Why do you care about gender? This is an honest question. Why

You fundamentally miss the premise. It's about our bodies as individuals. Even if I lived on an island by myself I would take HRT and change my body to be more female like.

Gender roles are a social construct but gender identity is a biologically hardware do expectstion of your shell and its function. My shell does not match the neurologically hard wired gender thus I experience serious mental and physical pain when my body does not match my expectations of what I know I should have.

Your question fundamentally misrepresents the discussion and centers it around other people rather than the self.

The only reason we stress so hard about passing is so we are treated like people, not trans people. We are forced to conform to the roles of society otherwise nobody will respect our gender identity.

>>7384097
Hardwired expectation*

>Why do you look in the mirror and call yourself a gender first, instead of a person?

I don't. Society does. If we don't conform to gender roles and expectations then we aren't seen as people.

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>>7384059
I don't, which is why I am acknowledged to be a guy (fuck) yet I have long hair like a girl, and behave and have interests which are much more girl-ee.

From what I like to do in my spare time (not watching sports or playing video games), to where I work (babysitting), to what I eat (not meat lmao), fuck what people think and fuck conforming to them to make them comfortable.
Fuck people.

I support people being transgender, or wanting to dismantle gender norms, but it's not (mostly/generally) a big front-line issue for me (dismantling gender norms) because you can simply walk over them, and easily so.

>>7384059
The main thing preventing me from accepting transgenderism on a fundamental level

I want to rip my fucking cock and balls off and it's driving me insane. I would break my shoulders again and again if they would heal smaller. I'd kill and eat beasts, men, or gods to widen my hips.
But do tell me more about how the media stereotypes ruin my life.

>>7384097
Why do you care about your "body as an individual"

It's a body. It's just a vessel through which we experience our own reality. It isn't something defined by gender or even behavior. You define that. It doesn't matter what it looks like, what's on it, or what chemicals are in it.

You are literally waking up and creating self-imposed restrictions on yourself by making gender a relevant or even a meaningful part of your body.

Your body is your body. It doesn't matter what you change about it, or alter. It's the body you'll always have, and were born with from nature, your parents.

You can cover it up, change actions, or do whatever, but all you're doing in the end is focusing solely on body image and shallow preconceptions of "gender" which doesn't actually exist.

The only thing that truly exists in nature is biological reproduction. Everything else is created by the human mind, and you choose to define yourself by your own creation every day non-stop and focus on it incessantly.

In the end, we aren't genders. We're people masquerading based on what we're told by the media and others around us. But what truly makes us who we are is not our gender. It never has been and never will, yet these people focus on it and only it and make it a sole defining factor of everything they think of every day.

That's humanity.

>>7384141
Why would you want to rip parts of your body off?
They are extensions of you as much as your fingers, eyes, and nose. They are parts of you, like every other human has the same parts.

There is nothing gender defining about anything you said. Who told you your body is not good enough, or not what you should be happy with? Who made you feel this awful, terrible way about yourself? Why do you want to destroy the things that make you who you are?

>>7384142
>Why do you care about your "body as an individual"

Because my brain does not match my body as visible on an MRI and there is a biofeedback loop that I don't understand in which I actually experience pain when they are not congruent.

see:>>7384141

You fundamentally do not understand it.

>The only thing that truly exists in nature is biological reproduction

Yes, very true. And organisms understand how to reproduce in their communities due to biologically hardwired gender/sex identity that allows them to instinctually understand their shell and how to use it. That same instinctual understanding of the body and function is at total dissonance inside of us.

>>7384059
>Hyuck why does people even matter 2 u ;^)

>>7384165
>Because my brain does not match my body as visible on an MRI and there is a biofeedback loop that I don't understand in which I actually experience pain when they are not congruent.

Then your brain needs to be healed, your body does not need to be altered. You are who you are, and your body and brain in this state are what you make that person. Your gender is just the sole focus you choose to define yourself as causing this pain by.

>>7384170
I think OP's question was more along the lines of
>Humans are humans, not genders

>>7384165
>brains do not match bodies

That... Is really sexist...

>>7384173
>Then your brain needs to be healed
Yes!! I totally agree! But the technology is not here. The technology is no where close. We barely understand the brain as it is. The only way to reduce the pain I experience which is emergent from the dissonance between the neurological hardwiring I have and the body I have, is to change one of them. We can't change the brain yet, thus I will change my body to escape the literal pain.

>>7384177
It's also objective empirical reality.

>>7384181
You are not changing the body. You are wearing a costume because you have chosen to focus your pain on external physical appearance.

A shallow focus on body image that is not the actual root cause. The root cause is the brain, not the body. Covering it up will not make it anything more or less than what it always has been.

