I am not asking this to be transphobic or anything but I had this debate with myself at 2 o’clock in the morning and every time I remember it I can’t focus.
On one hand, it is what they want. Let’s assume it causes no harm to them or any unforeseen circumstances.
On another hand, it would erase their identity as trans people. At the extreme you could consider it a genocide, since turning them into what they want would mean there is no more trans people and their unique identity is erased.
I mean, doing anything to anybody without either their knowledge or permission is about as unethical as it gets.
Out of curiosity, would you feel the same if the question was, “If I could snap my fingers and cure everybody on earth who has a terminal illness, would it be unethical to do so?”
Like, you would be modifying their body without their consent. On the other hand, you’re literally curing people with terminal illnesses. Seems churlish of them to complain.
The difference would be the phrasing and specifics. “Magically switch trans people to the assigned sex at birth that they desire to be?” Works for some. “Magically make trans people’s bodies align with their specific and nuanced gender identity” is less of an issue. The problem you run into with the first is some are not interested in surgeries or are non binary so a full surprise sex swap would not be what some trans people want.
I still think consent is important though, even if the way the magic works is basically “they get what they want”. As much as it is hard to imagine, there are also trans people who do not want to transition at all due to having family or friends who would cut them off (I think that’s a pretty awful and tragic situation to be in, but imagine the trans woman who magically changes to the shock and anger of her deeply religious family or SO, who then ostracize or reject her, or even react violently). You aren’t likely to be murdered for recovering from cancer, but in some places magically shifting assigned sex might come with some pretty awful, bigoted strings attached
Some excellent points, thank you.
I’d be mad if you cured Trump’s syphilis or Putin’s Parkinson’s.
To be fair, we don’t know for sure it’s syphilis. It could also be leprosy, for example.
Putin’s Parkinson’s
Honestly the the worst character to’ve appeared in Across The Spiderverse.
Some people are at peace with dying, and probably most terminally ill people have lived long full lives. If they already know they’re dying they’re likely to have made their final arrangements and said everything they needed to say and are accepting of death, a completely natural thing.
You personally assuming that you would want to be magically “saved” without any prior knowledge or consent doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same.
So you tell them, preferably ask them, first. That’s why surgeons make you sign consent forms.
Surgery has risks, magic in this case does not.
If you modify the thought experiment slightly, it becomes an interesting trolley problem.
Let’s assume the spell you’re using is all or nothing - either it cures everyone, or no one. What if some subset of people explicitly do not consent? How many people would it have to be, or what percentage, before you would consider not doing it? Obviously if only 1 person doesn’t want it, who cares, greater good, but what if it was 99% of people? Where’s the line?
For me if even 1 person wants it everyone gets it. People who prefer to die can just kill themselves, people who prefer to live can’t choose to survive.
A utilitarian, in that case, would always choose to cure everyone. Greatest good for the greatest number.
If your morality is a bit more nuanced, things get very muddy very quickly.
The line is clearly at 50%.
Half live in harmony, half die.
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
But its still not your decision to make. Would 100% of people use it? Probably. What do you lose by asking them first?
Because not 100% of people would agree, it’s that simple.
People are talking about this magic they literally just invented in their minds as if it can’t be made to also confirm consent before happening (E: or just be fucking optional! It exists, you take it if you want it 🤯)… 🤦♀️😂
Exactly.
What if you only have 5 minutes to make your decision?
Surgery has risks, magic in this case does not.
Risks running afoul of someone’s deeply held religious beliefs.
Are you magically doing something to them without their consent? Then it’s bad
Are you magically doing something to them with their enthusiastic consent? Then it’s great.
But for me, if you had some tool to turn me in to a cis woman, I’d say no. It would disconnect me from my community, in order to let me fit in better with the societal norms that taught me to hate myself for being trans in the first place. Fuck that.
It would disconnect me from my community
That is one of my conundrums. If all trans people get turned into cis people, the community would cease to exist altogether.
Destruction of a community, especially globally, would be genocide. By trying to make a group of people happy with who they are, one ends up committing one of the greatest atrocities against them imaginable.
A community is just a social construct. If all members are alive and happy and choose to leave, no one was harmed.
It’s all about consent.
That’s why it has to be a choice.
Society at large is a community identity too, and many trans folk value that community connection more than I do for example. Many of us would absolutely choose the magical option you suggest in your initial post, but for others of us like myself, it would come with an incredible sense of grief and loss. I spent my life learning to embrace and love this part of who I am, and to have that taken away, just so I can blend in to the society that made the process so hard in the first place, that would be a punch in the stomach for me…
It’s sort of like magically turning everybody into a middle class white guy. Would it be good for each individual? Probably. But it’s probably worth thinking about why it’d be so good, and what that says about our real, non-magical world.
What if you could just magically gift anyone the ability to change gender at will? Sure there wouldn’t really be the community you are referring to, but consent would be maintained
The cool thing is that I, a trans woman, am already a woman! Gender is a whole complicated thing, and I think maybe you have a simplistic idea of what it means to be trans. it isn’t “I wish i was a girl” so much as it is “my body/my mind/the way society treats me (some, all, or none of these) is wrong” so, from that perspective. it’d be pretty invasive to force change onto people without their consent-it’s their body, after all!
I think offering physical changes individually to trans people would be the most ethical approach. Everyone is different, and everyone wants different things. TMI but I, as an example, have no interest in bottom surgery, but am happily on hormones.
It’s important to remember that this is just one person’s opinion, too. Take it with some salt, and feel free to ask any follow-up questions if you’re interested in my perspective
First of all, I really wanted to hear opinions of trans people. What are the reasons why someone would choose not to have bottom surgery? I expect some people simply can’t afford it or find it too much of a hassle.
