OP has definitely mixed up Street Epistemology with JAQing off. He clearly has a specific viewpoint and is "just asking questions" whenever someone doesn’t arrive at the same conclusions as his own preconceived beliefs.
I'm definitely not watching 45 minutes of this. People who bring up race dysphoria need to:
Define exactly that phrase means.
Define what they think "race" means.
Find a person who actually believes that situation describes their experience.
Explain what and how that person was meaningfully denied their right to exist.
Usually, the "best" example is Rachel Dolezal doing black cosplay for academic and monetary gain. I have no interest in listening to inane hypothetical whataboutisms with people conjuring pretend issues and pearl clutching when actual people are suffering.
Haven't watched the video either but I feel this is putting the bar unrealistically high.
(Do you believe people with gender dysphoria can define what they think "gender" means?)
But what about millions of dark indians who are using skin bleaching products, or Michael Jackson for that matter?
Why wouldn't you call that race dysphoria?
A medical condition that caused him to change his nose to something associated with Caucasian.
And why would the dysphoria stemming from cultural views not count in your opinion? A lot of gender dysphoria has to do with cultural views as well.
Gender is cultural. Skirts aren't inherently gendered but our culture treats them as feminine and lo and behold most trans women like skirts as a way to affirm their gender, through a cultural means.
This is okay by the way, it doesn't make it "less real" or anything like that. Culture matters a lot to us humans, that's why we tend to tie to biological markers like ancestry or sex. It makes sense to me that discomfort about your body will feel similar to discomfort about cultural expectations, even more similar if you feel both at the same time and live in a culture that doesn't recognize these as different things, which I'd argue we do.
As an example this also explains why trans women in Thailand have been a lot more comfortable identifying as "ladyboys" than women in the west have been identifying as "femboys". The terms have different cultural implications.
Gender is strongly shaped by culture, it dictates how it is expressed, gives us the symbols (skirts, makeup, job roles), but it isn’t only culture.
In places with more gender‑flexible cultures, there are still people whose bodies and inner sense of gender don’t line up, and they’re distressed until their body and social role match that inner sense.
If gender was just culture, then changing the culture would instantly fix dysphoria.
But that's the thing, you can't change the culture, not to that extent at least. Places with more gender-flexible cultures still have gender as part of their culture, they're just more flexible with it.
Indeed a transphobic culture will have trans people feeling worse than a trans-friendly culture. Culture is a broad term, pretty much all human experiences can be categorized as cultural to some extent.
In the context of "race dysphoria" this matters because race is also very much not biological, the individual markers of race are biological when taken independently (as are a lot of gender markers like height or facial features) but when put together the "box" of biological traits that one defines as a "race" is entirely cultural. Similarly a lot of cultural and behavioral traits are placed in the "race" box purely because of cultural reasons and feeling uncomfortable because you don't fit "your box" but feel identified with "another box" is a valid feeling.
Much like with gender I think the best solution is to recognize the boxes are entirely made up and just let people pick and choose cultural traits as they see fit but most people are very attached to their boxes (And there's a lot of boxes: gender, race, nationality, cuissine, sports teams, etc) so as a band aid solution I think it's reasonable to just allow people to transition from one social box to another, even if the transition can't ever be "complete" if you're never growing up again within that box you like better or if a lot of people still don't see you as part of that box.
Also dysphoria is a medical term purely because it was defined as such. Citing the medicalization of a term does not make that term "medically distinct" from another term that just hasn't been recognized. Under that logic one would be correct in saying that trans or autistic people literally didn't exist until the term was recognized in a medical setting and I think we can both agree that wouldn't be useful for this discussion.
Also, also and after re-reading my text block; I am not arguing that things like gender or race are either cultural or biological. The concept of growing a beard is 100% biological but the act of actually allowing it to happen or shaving it is 100% cultural. I'm not saying dysphoria isn't biological or that it can or should be treated solely through social means on the basis of gender being cultural. Basically gender is just culture, but the feeling of gender is as biological as any other feeling, that's my opinion on it.
Haven't watched the video either but I feel this is putting the bar unrealistically high.
Why is wanting to talk about a group of people who actually exist and are going through a verifiably difficult time and not wanting to talk about a made up problem with no victims too unrealistic?
Since when is making someone define their terms unreasonable?
(Do you believe people with gender dysphoria can define what they think "gender" means?)
