transgendered in childhood.
I cited an example of my friend who joined the army in a vain hope that this would help them forget their problems and become a man. This is actually pretty common.
Look at Kellie Maloney and her association with boxing. You might have expected her to be a ballet dancer. But that is the difference between perceptions of what a transgender person would be like and how they actually do try to integrate into the world and 'cure' themselves.
As noted by reeble most MtF transgender are not effeminate or camp but simply natural. They are also often gifted at coping mechanisms as they need them to survive years of frustration. And they tend to use these techniques to look for appropriate ways to try to conform with societial expectations.
It hardly ever helps. And it also often extends to them getting married and having children as the ultimate way to express their birth gender and appear to those around them not to have a problem.
The trouble is that stores up endless difficulties for the future and involves in this trauma numerous innocent people who will at some stage have to deal with the consequences when (as is usually the case) the problems resurface and need to be addressed once and for all.
It is far preferable in my view to adopt the current methodology where these issues are dealt with in childhood when they first emerge - as the point of this thread.
Then professionals can direct the child and parents towards the best solution and any decisions can be taken before others become embroiled in the transgender person's often doomed attempt to lead a 'normal' life.
I disagree.
So I stand by my comment that
You're basically giving the trigger's broom argument as a get out.
If you ruled the world, eh? You do realize that there is a trans woman debating in this thread, and that what is just a larky debate to you is someone trying to rubbish her whole life to her?
And I feel you are using confirmation bias - you have yet (aside from linking to one paper that differs in findings to others) to explain why you are so certain of your views. Can you explain why you find that paper more compelling than the others?
I believe in facts and science.
The other papers are trying to something, and never quite find it but leave it open ended.
That paper admits where it is and sticks to the facts rather than hoping something might happen in the future.