How many years for societies unconditional acceptance.

[stephaniec]

Take a guess on how long its going to take society to absolutely and unconditionally view being Transgender as being unequivocally equal to genetically designated M and F or whatever preferred label that lets everyone gain total acceptance of all others as their preferred way of presentation to society and themselves. In the past year things have moved quite rapidly where discussion of the trans world is far more open. If things keep progressing the way they have in just the past two years there should be an incredible change in perception of trans people in 20 years.

[cindianna_jones]

I think that it will be about twenty years after gays are "fully accepted." For gays, we're pretty close. So I checked 10 to 20 years. It might be a bit longer than that. Barring a resurgence of fundamentalism, I think within the next couple of generations. Sadly, I will have completed my life before that happens. I'll just mark myself down as a pioneer and give myself a pat on the back for those who follow my footsteps. I hope that those who do, live more fulfilling lives because of the new societal acceptance.

Cindi

[Kylo]

Never.

I mean I think it may get a great deal more accepting, but total unconditional acceptance? Has any society ever totally and unconditionally accepted anything? There's always going to be some people who don't and won't. In a free society people are free to not accept, too. I'm wary of those people out there with Utopian visions of acceptance for all who are in their own way becoming fascistic justice warriors trying to force people to accept things (which in my view will simply achieve the opposite effect. Force never gets the effect you want with human emotions).

But I dunno, another 20 years and hopefully we won't be lepers anymore, although there'll always be someone out there feeling justified in calling us freaks of nature. We may well be freaks of nature, but I'll be satisfied enough if I'm allowed to go about my day unmolested, all the same.

[stephaniec]

I think that it will be about twenty years after gays are "fully accepted." For gays, we're pretty close. So I checked 10 to 20 years. It might be a bit longer than that. Barring a resurgence of fundamentalism, I think within the next couple of generations. Sadly, I will have completed my life before that happens. I'll just mark myself down as a pioneer and give myself a pat on the back for those who follow my footsteps. I hope that those who do, live more fulfilling lives because of the new societal acceptance.

Cindi

I'm in the same age bracket , so I don't know how much I'll live to see. I'm mad at all the movies I''ll miss.

[Tessa James]

Even in my close "society of friends" it is not yet unconditional.  Yet I want to acknowledge the growing visibility and acceptance I have experienced in my lifetime and that is remarkable.

I am old enough to recall when virtually no queer people were out of the closet except for Liberace in Vegas.  We learned to identify each other with keys dangling just so or enough eye contact to know you were looking too.  In the USA people with any disability were most often home schooled or institutionalized.  There were no kids in wheel chairs running around in our schools back in the 50s.  The first Trans people i met were furtive, fearful and underground.

Now we walk tall and own it.  We go were we want as we are and even arrive, reluctantly at times, with celebrity status.

The real work often starts at home within ourselves.  We often acknowledge that by saying "the hardest person to come out to and accept is ourselves" 

We keep working and we are a joy to behold.

[stephaniec]

Amen

[Zoe Louise Taylor]

Unfortunately I cant see there being absolute acceptance of gender variance any time soon.
I think it will get alot more easier for people to come out, and be themselves. However i selected 50+ years, as I think there are always going to be people in society who, for some reason or another, are unable to accept other people, or who have been brought up to be ignorant.

I do however think that we are gradually gaining more acceptance in society, and its great that more and more people are finding the courage to come out. I think that people need to be educated about gender variance, and that will help a lot.

Xx

[JustASeq]

I think no matter how much education happens, there will always be ignorant people and bigots. I think there could be a shift in what is considered "norms", but 100% unconditional acceptance seems like an unachievable goal.

[FreyasRedemption]

I will likely be in my fifties before acceptance is going to be a mostly universal thing in the western societies. Some corners of the world will likely never accept us, unless something absolutely groundbreaking happens.

[KayXo]

I think very few human beings unconditionally love and accept others and themselves. It's a very rare thing in humans. There will always be some form of hate, discrimination, even if not apparent. Love yourself FIRST and foremost. Then, the rest doesn't matter.

[DiamondBladee]

Absolute acceptance from everyone is almost impossible to accomplish.  Look at some of the junk media in America for example.  There's still a lot of racism and sexism towards ciswomen alone.  I think LGBT acceptance will significantly improve if you turn the page a half century forwards, but I don't see it becoming absolutely perfect.  That doesn't mean that there won't be small utopias here and there though

On second thought, I think there will be patches of discrimination, and the vast majority will accept.  This is given around 40 years or so.  I'll probably be 50 or so when we can finally say acceptance isn't much of an issue in the majority of regions and communities.  It looks great in some countries already, and others will lag behind.  Isn't that what happened in history though?