I’ve never met a trans person or individual suffering from gender dysphoria that couldn’t easily answer this question.
Gender is the social assumptions and expectations that go along with perceived or actual biological sex.
But what about millions of dark indians who are using skin bleaching products, or Michael Jackson for that matter? Why wouldn't you call that race dysphoria?
I have no idea what the mental illness of Michael Jackson included. Nor do you. He did many unhinged things.
But Indian people lightening their skin don’t believe they were born wrong. They don’t think they are white or Hispanic or Japanese. There’s no dysphoria. Wanting to change your appearance isn’t dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria is a real medical condition; "race dysphoria" is a loose idea people use in arguments, not a diagnosis doctors recognize.
You cannot "feel like a race" as it's simply describing ancestory.
People can feel out of place in their culture or dislike how others treat them because of race, and that emotional pain is real, but it is not the same kind of condition doctors describe when they talk about dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria is a clinical diagnosis that is used to put people on a particular treatment path. These treatment paths are specifically assessed for their efficacy in reducing distress, self harm and suicide, all of which present at much higher levels in people with gender dysphoria than the general population.
I'm not aware of any clinical study of 'race dysphoria' and there certainly is not anything like a gender affirming treatment path that has been tested and found to have the substantial positive effects that it does on folks that present with it in a clinical setting. If it did, I have no issue putting people on that path.
This does present a pretty fascinating case study in how medicalized discourse has become hegemonic...we describe everything in terms generated out of medicine. But medicine is a based on empirical data, not algorithmically encouraged stories which tickle your funny bone. Gender dysphoria is a medically recognized term. Race dysphoria is something someone made up to sound medical-y.
I mean, there is no such thing as race, so there cnt be race dysphoria. At best you can say a person wishes they ha ifferently coloured skin? Which is basically the same as wishing to having been blond instead of redhead or somerthing.
Sex is a biological classification. Gender is a person’s internal sense of themselves as a man, woman, both, neither, etc. and how that shows up in social roles and presentation.
If gender were "simply describing one’s sex," that entire concept would be meaningless. Gender dysphoria is "incongruence between gender identity and sex assigned at birth."
Race is a rough social label built on ancestry and visible traits.
There is no formal diagnosis of "race dysphoria" in any major classification system; what people actually deal with there are racism, discrimination, and stigma.
Trying to force race and gender into the same box so you can say "you can’t feel like a race, therefore you can’t feel like a gender" is just a bad analogy.
"Gender is a person’s internal sense of themselves as a man, woman, both, neither, etc"
I have a difficult time understanding what this means. To me this concept seems very spiritual-like. I don't know what it is like to sense oneself as a man, women, both, neither. Us as individuals have only ever sensed a single body before. There is no comparison we could make. I only know my own body. I wouldn't know if what I was sensing was more man-like or more woman-like.
I can attempt to explain it but it has to come with a huge disclaimer:
It is not something you will ever feel or have something to compare to.
All dysphoriais a friction where what your body is and what your brain expects don't align. You feel at home in your body, and so there is no friction.
How that presents itself is different between people, not all symptoms and not all treatments are the same for everyone with dysphoria.
It's not a matter of spirituality, not a claim that you have a second ghost-body to compare against. It is a long-term, persistent sense of "wrongness." People with dysphoria aren’t saying "I sampled both and prefer option B."
What is consistently reported is an incongruity with how people see and treat them, feeling persistently off, distressing, or alien; A different configuration consistently relieves that feeling.
That mismatch/relief pattern is what we label gender identity, and when distressing enough to impact daily life it gets diagnosed as gender dysphoria.
Let me make this even easier. Some people have phantom limb syndrome where they think they have a limb that causes them issues but they don’t have such a limb. Some people have alien limb syndrome where they think a limb that they have is not theirs and they want it amputated. Now people who have all the limbs they think they should have feel fine about their limbs and it never even occurs to them that there could be a mismatch between what they have and what they feel they should have. It’s basically the same with gender dysphoria. What your internal self is and what your external self is does not line up and it causes you a great deal of mental anguish.
My understanding of phantom leg syndrome is caused by amputation.
In any case, I dont see how someone could determine if what they feel or gravitate towards coild he indicative of man, woman, etc. These things are completely abstract. Any connection would be a stereotype rather than something concrete.
My understanding of phantom leg syndrome is caused by amputation.
