Quote from: Maddie Secutura on April 24, 2011, 01:44:40 AM
I've always found it helpful to assert the mechanism behind the claim. As an empiricist a claim must be backed up with some form of proof. To simply claim to be female (when one has a male body) would fall into absurdity were there not a distinct medical cause. That is why I bring up the brain wiring. It's not that I find it more desirable to be female. I have no choice but to identify as such because my brain is hardwired to function that way. It's not something I can help and if I had my choice, I would have had a male brain to go with a male body. But since I can't change my brain, I have to change the body to simply be more comfortable with myself. It may not be the most eloquent way of putting it, but I find it a better answer than simply, "Just because."
Serious, non-rhetorical question: how do you know? Is there reliable research suggesting that pre-transition transsexuals have the "brain wiring" of the opposite sex? Come to that, assuming that your brain (or anyone else's) had the physical size of a normal male brain, would it be possible to find any empirical, observable evidence that it was female?
If these questions can be answered 'yes', cool. I'd love to see the research, because then maybe I could get some kind of test to answer the uncertainty that has plagued me all my life.
But if there is no such research aren't you just creating an essentially ideological position: ie. that the transsexual brain is oppositely-wired, just because we say it is.
I'm not sure how that would be helpful ... Personally, I'm stuck with the belief that I cannot personally say, 'I am female,' when all the physical evidence says that I am currently male.
That's why, to me, the question, 'Why do you want to be female?' makes perfect sense. Because I'm not now and have never been female ... but I have always wanted to be so.
