Discussion of transgender issues

alxndr said:

The vast majority of trans people just want to get on with their lives in a way that enables them to feel comfortable. They just want to be seen as their preferred gender; they don't want special treatment, or special pronouns, just to be treated with the respect that you would hope any human being could expect to be extended to them. Although physical appearance shouldn't be a requirement for respect, when it comes to a great many trans people you wouldn't know if they passed you on the street, worked with you every day, or otherwise interacted with you, except perhaps if you were about to get into bed with them or they chose to disclose. Those whose physical appearance means that this isn't an option for them as they get "clocked" are often quite distressed about the fact.

Should we let the small—but increasingly vocal—minority who want something more to be allowed to detract from those who just want to get on with their lives in peace and comfort? I don't think so, but that's what happens when we lump everyone in together just because they share some sort of label and fixate on the extremes.

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My biggest issue with people like this is the fact they want to shove it down people's throats and force the approval of it. I don't approve of it nor will I treat you any differently than anyone else. You won't get preferential treatment from me. When you don't even know what you are and then get upset because someone called you the wrong pronoun and you get butt hurt, isn't my problem, it's yours. Fine be happy with your delusions but like ive already said, when you start expecting drs to mutilate your body and suing people who don't agree with you - thats when it starts affecting others. Personally, I think this trans stuff comes from weak or non existent strong male or female role models. Feminist are just women trying to be like men who have emasculated men to act and take on female roles so you end up with mental disorders like this. Who will they date? If they're not sure or don't understand why their same gendered straight or even gay don't want them, it's seriously a mental problem. This confusion can lead to suicides especially if they've had the surgery. The numbers show that.

Confused147 said:

Look if your unsure of your gender just check between your legs the answer is there

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That's sex. Not gender.

Biological sex is assigned at birth, depending on the appearance of the genitals. Gender identity is the gender that a person "identifies" with or feels themselves to be.

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I'd believe the NHS website reviewed by clinical psychiatrists over a random bloke on the internet.

My biggest issue with people like this is the fact they want to shove it down people's throats and force the approval of it.

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When transgender people are no longer facing stigma and discrimination over what they are, then you will stop having it "forced down your throat."

I don't approve of it nor will I treat you any differently than anyone else. You won't get preferential treatment from me

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A very egalitarian attitude. I applaud that.

When you don't even know what you are and then get upset because someone called you the wrong pronoun and you get butt hurt, isn't my problem, it's yours.

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Transgender people know who they are. Genderfluid people know who they are. Using 'butt hurt' is rather immature, as is your response...

Fine be happy with your delusions but like ive already said, when you start expecting drs to mutilate your body and suing people who don't agree with you - thats when it starts affecting others.

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It isn't a delusion at all. Sex reassignment surgery is a legitimate procedure carried out by specialist surgeons. Its no more a mutilation than any other surgery. As for suing people, I wouldn't know what you're referring in particular there, I'm afraid.

Personally, I think this trans stuff comes from weak or non existent strong male or female role models.

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Claptrap. This is the same sort of argument used by those who opposed gay rights - gay men are weedy feminine types who needed good strong male role models to avoid becoming addicts to penis.

Feminist are just women trying to be like men who have emasculated men to act and take on female roles so you end up with mental disorders like this.

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...what? Feminists are just... wow, usually I'd have to visit the Daily Mail comments section to see this sort of unbridled insanity. I don't even know where to begin with this.

Who will they date? If they're not sure or don't understand why their same gendered straight or even gay don't want them, it's seriously a mental problem.

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Being transgender is completely separate from sexual orientation and there are plenty of people out there - be they straight, gay, or bisexual - who don't care or mind about transgender status. I've dated transwomen and I've dated transmen before. Same as any other relationship I've had. Sex could be a little difficult, but we always found ways around that and it was wonderful in the end.

This confusion can lead to suicides especially if they've had the surgery. The numbers show that.

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What utter rot. I know which studies you're going to pull out of your hat and they boil down to gross misrepresentation of the study's results or the results are simply not reliable enough.

EM2 said:

Apart from the Dalai Lama, who is one specific living person, why shouldn't you have that right, as long as you are happy to live as a female or as Jesus Christ?

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Everyone has the right to live however they like, free from unreasonable interference from the state or other citizens.

People do not have the right to have their lifestyle acknowledged or supported by other people. To suggest that a person has *the right to require people* to regard them in the same way they regard themselves is fairly obvious tyranny.

That doesn’t mean to say it’s reasonable to do things like, say, deliberately use the former “old gender” name of trans people just to be hurtful.

Let’s not get confused about rights though.

GatwickDepress said:

That's sex. Not gender.

I'd believe the NHS website reviewed by clinical psychiatrists over a random bloke on the internet.


When transgender people are no longer facing stigma and discrimination over what they are, then you will stop having it "forced down your throat."


A very egalitarian attitude. I applaud that.


Transgender people know who they are. Genderfluid people know who they are. Using 'butt hurt' is rather immature, as is your response...


It isn't a delusion at all. Sex reassignment surgery is a legitimate procedure carried out by specialist surgeons. Its no more a mutilation than any other surgery. As for suing people, I wouldn't know what you're referring in particular there, I'm afraid.


Claptrap. This is the same sort of argument used by those who opposed gay rights - gay men are weedy feminine types who needed good strong male role models to avoid becoming addicts to penis.