- yes but that’s beside the point. Their brain is telling them they have a limb when obviously that is not the case. That means there is something in the brain that tells you what you body is supposed to be according to your brain and that may not line up with reality. Same here.
In any case, I dont see how someone could determine if what they feel or gravitate towards coild he indicative of man, woman, etc. These things are completely abstract. Any connection would be a stereotype rather than something concrete.
- you are just asserting that without any evidence. Perhaps being a biological man or woman is something that your brain perceives about itself. Knowing whether you are a a male or female is important for how all mammals behave so it’s not crazy to think that there is something part of the brain that gives you that self perception and that it could go wrong. Additionally this is a phenomenon well documented by the medical literature in lots of countries over lots of different time periods so it appears to be a real phenomenon. Not sure what evidence you would need to prove to you that it’s real.
My point with the amputee comment was to point out that the brain has past experiences to compare with. Past with a limb compared to now without a limb.
With this being said, I only have a single reference point. I know how it is to be me. I have no idea how it is to be anyone else. I could say it seems like im a woman. I dont think such a statement makes much sense considering I only have a single reference point. I only know how i am. Maybe all men experience life the way I do.
if you like wearing dresses and makeup but you have a dick, don t you think thats a mismatch? Of course itsa bit more complicated than that, im just pointing out that this isnt something "abstract" that needs to be "determined". This really is not complicated if you can emphathise with people a little bit.
I wouldn't see anything wrong with a man wearing a dress and still being a man.
Females only wearing dress is a stereotype. I dont think we should invest into stereotype. Stereotyping is bad.
Its not about body. Its not about "experiencing a body", if anything, gender dysphoria is "having the wrong body for your gender". Again, the person explained to you that sex - the physical body - is not identical to your phychological state, aka gender. Its not "very-spiritual-like", its just psychology
[deleted]
OP has definitely mixed up Street Epistemology with JAQing off. He clearly has a specific viewpoint and is "just asking questions" whenever someone doesn’t arrive at the same conclusions as his own preconceived beliefs.
If you're talking about the guy I interviewed, yes.
If you're talking about me, no.
I'm definitely not watching 45 minutes of this. People who bring up race dysphoria need to:
Usually, the "best" example is Rachel Dolezal doing black cosplay for academic and monetary gain. I have no interest in listening to inane hypothetical whataboutisms with people conjuring pretend issues and pearl clutching when actual people are suffering.
Haven't watched the video either but I feel this is putting the bar unrealistically high. (Do you believe people with gender dysphoria can define what they think "gender" means?) But what about millions of dark indians who are using skin bleaching products, or Michael Jackson for that matter? Why wouldn't you call that race dysphoria?
You wouldn't call that race dysphoria, because none of those things you are describing is dysphoria or race.
Indians are bleaching their skin to lighten their color as a result of cultural views, and Michael Jackson had a medical condition called vitiligo.
A medical condition that caused him to change his nose to something associated with Caucasian. And why would the dysphoria stemming from cultural views not count in your opinion? A lot of gender dysphoria has to do with cultural views as well.
A medical condition that removed the pigment from his skin.
Because changing cultures does not resolve dysphoria.
How have you reached this conclusion?
Gender is cultural. Skirts aren't inherently gendered but our culture treats them as feminine and lo and behold most trans women like skirts as a way to affirm their gender, through a cultural means.
This is okay by the way, it doesn't make it "less real" or anything like that. Culture matters a lot to us humans, that's why we tend to tie to biological markers like ancestry or sex. It makes sense to me that discomfort about your body will feel similar to discomfort about cultural expectations, even more similar if you feel both at the same time and live in a culture that doesn't recognize these as different things, which I'd argue we do.
As an example this also explains why trans women in Thailand have been a lot more comfortable identifying as "ladyboys" than women in the west have been identifying as "femboys". The terms have different cultural implications.
Gender is strongly shaped by culture, it dictates how it is expressed, gives us the symbols (skirts, makeup, job roles), but it isn’t only culture.
In places with more gender‑flexible cultures, there are still people whose bodies and inner sense of gender don’t line up, and they’re distressed until their body and social role match that inner sense.
If gender was just culture, then changing the culture would instantly fix dysphoria.
But that's the thing, you can't change the culture, not to that extent at least. Places with more gender-flexible cultures still have gender as part of their culture, they're just more flexible with it.
