I was asked this once and it caught me off guard. I've pondered it for a long time and this is what I've come up with...

I relate the question to this hypothetical situation: I'm in an accident and lose a limb. The doctors provide me with two options. The first option is that I can get a prosthetic limb. The second is that I could be "hypnotized" to believe I never had or was suppose to have that limb. Both options would be solutions. However, the second option isn't really the best fix for the problem of a missing limb. A pill changing my gender, while fixing the issue between mind and body, is not the best solution in my mind.

No, I would not take the pill. My soul is female. Taking the pill would, as a result, alter my soul. I do not want to change who I am. Only how I appear. Regardless of whether the body or brain develops first, who I am lies in my brain.

It seems like undergoing gender reassignment would be a slightly less messy form of suicide.  I would no longer be here, and there would be some girl walking around with my skin.

Stage hypnotists can already do something similar to what's been proposed, I've seen it done. They can make people believe that they are whatever gender the hypnotist wants them to be (usually making cisgendered volunteers believe, while they are under the control of the hypnotist, that they are the opposite gender and making them do wildly outlandish and flambouyant acts, purely as a means to get a cheap laugh). And the level of realism, of utter belief and acceptance without question, to the point of actually seeing and having tactile experiences with physical features that aren't there, and likewise being unable to see or feel physical features that are there, depending on the suggestions given by the hypnotist, is total. It would be easily possible to implant a series of very specific suggestions into a person's subconscious in order to bring about the effect you describe, namely of making someone believe they are the way they appear to be and nothing is amiss.

However, the fundamental flaw with this, and with medication to achieve the same results, is that it isn't real. It's little more than brainwashing. And the psyche has a way of seeing through illusions, as is evident by the burning desire of people here to be themselves, however long that takes, and whatever they have to do to break free of the illusion that society and physical development have placed on them against their will. It would be replacing a physical illusion with a mental one.

Ooh good question.
I personally am not suffering from my brain/body incongruence, so I wouldn't take the pill or have my brain altered.  If I was suffering, though, I would definitely consider the brain changing route and don't see anything wrong with it- provided other aspects of myself aren't changed along with the procedure.

I think one of the fundamental problems is the definition of self and non-self. I'm a woman. I identify and live as a woman. I'm Caucasian of  Irish, Scottish, English background. Nothing can change that.  People have tried to change my gender for the last 40 odd years. Sometimes with extreme methods. None have worked. Why? Because I am what I am. I have no choice. If I was been born female and my gender was male I would be as horrified by my plight as I am being born with the opposite birth defects.  I do and have largely changed my sex. It now starts to fit my gender. I am becoming my self. Finally. The brain and the psyche rule the body. The body does not rule the brain and psyche. I am me. Not what my body says. What I say.

Cindy

To me body and brain are both part of the same machine. I don't think the question is feasibility. Of course we can't change one's gender but to me  just one aspect of myself. Gender dysphoria is being uncomfortable with your birth sex. If it could be done in such a way as to make you comfortable with what was already there, why not?  This assumes nothing else changes about your personality.

Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 09, 2011, 01:54:42 PM
To me body and brain are both part of the same machine. I don't think the question is feasibility. Of course we can't change one's gender but to me  just one aspect of myself. Gender dysphoria is being uncomfortable with your birth sex. If it could be done in such a way as to make you comfortable with what was already there, why not?  This assumes nothing else changes about your personality.

I agree with you, and if it kept my identity in tact I would take it. Now then, everyone else would have to take a pill that would make them view me as a woman.

I guess I think that if it would make everything all better, nothing else at all would change, and I would be happy with being a girl born in a male body, then fine - hand me the pill. My problem then would be not fitting in with the other girls, and not being seen as a woman by the rest of society.

There's a significant problem.

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 04:06:57 PM
Do you think its possible for doctors to reassign gender like they reassign sex

No its not possible because 'doctors' have certainly tried over the years and they have never succeeded.
[/quote]

Quote from: espo on May 08, 2011, 04:06:57 PMand if it WAS possible would you opt for that solution instead of the physical changes ....... if you had a choice.

I would never ever consider changing who I'am, regardless of the scenario that one can dream up on this. Because, if the mind is changed to match the body you would not be the same person and if there was an option to change my body physically to the genotype.  Then I would not even hesitate to change it.
   
Kind regards
Sarah B

Quote from: Sarah B on May 09, 2011, 05:24:28 PM

I would never ever consider changing who I'am, regardless of the scenario that one can dream up on this. Because, if the mind is changed to match the body you would not be the same person and if there was an option to change my body physically to the genotype.  Then I would not even hesitate to change it.
   