You choose to focus so sharply on gender, and it's clear you're in pain because of this. I can tell every day you only think about gender. Obsession has driven you to horrible pain and suffering and you view the only relief as changing what you are instead of changing the way you think.

>>7384188
So are you racist, also?
If brains are different based on sex, they must be different based on race?

If we're on this slippery slope, let's keep going. Show me what you really think to justify your own gender obsession.

>>7384201
The brains in genders have to be different or genders wouldn't exist to these people. So they justify it any way they can.
The logic is:
>I have a male brain, I want to be female!
>Female and male brains are the same
>No they can't be, or else I can't be different!

>>7384142
>>7384142
Not that anon, but dysphoria causes a lot of anxiety, frustration, and pain. You won't relate to it since you likely have never experienced it (and that's good, because dysphoria fucking sucks - I wouldn't wish it on anyone).

If you're going to try and philosophically argue that transgenderism is wrong or pointless, you have to first recognize that transition is a treatment for gender dysphoria, a condition that has only been resolved through the means of hormones and surgical intervention.

>>7384217
But Female and Male brains have to be the same. They both exhibit the same obsession with being the other gender. Obviously, this is a totally gender neutral phenomenon and isn't related to what "gender" the person is at all. All that we know is there is something telling these people to obsess about becoming the gender they are not.

Interestingly, if we put a group of all males together without knowledge of a female gender, would any of them have this issue? I doubt it, because they would not be aware of another "gender option"

>>7384195
>I can tell every day you only think about gender

Lul. Please dude, every day I focus on my PhD and my career. My transition is in the past. My life is a thousand times better than it ever used to be. Sure, I experience some gender dysphoria still but I know for an absolute fact I would be dead right now if I didn't transition.

>You are not changing the body.

What? Do you even understand the process? Every single cell in my body is under the influence of estradiol compounds now. My soft tissue production is entirely what it would be had I been born female. I transitioned when I was 19 and still got female hips. My bone structure is a mixture of male and female, my soft tissue is entirely male.

You clearly don't understand how bodies work or you would understand that we actually do change the body, change all trillion of our cells chemistry, and change the expression of our genes through the nuclear receptors on the chromosomes.

>>7384234
...
Is this a joke...

You're on a /lgbt/ board on a saturday on 4chan telling me you don't think about gender on a daily basis

Gay male here.
I honestly don't think about the fact I'm a male or female, like, ever.
I don't understand why anyone cares what gender they are. It doesn't define you, you define you.

>>7384233
It's not obsession about gender you idiot. It's an attempt to escape the pain that we feel for reasons rooted in our biology. I don't give a fuck about gender politics. I only care about not suffering.

>>7384250
Of course it is an obsession about gender. You have driven it into your mind the only escape from your suffering is becoming the gender you are not.

>>7384227
>If you're going to try and philosophically argue that transgenderism is wrong or pointless, you have to first recognize that transition is a treatment for gender dysphoria,

I recognize dysphoria is real, but I do not understand why title of gender, a man made construct, is viewed for dysphoric people as a cure.

>>7384242
Wait, so I can't come to this board that has a community of other people that have similar life experience to mine but is also anonymous so I don't reveal my identity without it meaning I fixate on this topic?

At first I thought you were serious but each of your posts illuminates further that you are just another troll.

>>7384265
That's all it is. They simply view themselves as the wrong gender. It's psychological. When they feel they are the correct gender, a lot of pain and suffering subsides. It's man made, yeah, so are a lot of psychological conditions.

>>7384265
Gender is not a man made construct. It's a biologically hardwired reality and preservation mechanism embedded in our limbic system and hypothalmus.

Gender roles are socially construct in that the expectation of how men and women interact in certain cultures is a construct. But gender identity is not a construct. It's a biological reality observable through MRI.

>>7384266
I'm not OP, just thought it was funny you tried to act high and mighty like gender isn't something you think about yet it's clearly all you think about and want to discuss. Who the fuck discusses that

>>7384280
Gender to me is literally like, noses.
Like we need a board for nosed people and people with ears.

Gender is such a stupidly insignificant part of biology that it's about as fun to talk about as hands.

The people who make it significant are either sexists or sick people.

>>7384279
>. It's a biologically hardwired reality and preservation mechanism embedded in our limbic system and hypothalmus.

No it isn't.
You only know half of what you talk about.
Both genders are told to breed. It is not unique for male or female.

Everything outside of that is man-made and self-imposed on genders.

This thread is giving me schizophrenia.

>>7384286
That's your privilege of being cis allowing you to say that. Kek.

The reality is transgender people have and experience very unique barriers, emotions, and experiences that you will never be able to empathize with or understand. It only makes sense for people in our condition to find communities (like all people do) that relate to our experiences.

>>7384279
> It's a biologically hardwired reality

What's biologically hardwired that's unique to a man or a woman?

This should be good, I want to hear this.