Indeed a transphobic culture will have trans people feeling worse than a trans-friendly culture. Culture is a broad term, pretty much all human experiences can be categorized as cultural to some extent.
In the context of "race dysphoria" this matters because race is also very much not biological, the individual markers of race are biological when taken independently (as are a lot of gender markers like height or facial features) but when put together the "box" of biological traits that one defines as a "race" is entirely cultural. Similarly a lot of cultural and behavioral traits are placed in the "race" box purely because of cultural reasons and feeling uncomfortable because you don't fit "your box" but feel identified with "another box" is a valid feeling.
Much like with gender I think the best solution is to recognize the boxes are entirely made up and just let people pick and choose cultural traits as they see fit but most people are very attached to their boxes (And there's a lot of boxes: gender, race, nationality, cuissine, sports teams, etc) so as a band aid solution I think it's reasonable to just allow people to transition from one social box to another, even if the transition can't ever be "complete" if you're never growing up again within that box you like better or if a lot of people still don't see you as part of that box.
Also dysphoria is a medical term purely because it was defined as such. Citing the medicalization of a term does not make that term "medically distinct" from another term that just hasn't been recognized. Under that logic one would be correct in saying that trans or autistic people literally didn't exist until the term was recognized in a medical setting and I think we can both agree that wouldn't be useful for this discussion.
Also, also and after re-reading my text block; I am not arguing that things like gender or race are either cultural or biological. The concept of growing a beard is 100% biological but the act of actually allowing it to happen or shaving it is 100% cultural. I'm not saying dysphoria isn't biological or that it can or should be treated solely through social means on the basis of gender being cultural. Basically gender is just culture, but the feeling of gender is as biological as any other feeling, that's my opinion on it.
Why is wanting to talk about a group of people who actually exist and are going through a verifiably difficult time and not wanting to talk about a made up problem with no victims too unrealistic?
Since when is making someone define their terms unreasonable?
I’ve never met a trans person or individual suffering from gender dysphoria that couldn’t easily answer this question.
Gender is the social assumptions and expectations that go along with perceived or actual biological sex.
I have no idea what the mental illness of Michael Jackson included. Nor do you. He did many unhinged things.
But Indian people lightening their skin don’t believe they were born wrong. They don’t think they are white or Hispanic or Japanese. There’s no dysphoria. Wanting to change your appearance isn’t dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria is a real medical condition; "race dysphoria" is a loose idea people use in arguments, not a diagnosis doctors recognize.
You cannot "feel like a race" as it's simply describing ancestory.
People can feel out of place in their culture or dislike how others treat them because of race, and that emotional pain is real, but it is not the same kind of condition doctors describe when they talk about dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria is a clinical diagnosis that is used to put people on a particular treatment path. These treatment paths are specifically assessed for their efficacy in reducing distress, self harm and suicide, all of which present at much higher levels in people with gender dysphoria than the general population.
I'm not aware of any clinical study of 'race dysphoria' and there certainly is not anything like a gender affirming treatment path that has been tested and found to have the substantial positive effects that it does on folks that present with it in a clinical setting. If it did, I have no issue putting people on that path.
This does present a pretty fascinating case study in how medicalized discourse has become hegemonic...we describe everything in terms generated out of medicine. But medicine is a based on empirical data, not algorithmically encouraged stories which tickle your funny bone. Gender dysphoria is a medically recognized term. Race dysphoria is something someone made up to sound medical-y.
I mean, there is no such thing as race, so there cnt be race dysphoria. At best you can say a person wishes they ha ifferently coloured skin? Which is basically the same as wishing to having been blond instead of redhead or somerthing.
Much like how one cannot "feel a race" as its simply describing ancestry; is this the same for "gender" as it is simply describing one's sex?
"Sex" and "gender" are not the same thing.
Sex is a biological classification. Gender is a person’s internal sense of themselves as a man, woman, both, neither, etc. and how that shows up in social roles and presentation.
If gender were "simply describing one’s sex," that entire concept would be meaningless. Gender dysphoria is "incongruence between gender identity and sex assigned at birth."
Race is a rough social label built on ancestry and visible traits.
There is no formal diagnosis of "race dysphoria" in any major classification system; what people actually deal with there are racism, discrimination, and stigma.
Trying to force race and gender into the same box so you can say "you can’t feel like a race, therefore you can’t feel like a gender" is just a bad analogy.