Kind regards
Sarah B

I can appreciate this.  Maybe my cold objective outlook on things is what makes me think the way I do.  Much of the body develops before the brain and yet it is the brain that controls who I am.  Male or female or whatever else, gender is just one facet on the greater gem that is Me.  And of course I'm a woman.  I'll stand by that forever but there is no denying that I wasn't supposed to be (from a purely biological point of view).  I think the objection to it comes from the reluctance to take on some other gender role.  I'm recoiling a bit just thinking about if I had to be a father and take on the male position in life.  But that's because it goes against a part of who I am.  I used to hate green beans.  But now I find I quite like them.  If you'd have told me as a child that I'd someday like green beans I'd tell you to piss off because they were so objectionable to me at the time.  Masculinity is an objectionable condition to me.  But if I were ok with it, in other words male, then it wouldn't be an objectionable condition at all now would it?

Going off of Maddie's argument on this matter, as I understand it, I would have to say no. Not even for the argument that it would be changing a fundamental aspect of myself because it seems to me that it would make me identify as a girl so then I would see that as a fundamental aspect of myself.

My reason is that a lot of my identity has to do with my own mental image of myself.

I had to really dig deep to analyze this, to try and imagine myself as a chick and how I would feel about myself and what my mental image of myself would be. I'd have no issues being a chick interested in a lot of stereotypically masculine things, but I wouldn't want to be butch, per se. If I were a girl I would want to be a definitive girl, the sort of girl that likes to get down and dirty and can hang with the boys but who can also be taken out for a night on the town, so to speak. My mental image would follow suit, and I'd want to be attractive and would imagine myself as attractive.

I don't think I could pull that off with my body. I can pull off the mental image I have of myself right now with physical transition -- hormones, surgery, working out -- and I think I could make a good-looking guy pretty close in line with my mental idea of myself. I don't think, however, that I could as a girl.

Simply put, I think I'd actually be happier as I am now knowing that I can transition into the man I know I am than I would be if I identified as a girl to match my body. That's not just a cop-out either, I truly think I would have self-esteem issues if I identified as a girl.

I understand what you're getting at.  Technically the brain is only an organ who's job is to coordinate a massive colony of cells.  From that perspective, scarring a 'faulty organ' with mutation is probably much more humane and proper than to scar the overall rest of the creature.  But...thinking that way has two blunt problems.  For one, the body NOMINATES the brain to control it.  The brain is the organ that represents the creature itself, even to the stride of sacrificial decisions.  Simply, what it says goes, and the body literally lives only to be under its obedience.  That's the choice of the body, and that's the initiative of our mind.
The second problem is how detached such a line of thought.  Like everyone here said, our identity inhabits the mind...When our brain's primal sides fight, between the hormonal developments of our birth or the real identity of the brain itself... There's a violent conflict of thoughts that brings pain to the transgender individual, and inevitably the stronger transgender identity wins.  This is what nature decides for us, even if the nature is confined to a string of thoughts.  What you suggest feels like it implies that the healhier survivor needs to kill itself just so a borderline-dead being clutching to its ankles can take over.  Just because it's more 'likable' to its environment. (The environment being the body which is trying to work with a cisgender brain, not surroudning society)  ...I find this to be...drastically too unnatural...

I don't mean to be offensive, but I asked myself this question when I first took my ->-bleeped-<- seriously, and this is pretty much the way I came down to thinking about it.

Quote from: Sarah7 on May 08, 2011, 05:25:57 PM
If I want to die, I can slit my wrists.

I don't really have anything to add to this.

When I read the topic title, I thought the post referred to changing the gender-ROLE expectations. As in would I rather have others accept me dressing and living as I wish, and treat me as a woman, in spite of my biologically determined appearance instead of having to change the body to fit the role-expectations of the female gender I identify with - as someone said everyone else would have to take the pill that made them see and treat me as the person I feel I am, not the one I appear to be.

I actually spent some of my life trying to convince people men and women aren't all that different. (In general they are not).

I was disappointed to realize the post was about taking the blue pill to feel like I fit the role suggested by my male body.

I already tried this (not a pill - therapy - but still) and I think it would be death. I am just learning to be alive, I do not want to die.

I didn't mean to upset anyone, I asked because I would alter my brain or how I view myself if it meant being of one and the same sex and gender.   I didn't mean taking a blue pill to feel one way or the other, I meant reassign, that's very different.  When you reassign your sex you don't just think you're a girl, you ARE a girl (or boy) and that's what I meant about gender.
If I could BE my body, no way would I alter my body, maybe its because I'm Andro and IS so I could be chastised for posting this topic in the wrong  community but either way, I appreciate everyone's comments.  Even if I am Andro I would still attack the brain first and then the body but I totally understand people feeling the opposite.