>>7384201
That logic makes less than no sense.

>>7384291

Bao, Hahn, Kranz, Kaufmann "Structural Connectivity Networks of Transgender People". 94 subjects, 23 FtM, 21 MtF, 25 cisFemale, 25 cisMale: average age 26. Transsexual subjects did not fulfill criteria for current comorbidities but 9 reported history of depression (n = 2), specific phobias (n = 3), obsessive compulsive disorder (n = 1), anorexia nervosa (n = 2), and substance abuse (n = 4). All patients reported subjective feelings to belong to the other gender before or at puberty. Investigating structural networks in female-to-male and male-to-female transsexuals, we observed differences in hemispheric and lobar connectivity as well as local efficiencies when compared with healthy controls.

Berglund "Berglund, H. et al. “Male-to-Female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids". A positron emission tomography (PET) study showed that smelling androgens (male pheromones) caused transwomen to respond in the hypothalamus region of their brain in a manner similar to XX karyotype women. However, smelling estrogen-based pheromones also caused them to respond in the hypothalamus region in a manner similar to XY karyotype men. This combination of results suggests that transwomen occupy an “intermediate position with predominantly female features” in the way the hypothalamus reacted.

Gooren "The biology of human psychosexual differentiation." Meta-analysis of sex-steroid production and prenatal androgen exposure in transgender people.

Swaab "Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism, and sexual orientation." Analysis of prenatal androgen exposure similar to Gooren, but notes that neurological testosterone availability in MtF trans people is deficient, causing transgenderism or non-heterosexualism.

>>7384305
You're the one claiming men and women are capable of different things based on their birth gender.

>>7384310
>human pheromones

Oh god... This pseudoscience shit.

>>7384291
Garcia-Falgueras "A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity." The structure of the anterior hypothalamus plays a strong role in the development of transgenderism; INAH3 volume in transwomen resembles ciswomen, and INAH3 volume in transmen resembles cismen.

Kruijver "Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus." BSTc somatostatin-expressing neuron counts - twice as high in cismen and transmen as in ciswomen and transwomen. More intense Zhou.

Zhou "A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality." BSTc size in transwomen resembles that of ciswomen and is independent of sexual orientation.

Bentz "A polymorphism of the CYP17 gene related to sex steroid metabolism is associated with female-to-male but not male-to-female transsexualism." CYP17 -34 T>C SNP allele frequencies were statistically significantly divergent between FtM transgender people and cisfemale controls; genotype distributions were also divergent in a statistically significant manner.

Burke "Hypothalamic response to the chemo-signal androstadienone in gender dysphoric children and adolescents". Androstadienone, a particularly fragrant chemosignal responsible for sex-based differences in hypothalamic microstructure; children with gender dysphoria were observed to express differences in hypothalamic activation in accordance with identified gender, rather than assigned gender.

>>7384310
There is no evidence of a consistent and strong behavioral response to any human-produced chemical cue. The fact you showed a study talking about male pheromones making transwomen respond is fucking telling.

>>7384291
Boston University Medical Center. "Transgender: Evidence on the biological nature of gender identity." The researchers conducted a literature search and reviewed articles that showed positive biologic bases for gender identity. These included disorders of sexual development, such as penile agenesis, neuroanatomical differences, such as grey and white matter studies, and steroid hormone genetics, such as genes associated with sex hormone receptors. They conclude that current data suggests a biological etiology for transgender identity.

Yokota, Y. et al “Callosal Shapes at the Midsagittal Plane: MRI Differences of Normal Males, Normal Females, and GID”. An MRI study of 22 transwomen and 28 transmen examined the shape of the corpus callosum in the brain at a specific cross-sectional plane, and compared this shape with that observed in 211 XY karyotype males and 211 XX karyotype females. Their results demonstrated that not only could the sex of the patient be determined with 74% accuracy from the MRI picture, but the shapes of the brains in the transsexuals strongly reflected their gender, and not their biological sex.

Zubiaurre “Cortical Thickness in Untreated Transsexuals”. A 2012 study examined cortical thickness in the brain between 29 XY karyotype males, 23 XX karyotype females, 24 transmen, and 18 transwomen. None of the transsexual subjects had received any hormone treatment prior to the study. Using an MRI, the researchers found that the transwomen had more cortical thickness than the XY males in three regions of the brain. The transmen showed evidence of masculinization of their grey matter. In all transsexuals studied, the key differences from their biological sex were found in the right hemisphere. On a graph, transpeople statistically fell in the middle between the XX and XY karyotypes.

>>7384310
>>7384315
You can spam shit from google all you want, you didn't refute the claim.

Dysphoria is a mental condition experienced by both men and women. There is no difference between genders.