[Karlie Ann]

I believe that within the next 10-20 years gene therapy will make it possible to mold your body however you want (I know, it's sci-fi now, but I think it's close).  At that point, no one will be able to tell what you were before.  That's if you're into the gender binary.  As for anything in between, I dunno.  50+ years?

[KathyLauren]

I think society's view of trans people is at about the same stage that its view of gay people was at the time of the Stonewall riots.  That was in the late 1960s.  It took about 45 years for them to get general (though by no means universal) acceptance: same-sex marriage.  I don't think we will have an easier road (though I'd be happy to be proved wrong), so I checked 30-50 years.

[Luna Star]

I believe that within the next 10-20 years gene therapy will make it possible to mold your body however you want (I know, it's sci-fi now, but I think it's close).  At that point, no one will be able to tell what you were before.  That's if you're into the gender binary.  As for anything in between, I dunno.  50+ years?

Not to pop your bubble but you do know how gene therapy works right? For that to even work we would have to be able to change all the cells in our body from an xx chromosome to an xy and vice versa. Gene therapy to date (that affects the whole body) is only really concievable by manipulating an embryo if you want the changes to affect the whole body and also we are speaking of a small gene that gets injected, through a virus or whatever. So apart from finding a messenger that can inject and remove gene from a certain place in the first place which is really hard to find. It's still only a gene not an entire part of a chromosome that gets removed and or added, not to speak of the incompability issues you'll face. And changing the chromosomes will not result into a change you are just changing how the body will work from that point on, not the things before it.

To summarize, adding or removing a gene is already incredibly hard, let stand a whole chromosome that you'll have to add in gene by gene which needs to be compatible aaaand adjusted in every single cell of your whole body. :/

[Karlie Ann]

Hi Luna-

I keep an eye on this article, which gets updated in the comments frequently by the author.

http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/05/08/total-gender-change-within-decade/

[Luna Star]

Hi Luna-

I keep an eye on this article, which gets updated in the comments frequently by the author.

http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/05/08/total-gender-change-within-decade/

Readt through the article , it's about stem cells not really gene therapy ^^''' . I must admit my knowledge about stem cells is more limited, whilst I can see it become possible to grow breast tissue and the like, I think it is a bit far fetched to call it a "total gender change"
in fact you are only growing something, on something existing.
Whilst it is true that stem cells are amazing cause they dont reject the new part since its your own tissue, is that really the case still when you get for example ovaria donated by someone else which they grew by using a genetic female's stemcells? Donated stem cells which you get for example for treatment of sickle cell anemia (a disease which affects the form of your red blood cells) in the end only replace some tissue in your bones which stand for your red blood cell production and that procedure tends to have some complications.

kinda summarize it, its still kinda more like growing tissue on already existing tissue as far as I see, I doubt it will work for a "complete gender change". Although I can see it become a help for most people I don't really see how it will help someone further than someone on hormones for the most part.

Then again I am not really that well versed in stem cells as I am in gene manipulation.
Alas was a good read

[Karlie Ann]

Dang it, Luna, I'm an Engineer, not a Biologist. 

[Luna Star]

Dang it, Luna, I'm an Engineer, not a Biologist. 

I actually study biology , I am pretty sure you'd school me in anything math or technology related though haha

[AnonyMs]

Dang it, Luna, I'm an Engineer, not a Biologist. 

That's why its really nano-technology rather than gene therapy.

Apart from that I tend to agree. Its going to take something where there's no real difference between cis and trans. Of course its probably going to a whole lot easier just to fix your head than your entire body, and being trans will be really odd again. Except of course with all that technology people are going to start doing some really extreme body modifications that are going to make gender change look very conservative, hence quite acceptable.

Kind of unpredictable I think. So many ways it could go.

I think no matter how much education happens, there will always be ignorant people and bigots.

And those evil people who are quite cynically willing to hurt others for their own advantage. Like some politicians I can think of.

[Denise]

The original question was about time for acceptance.  I think it needs to be measured in generations, not years.  I suspect when most of the currently 30+ year old people have "moved on' trans* people will be generally accepted.  Not as a norm, but at least understood and not separated into a group with negative connotations.