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I've heard transgender referred to as a lifestyle. Especially with the increased awareness of non-binary genders...
Where have I heard this one before...oh right. I've heard this in reference to people who are bisexual. "Oh, honey everyone is bisexual!"...yeah right I'd love to see you go have a relationship with both girls AND guys and thoroughly enjoy it.
Rofl...I laugh at the extreme conservatives lifestyle choice...being ignorant, intolerant, and spreading outright lies. Being who you are shouldn't have to be a choice, ignoring and trying to take away other people's rights is a choice (this includes EVERYONE, not just extremist conservatives).
I don't mean to sound overly confident or rude...I just find a lot of this to be ridiculous, outdated, and recycled to the point of redundancy. (How everything that has been previously said about other groups is said about newer groups)
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transgender is increasingly seen as a "movement" whose result would be greater freedom and acceptance for engaging in gender variant lifestyles.
Transgender people aren't the only ones trying to further acceptance, trans* allies are also doing their part. Again, this reminds me of the "issue" of gay marriage.
Oh noez, if gay people are allowed to marry that would destroy the definition of "one man and one woman". They're destroying society, what ever shall we do?
Sound similar to...
Oh noez, if transgender people are allowed to present as a gender different from their birth sex it will destroy gender roles. They're destroying society, what ever shall we do?
Grow up people...we live in the 21st century, not the 1300's...things change, get used to it.
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I've also heard people describe transgender as a medical condition. Something people are born with and that they may need to correct to live a satisfying life.
As a community (sort of) we use stuff like this to fight discrimination, similar to how being gay was defended as being inherent and genetic.
I agree that being transgender is a biological variation that seems quite prevalent in nature. But to say that it is a "medical condition" is almost to ignore the people that do not wish to medically transition, but yet wish to live as their true innate self (aka, they have less dysphoria).
The term "medical condition" also implies that being transgender can be fixed or cured by transitioning, perhaps instead of clinical-izing everything we could just agree that certain things are within the realm of standard variation. I don't mean to say that transitioning is not the solution, I just don't want to feel like I'm being categorized and clinical-ized; the mentality of, "patient 142 treated, on to the next one".
I think the scientific community is starting to realize that it isn't "nature vs nurture" but more like biological nature is affected by social nurture: being transgender is inherently genetic, but has to be "discovered" by the person who has it (regardless of ones age).
I don't claim 100% absolute truth, this is just what I think...