Transcription
Hey internets. This video is just going to be quickly settling the debate on a common argument you might have seen going around about protecting trans youth, specifically about whether or not kids should be allowed to transition. A common argument that comes up is surrounding this comic. One side says, "Stop imposing irreversible changes onto kids." Obviously representing the side of the argument that children should not be allowed to transition because certain gender confirming procedures like mastctomies, for example, can't really be reversed. And the response is basically, oh, reversible changes. You mean like puberty? Coming from the pink bird, obviously representing the side saying that children should be allowed to transition. And so the point of the comic is that it's trying to say that, hey, puberty also brings with it irreversible changes. And so if you are say using age of consent or something like that as an argument to prevent kids from being allowed to transition and they grow up and they still want to transition, then their transition will not go as well or be as effective due to biological changes, etc. that happened throughout puberty and thus it's the same thing.
And I see a lot of people getting tripped up by this argument because the common response will be something like, "Oh, well that's a false equivalence because puberty is a natural process and transitioning goes against the body's natural biology or something like that." At which point the protransing kids side will just say, "Oh, that's just a naturalistic fallacy." And the thing is, they're kind of halfcorrect when they say that. It is indeed absolutely a fallacy to assume that something is better just because it is natural. If you push that to its logical conclusion, you could say very insane things like saying, "Oh, death is natural. Therefore, the very practice of medicine should be abolished." Which is of course completely absurd. You see, you have to understand that this argument isn't quite as bad as it first seems. It's still bad, but it's not so bad that it's completely false. In fact, in an alternative reality, it could even be seen as an acceptable argument. Allow me to explain.
You see, the actual error in reasoning that this take is guilty of isn't so much false equivalence, but rather it's an error of equivocation and that they're equivocating between what transgenderists usually complain about all the time, which is there being a difference between sex and gender, with them making a very strong point on there being a difference between gender identity and the biology that the person actually has. So for instance, say we hypothetically lived in a far more medically advanced society. One so advanced that from today's perspective from medical science, it would basically be like magic. And so in this society, they've completely mastered the human body. And thus the genetics and composition of it can be easily changed on the fly. And so in this highly advanced society, those who are trans, well, they can just go down to their pharmacy and request a simple genome sexual reassignment pill. and they take the pill and they wake up the next morning and they're completely switched to the opposite sex. Secondary sex characteristics XX to XY XY to XXX in terms of chromosomes with full reproductive capability of the opposite sex. In other words, they wake up as if they had been born that way. Even including things like differences in height and width of hips and so on and so forth. You get the idea. So, we're talking a full and complete true biological transition here. And of course, you could take the opposite pill and switch back. It would be a very easy thing to do. Switching between male and female and back in this hypothetical advanced society would most likely not be seen as that much different from treating any other chronic disorder.
And the thing is in this hypothetical society, the argument that this comic makes would actually make sense. And why would that be? Well, there's two reasons. The first and most important one is that it's no longer a question of reversibility. Because of course in this highly advanced society, both puberty and transitioning would be equally reversible. So the entire point doesn't really matter. But another more interesting and more key reason here, this is the one that I think a lot of people are missing, is that in this hypothetical advanced society where you can just take a pill and swap biological male female, the difference between gender identity and biological sex, well, it would kind of effectively not really matter. The culture of this society would most likely not really care for there to be any kind of important distinction between the two because you could just again take a pill and it's not really a big deal. People who are trans would just take the pill and then their biology would match their identity and then they could just get on with their life. It's very likely that if this pill exists, people would just kind of stop caring about it and it wouldn't even really be a political discussion at all.
This is why I've said before in one of my QA videos when somebody asked me how I feel about the transgender community, my basic answer is that I genuinely feel a little bit sorry for them. Because the thing is, if you understand transgenderism, if you understand their psychology of the people who are genuinely trans and not just a trender, you'll start to realize as you look into it and how they live their lives that most trans people would really just give anything for that pill to exist. A lot of them would just freaking sell their souls for that pill to exist. They would love to live in this hypothetical society. If you read through things like various trans subreddits and such, you will see a lot of them are often complaining about how or wishing that there would be some kind of magic solution to their problem that they could just press a magic button and presto they're magically the opposite sex. And why is it so many people of the trans community feel this way? Well, it's pretty simple really because unfortunately for them, the current options for transitioning aren't very good.