"Gender is a person’s internal sense of themselves as a man, woman, both, neither, etc"
I have a difficult time understanding what this means. To me this concept seems very spiritual-like. I don't know what it is like to sense oneself as a man, women, both, neither. Us as individuals have only ever sensed a single body before. There is no comparison we could make. I only know my own body. I wouldn't know if what I was sensing was more man-like or more woman-like.
I can attempt to explain it but it has to come with a huge disclaimer:
It is not something you will ever feel or have something to compare to.
All dysphoria is a friction where what your body is and what your brain expects don't align. You feel at home in your body, and so there is no friction.
How that presents itself is different between people, not all symptoms and not all treatments are the same for everyone with dysphoria.
It's not a matter of spirituality, not a claim that you have a second ghost-body to compare against. It is a long-term, persistent sense of "wrongness." People with dysphoria aren’t saying "I sampled both and prefer option B."
What is consistently reported is an incongruity with how people see and treat them, feeling persistently off, distressing, or alien; A different configuration consistently relieves that feeling.
That mismatch/relief pattern is what we label gender identity, and when distressing enough to impact daily life it gets diagnosed as gender dysphoria.
How does one know of it is "wrong", "misaligned" or "alien" if they do not have a comparison?
Let me make this even easier. Some people have phantom limb syndrome where they think they have a limb that causes them issues but they don’t have such a limb. Some people have alien limb syndrome where they think a limb that they have is not theirs and they want it amputated. Now people who have all the limbs they think they should have feel fine about their limbs and it never even occurs to them that there could be a mismatch between what they have and what they feel they should have. It’s basically the same with gender dysphoria. What your internal self is and what your external self is does not line up and it causes you a great deal of mental anguish.
My understanding of phantom leg syndrome is caused by amputation.
In any case, I dont see how someone could determine if what they feel or gravitate towards coild he indicative of man, woman, etc. These things are completely abstract. Any connection would be a stereotype rather than something concrete.
My understanding of phantom leg syndrome is caused by amputation. - yes but that’s beside the point. Their brain is telling them they have a limb when obviously that is not the case. That means there is something in the brain that tells you what you body is supposed to be according to your brain and that may not line up with reality. Same here.
In any case, I dont see how someone could determine if what they feel or gravitate towards coild he indicative of man, woman, etc. These things are completely abstract. Any connection would be a stereotype rather than something concrete. - you are just asserting that without any evidence. Perhaps being a biological man or woman is something that your brain perceives about itself. Knowing whether you are a a male or female is important for how all mammals behave so it’s not crazy to think that there is something part of the brain that gives you that self perception and that it could go wrong. Additionally this is a phenomenon well documented by the medical literature in lots of countries over lots of different time periods so it appears to be a real phenomenon. Not sure what evidence you would need to prove to you that it’s real.
My point with the amputee comment was to point out that the brain has past experiences to compare with. Past with a limb compared to now without a limb.
With this being said, I only have a single reference point. I know how it is to be me. I have no idea how it is to be anyone else. I could say it seems like im a woman. I dont think such a statement makes much sense considering I only have a single reference point. I only know how i am. Maybe all men experience life the way I do.
if you like wearing dresses and makeup but you have a dick, don t you think thats a mismatch? Of course itsa bit more complicated than that, im just pointing out that this isnt something "abstract" that needs to be "determined". This really is not complicated if you can emphathise with people a little bit.
I wouldn't see anything wrong with a man wearing a dress and still being a man. Females only wearing dress is a stereotype. I dont think we should invest into stereotype. Stereotyping is bad.
You do not have a comparison.
Your inability to have a point of reference is because you don't suffer from the condition.
You will never know what it feels like. That frame of reference will never exist for you.
What we do know is that all of the people who suffer from this condition give the same generalized description.
Can they be mistaken?
Mistaken about what?
About the gender they believe they are
Its not about body. Its not about "experiencing a body", if anything, gender dysphoria is "having the wrong body for your gender". Again, the person explained to you that sex - the physical body - is not identical to your phychological state, aka gender. Its not "very-spiritual-like", its just psychology
Nobody can determine if they are in the "wrong body".
Source?
Its the default position. But like someone declaring they were born the wrong race or animal.
Your mental rigidity is not a condition for others’ experience. It only demonstrates a lack of ability to entertain foreign ideas.
Just a note, "sex" as a biological classification is operationalised in many mutually incompatible ways across the biological sciences, fwiw.