>>7384291
Rametti "White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study." By diffusion-tensor-imaging MRI and fractional anisotropy analysis of various transgender and cisgender people, FtM transgender people more closely resembled a masculine-structured brain than a feminine- structured brain, noted by the study in the structures of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus, the foreceps minor, and the corticospinal tract. White matter microstructure therefore plays a role in gender identity.

Luders "Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism." MtF transgender people were analyzed by fMRI; gray matter variation throughout the brain more closely resembled the layout of a cisfeminine brain, rather than that of a cismasculine brain, implying gender identity depends on cerebral layout.

Hare "Androgen receptor repeat length polymorphism associated wth male-to-female transsexualism." Genes involved in sex steroidogenesis are components to transgenderism and gender dysphoria; specifically, androgen receptor repeat length polymorphisms were observed in an MtF-transgender population, but not a cismale population; this warrants the conclusion that male gender identity is mediated by the androgen receptor.

>>7384310
>94 subjects
Literally meaningless.

>Pheromones
Humans do not have proven pheromone or pheromone response. This one study isn't helping your case.

>Sex-steroid production
Yeah, both genders can produce the same sex-steroids, in differing amounts.

>MtF trans people are deficient in testosterone
Lots of people are deficient in lots of chemicals.

>>7384331
>You can spam shit from google all you want, you didn't refute the claim.

??? Implying I don't have annotated bibliographies I made myself after immersing myself in the field for 7 years and getting two degrees in biology and neurology.

>>7384346
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/11/brains-men-and-women-aren-t-really-different-study-finds

>>7384346
??? Most data reveals much more overlap than differences between genders

You cherry pick LGBT sources, I could cherry pick anti-LGBT stuff if I wanted.

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>>7384346
>I made myself after immersing myself in the field for 7 years and getting two degrees in biology and neurology.

What journal is your thesis published in? I'd like to read it.

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>>7384351
LUL
>disregards 15 actual independent pieces of peer reviewed research
>posts pop science magazine

>>7384365
>implying I would reveal my identity.

I literally said early the reason I come to this website is because I value the anonymity.

I don't care enough about appeasing a troll to open myself to being doxxed.

Gender identity is a biologically hardwired innate sense of your body formed in the first 6 months of pregnancy (intrauterine period). It's an instinctual conviction to your shell and its function. Sex is determined at conception and gender identity is formed ~3-5 months after.

There is significant similarities between the brain morphology of ciswomen&transwomen, and cismen&transmen indicating a related origin. These dimorphic areas are most notably in the: hypothalamus structure/behavior, limbic system, white matter microstructure, and colossal shape.

Further, much of the data is interdisciplinary (neurology, molecular biology, endocrinology) and much of the neurological findings have critical controls which factor out hormone replacement therapy or current sex hormone as the genesis of these dimorphic structures.

Male cancer patients suffering from androgenic cancers (prostate/testicular), often do androgen deprivation to combat cancer. This is done through an orchiectomy or or antiandrogens. Some of these patients end up taking female sex hormones or SERMs (estrogen sex hormone only acting on some receptors, i.e. no breast growth). These male identifying patients that remove androgens from their system and take a feminizing hormone reveal masculine-typical brain structures. Indicating these patterns are not formed due to active hormones. It's a hardwired formation that doesn't change depending on active sex hormone.

Some of the modern work in this field actually controls for pre-HRT patients and find the same results. In the first study by Zhou (started this all), he examined a transgender brain post-mortem of an 80 year old organ donor. This organ donor reported feeling cross sex dysphoria throughout his life and never transitioned. Their brain matched results found by the other transgender subjects.

>>7384381
Oh good god.
Gender "identity" is a myth, and everyone starts out female.

Gender dysphoria is a disease that makes gender important to you, because you feel that your sexual characteristics are wrong and disgusting because of a gender misalignment. For non-dysphoric people, gender doesn't have to be too important in life, and mostly can't be felt or anything like that.

>>7384311
I'm not the same guy. I just think what you said was fucking stupid. That's the most fallacious slippery slope argument I've ever seen.

And yeah men and women are different. There are certain things each is better suited for. That's not say the other gender can't do it though. But I don't know why you brought that up anyway cause no one said anything that.

>>7384361
>Some overlap means they're entirely the same

So you're saying because for the most part they're more similar than not, my bass and guitar might as well be the same things?

Why is every anti-trans argument in here just equivalent of "no."? Like there's genuine arguments that can be used against trans people and transitioning, I know as someone who's been pretty heavily into gender crit stuff and has transitioned, detransitioned, and then retransitioned that there's genuinely good arguments out there, and yet none of them are in this thread. Fuck off OP.

>>7384430
>People who don't suffer from a problem don't suffer from it

Shit man you're blowing my mind. I guess I'll just stop having diabetes then.

>>7384059
I don't.

My identity is defined by how I express myself.