Many trans people also just don’t have any dysphoria regarding their genitals.
Surgery is terrifying! If you have no or mild dysphonia then the idea of someone removing part of you or otherwise changing it is quite disturbing even if the end result is appealing. And that’s if the end result is appealing - it isn’t for everyone. Gender isn’t necessarily tied to what’s in your pants at all.
Well, my hypothetical scenario implies an instantaneous 100% change with a 100% functionality, at zero cost, specifically for that reason.
I’m sure, if offered, many people would accept the change.
Do individuals that have transitioned from a gender other than the one they were born into really identify as “trans” or is that what society has classifed them as? I think ideally they would all be accepted and viewed as their preferred gender without the trans qualifier attached to them.
Oof, good point.
It’s not. It’s based on a broad generalisation that implies all trans folk want to blend in and be invisible. We don’t all want that
There’s a weird divide between self-determined identity and external classifications. Often, a culture forms around the label and the external label stops being relevant because the term has more social/cultural implications than practical implications. Some people internalize the label as that’s how they wish to steer their future interactions, and others ignore the label and move on with their lives.
You can watch all of Star Trek, and some parts of society will label you a Trekkie if they find out, but it’s up to you whether you choose to identify as a Trekkie, or just go about your life not making a big deal about it.
If I describe someone as a “tall man” or “clever man”, do those qualifiers/subcategorizations call into question whether he is a “man”?
If they don’t, I’m genuinely interested in hearing what distinction you apparently see between those two and saying he is a “trans man”.Hmmm well I would think of those more as descriptors, which I suppose the label “trans” is, but are there any people that would prefer to be seen as their chosen gender without the need of the additional label? I have a friend that has transitioned from female to male and I don’t think of them as a trans man. He’s a man and has always been a man to me.
Interesting. I guess for me the “trans” bit just isn’t as strongly coupled to the person - that it’s natural to use “man” for such a person in general, and it’s a context (e.g. healthcare or the politics of it) that can make the subcategory be relevant.
Do individuals that have transitioned from a gender other than the one they were born into really identify as “trans”
I do. Loudly proudly and openly.
They’re already the gender they are. So your concerns about erasing their identity are warranted.
I think you might be conflating sex with gender here, though. Gender isn’t based on anything objective, it’s a purely social phenomenon. And while most of us identify as the gender typical for our sex, some do not; that’s what it means to be trans.
Some trans people want to alter their primary or secondary sexual characteristics to better align their presentation with their gender. Those people might take you up on your Thanos snap sex swap deal if you offered it on an individual level. But not every trans person wants to change their body, or not so drastically, or not all at once.
And as others have said, magically altering someone else’s body without consent is fully evil.
Yes, my native language does not have a distinction that is as obvious. I meant that their sex changes into the gender they identify with in my hypothetical scenario.
Assuming enthusiastic consent, good faith, and that you meant “sex/body they want” instead of “gender they want” (because gender is just a social construct):
On another hand, it would erase their identity as trans people.
I don’t think it would. Identities are built from life experiences, and having lived through transition they’d still be trans even if there were no traces of it on their body. A war veteran doesn’t stop being a veteran just because the war ended.
consider it a genocide
The definition of genocide depends on intent! Even in wars, etc. It’s only genocide if you’re specifically trying to erase/displace people/culture.
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Trying to cure gender dysphoria: it’s not genocide, it’s medical treatment.
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Trying to “fix” people to make them fit into society: it’s genocide.
turning them into what they want would mean there is no more trans people
There are identities that don’t stop being trans even if you give them the body they want:
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A non-binary person’s desired sex/body and social gender might not match. Even with the perfect body (if one exists), they might still identify as trans because that body doesn’t match their social gender.
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For genderfluid people, there might not be one singular perfect body. Even if their body constantly updated to suit them, they’d probably still identify as trans because they’d be constantly transitioning…
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I mean, unless you also retconned their past it wouldn’t really erase their identity as trans people. The bigger problem would be that in the process you’d out a bunch of people. Also, what would constitute “turning into a gender”? Gender means different things to different people
I think the more interesting follow up would be who this actually affects. Does this magic have a magical objective truth about everyone, or is it based on personal belief. The resulting chaos from either way is fun to think about imo.
egg_irl community would go nuts, for starters. All the anti-trans people being outed as closet trans too. Which religions would try to play it off as an act of god? This is what keeps me up at night.
Yes?
It’s not cool to do something to someone without their consent.
The lack of permission issue is muddy because you specify that it’s what they “want”, which implies some kind of magical hypothetical permission happened somehow. I won’t address it.
A concern I haven’t seen raised is the people who live in cultures where transgender issues or even just being a particular gender could be life-threatening. I would be worried about the people “outed” unexpectedly. Some trans people might decide to forego transitioning due to other concerns in their lives weighing higher, and I would want them to be able to weigh in on that.
I think yes, you doing it would be unethical as you cannot get the consent of all the people you’d be affecting. Making the option available would certainly ease suffering but your blanket statement “that’s what they want” assumes something that certainly isn’t true for every single trans person.
You’ve had the main ones, but to add - not all trans people want to be one gender, or any gender at all. So yes, it would be unethical.
Without consent, it would definitely be unethical.
Trans people are the gender that they are.
As a Christian I’d be opposed to it but I’d struggle to see a secular argument for why it’s bad so long as it’s consensual.
Yes, but wouldn’t some religious people see the spell as divine intervention?
If God did it, yes
But what if nobody knows who did it?
Ah…well at that point even the athiests might think that God did it