In reality, our current day medical science is nowhere near being capable of making that pill exist. In fact, I use the word magic because it's important to emphasize the massive canyon of difference between that hypothetical level of medical science and our current level of medical science. And not only are we nowhere near to being able to make that pill exist, we have no real way of knowing even how such a pill could exist or how it would even function if it would exist. Based on our current understanding, it is medically impossible to change your biology this way. And so the options that a transgender individual has are fairly limited. Either a) they can try and just cope with it. They can just try to learn to accept their biology as their gender and live as that. And there's even some drugs out there that allegedly can help them do this to thus reduce their feelings of dysphoria or body or gender dysphoria as it's sometimes called, which is basically the feeling of unrest and anxiety and dissatisfaction with their own body. And then of course the other option is to transition doing things like HRT, hormone replacement therapy, or gender confirmation surgeries, various supplements, puberty blockers, and other various drugs and cosmetic surgeries to kind of make them look like their preferred gender in terms of biology. But of course, the problem is that they don't really succeed. If someone is very lucky, they'll end up passing. But a lot of times, especially when it comes to MTFs or male to female, a lot of them, sad to say, just being honest, they don't really pass. And this, of course, is because the current options for medically transitioning don't really change your biological sex. In terms of biology, they more or less make you something in between. And so, of course, in our society, the trans community has made a big emphasis on there being a major difference between whether or not your biology is male or female and how a person identifies in terms of their gender representation on whether or not they are male or female. And now, whether or not that's valid is a completely different discussion altogether.
Whipped back to the point made in this comic, we can now see a very big issue because puberty is a biological process, not a gender identity process. And so the point being made here is effectively equivocating and walking back on that important distinction between again biology and identity. And so the discussion here really shouldn't be about natural versus unnatural. The real problem here is functioning and non-functioning. Because we do not live in a world where medical science is capable of making the full and true biological change that trans people would prefer to have, medically transitioning does not result in functioning reproductive ability. Whereas puberty does because puberty is a biological thing, not an identity thing. And so thus, in addition to being an equivocation, the really big problem with the argument this comic is trying to make is that it's a distraction from the real more important question, which is whether or not a child is mature enough to make a decision that will ultimately result in them either being sterile due to not having functional reproductive organs or other various medical problems that comes with transitioning. Like for example, as mentioned, puberty blockers, which can cause permanent negative effects to bone density, brain development, adult height, or partially permanent in that they can regain some of the function, but not all of the biological changes they would have gone through without the blockers. And then, of course, things like outright gender confirmation surgery can't really be reversed at all. And expecting someone who's not even reached the age of consent to be able to make a permanent decision on themselves like that, it's very unrealistic. I mean, do you honestly think that say a 10-year-old can really state whether or not they ever want to have kids in their life? Can you really honestly say that they're at that level of maturity? Of course they don't. That's why we have an age of consent to begin with. I mean, even in an anarcho capitalist society with private law and private courts, there would still be an age of consent. Otherwise, you would have absolutely insane things going on like courts upholding three-year-olds signing away all of their future equity or something ridiculous like that being upheld in the court of law.
And honestly, I think the bigger reason we can tell that kids can't really be trusted to make this decision is because honestly, sad to say, many adults don't really seem to understand the science behind this. There's a shockingly high number of people out there who still don't understand that medically transitioning doesn't actually result in biological function of their preferred gender. Male to females still cannot get pregnant and female to males cannot father children. And that's not really intended to be criticism of the trans community. It's just the facts of how things currently are. And we kind of have to accept those facts. But again, this argument isn't as bad as it first seems because perhaps in a hypothetical future where medicine is advanced enough that transgender individuals can gain full biological functionality of their preference, as well as being able to easily reverse that and regain their original assigned at birth reproductive function, thus removing the potential consequences of a youngster making a bad decision for themselves because again, they're just too young to give consent. Then maybe perhaps in the future this argument will become a little less insane. But as it currently stands, this is not a good argument at all. It is a total convocation between biology and gender identity despite the trans community constantly pushing for those to be viewed as different things. So hopefully everybody now understands why this is a bad argument and how to properly respond to it. Or if you want to just be lazy about it, you can just link to this video when you see this argument. Hope you all have a happy New Year's because that is all. That is the end of the video. Thanks for watching. Please like, share, comment, and subscribe. And if you want to support me, you can do so on Kofi, Subscribe Star, or by buying some merch. Thanks again. Till next time.