Mmm...espo, I think the problem lies in that a prompt to change who we are mentally by any degree and/or means is exactly what we had to (and to varied extent still have to) cope with knowing we DON'T want.  An idealogy that inevitably goes along the lines of 'Why transgender?!' gets offensive even under the kindest wordings and kindest intentions.
Anyway, I would like you to please explain what you mean differently beween 'blue pill' or 'reassign'. ^^;  Your definition of reassign gender is designating that we reidentify ourselves into a cisgender equivalent of ourself, right?  That's...exactly what the 'blue pill' approach is, change our mentality from what it is as a transgender into being a cisgender version.  I find that thus there's no honest difference after all.  It's mostly a 'difference' from that reassignment doesn't call up the same stigma as 'blue pill' in this, so it seems different.

Either way, apparently there are methods to try to harmonize the mind to the body, rather than the body to the mind.  I was prompted by my therapist when I first met her on which one I was asking her to help me accomplish, so evidently it's real.  Furthermore I have an online contact who took the route.  Just like transexual persuit, it's not set up perfectly yet: In this case, he still deals with his transexual mind trying to wake up.

I'm glad you understand where we're coming from, though. ^^

(Edit: Added)

Also, I have just realized something that may be critical to realize.  A lot of thoughts from people who aren't transgender think of ->-bleeped-<- as an instance, as well as the body being a presence.  In terms of this, an 'instance' is always exclusive in its existance to the current moment, and a presence not only is present in the current moment but present in its history.
...This is actually the other way around: ->-bleeped-<- is a presence, and the body is an instance.  At any given point of time, your body is always as it is in the moment.  You're not male/female for any length of time in your body, despite your history, it's merely that your body has continued to hone its instance into its state: History is technically absolutely irralevent to the body's design.
Personalities, however, work as the continual presence.  In so, you are not changing "I am a woman/man" to "I am a man/woman"...rather, you are changing X time of the statement "I am a woman/man" being spammed out, x being the time since the brain was developed.  If you try to do it without countering the entire history of the statement, you give the mind a very severe culture shock of sorts to work with, and unlike culture shocks that are external...you drop it right on the mind itself.  The reason it culture shocks is because there's a drastic change in the environment the brain functions under, so previous standards can no longer apply, and it withdraws information to use from a standard that literally does not exist. (A transgender woman's brain wouldn't line of thought 'this is how a man does it', but rather 'Ok, this is how I, a man, do it' only to realize '...erm...wait, I never was a man though o_o' because it recognized everything it did as a female)   ---This all comes off as really dangerous to me. ^^;

On top of that, this is a kind of trait that's not just a particular statement, but furthermore 'coats' the history of the personality as well, because of what it is as a trait.  Everything a transgender does and has done essentially is a woman/man who's been doing it, it's just that the representive of their choices is not the same as the person who did the choice..So you're not just telling the mind to argue "I am a man/woman" in some form but also "A man/woman is what did and thought everything previously, not a woman/man".  Otherwise...culture shock from the inside again.
Technically I guess a scientist of sci fi poportions could give amnesia and replant the memories 'properly' to prevent an internal culture shock. but even if that were possible, the brain deals with hormones the same way as the body, I'm sure: No matter how masculinized/feminized the hormones develop the brain, the base brain itself HAS been a woman/man.  Just like a MtF's bones don't turn into a woman's structure with estrogen exposure, I severely doubt that it's possible that the brain would have genuinely changed to its male/female counterpart despite its developments' continuation.

I feel this is something worth consideration for this kind of question

I thought the blue pill approach was, As long as you take this pill you will feel like a girl or boy and reassigned is to be actually BE the girl or boy not just feel like one as long as we take pills.  Sorry for thinking that.

Ahhhh, ok.  That makes sense.  Well, don't worry too much, since it puts things on the same page. ^.^ With understanding reached, resolution comes---and with resolution, issues can lay to rest~ x3

Yeah, sure. I'd love to take a pill that makes me not me anymore... NOT!

As said by people before in this thread, there is nothing wrong with my gender. It's my body that is the problem. I'll fix that instead, thank you very much.

Quote from: Rachel Lynette Bellefountaine on May 13, 2011, 10:52:03 PM
Yeah, sure. I'd love to take a pill that makes me not me anymore... NOT!

As said by people before in this thread, there is nothing wrong with my gender. It's my body that is the problem. I'll fix that instead, thank you very much.

But how do you KNOW its your body thats the problem? ....ooOOoh

I object to changing the gender in such a fashion even if it were possible.  I don't object because of practical issues (in fact it is much more practical than changing sex) but I object because of fundamental issues.  Specifically, there's no reason to change my gender.  I am a woman, and I have no interest in being anything other than a woman.

You might as well be asking whether or not I would want to take a pill that would make me an engineer instead of a philosopher, a skateboarder instead of a gamer, or a heterosexual instead of a bisexual.  I have no interest in doing any of those things.  I don't skateboard because it's only mildly interesting, I'm not an engineer because I'm not particularly good at it, and I'm not heterosexual because it is not interesting.  For the exact same reasons, I would not want to be a man (even if I could be)