...what? Feminists are just... wow, usually I'd have to visit the Daily Mail comments section to see this sort of unbridled insanity. I don't even know where to begin with this.


Being transgender is completely separate from sexual orientation and there are plenty of people out there - be they straight, gay, or bisexual - who don't care or mind about transgender status. I've dated transwomen and I've dated transmen before. Same as any other relationship I've had. Sex could be a little difficult, but we always found ways around that and it was wonderful in the end.


What utter rot. I know which studies you're going to pull out of your hat and they boil down to gross misrepresentation of the study's results or the results are simply not reliable enough.

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Oh I got you. I'm just sick and tired of the big words and BS and the labelling. You're not stating anything coherent. You're just trying to blab to me about how "im the problem" and giving no real substance to your arguement. It's literally the ramblings of a madman But when I say something or when I express my opinion I'm a bigoted homophobic racist that needs to head back to the klan meeting.

In amongst the utter claptrap posted by @Confused147 (for whom "Confused24/7" might be a more appropriate username) there are a few almost-truths:
There have been a limited number of cases of people undergoing gender reassignment surgery and subsequently regretting it, but this is why the requirements for said surgery are so strict. I'm also slightly alarmed about the idea of people embarking on that path at a young age: I myself have questioned both my gender identity and my sexuality when I was younger, and many people go through this: if I'd had the ability to make a radical decision on that front at the time, I might well have regretted it later, but there's no way for me to know that. What I do know is that those questions I had were not so overpowering that I would be happy with the imperfect (to me) end-result I'd have if I'd gone down that route. That doesn't mean that those who do are wrong- it just means I don't have gender dysphoria so can't speak on behalf of those who do.

Even today I sometimes feel that my worldview and the way I interact with the world would be more suited if I was of a different sex, but that's actually not down to what organs I have or my own sense of identity: it's down to the elephant in the room which is society's still over-prescriptive gender roles. The ONLY area where one's sex need be a factor is in natural reproduction. Everything else is just an accident of history.

These issues have definitely increased in visibility in the last decade, which is why this thread exists. I don't believe that cases of gender dysphoria have actually increased though, just that awareness has increased so now people with concerns are able to voice their feelings and seek advice on the issue. I agree that in an ideal world sex and gender would not be related to each other, outside of a majority of people probably still being heterosexual because of the biological imperative.

This next part is just my own theory about the issue, is over-simplified and not scientific, but here goes nothing:
If the idea of gender reassignment makes you uncomfortable, weirdly one thing that might theoretically reduce the number of individuals seeking this would be to surrender your views of what gender roles mean. If people were able to dress however they choose, or choose whatever career-path they choose, without being judged harshly by mainstream society, then just maybe the organs they were born with would be less of a hindrance to them feeling able to be themselves comfortably.

So don't discourage your sons from playing with dolls or your daughters from playing with Tonka trucks... it won't make them gay or make them transgender. They may or may not be either or both of those things, but the toys aren't a deciding factor. The idea (among social conservatives mostly) that enforcing those boundaries early will ensure that the child will grow up "normal" () is a complete fallacy. It's right up there with the idea that US conservatives have about cutting teenage pregnancy by restricting access to contraception and even basic sexual education.

I’ve said this before, but the elephant in the room isn’t just prescriptive gender roles, but the fact that our entire civilisation is built on gender roles. Western civilisation has been extraordinarily successful largely in part due to patriarchy and gender roles derived from Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity and Judaism.

The fact is, it’s not as simple as just wishing gender roles away. They are very important, and our civilisation has been around for long enough to say that it’s not good enough to explain them away as “accidents of history”. They’re no more accidents of history than man evolving from primates. There are no successful matriarchal civilisations of any appreciable scale throughout history.

The assertion by some that patriarchy and defined gender roles are bad things is a travesty in the modern era and risks ripping out the foundations of our civilisation - I agree with the analysis that gender roles are pervasive and fundamental, but I don’t wish to see a genderless society.

Again, I’m all for individual freedom to live in whichever gender role the individual likes, but to suggest society should abandon gender roles wholesale ought to be resisted very strongly.

Women deserve equality but that should be given to them by making the work they do more valued by society, not by making them all programmers and engineers.

AlterEgo said:

Again, I’m all for individual freedom to live in whichever gender role the individual likes, but to suggest society should abandon gender roles wholesale ought to be resisted very strongly.

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I broadly agree with what you've said here, though I was addressing gender roles purely to counter the false narrative that increased awareness of transgender issues will "encourage" impressionable youngsters to decide they'd rather be a boy/girl. This is something that's often mention on the subject, just as how (small c) social conservatives warned that extending equal rights to gay people would "encourage" more people to "choose" that lifestyle. The part I've quoted though, I'm wondering, hypothetically, why gender roles which you agree are prescriptive should be defended so steadfastly?

I don't believe that society will ever be able to completely discard gender roles anyway even if a majority wanted to do so, so it's all academic in any case.
A greater problem for society is "toxic masculinity" and the related issue of how we educate boys to behave in terms of sexuality, but that's off-topic for this thread (other than the dodgy "girl-guides" diversion!) and I'm not starting a new one because it's a minefield and I have enough insomnia as it is!

61653 HTAFC said:

I broadly agree with what you've said here, though I was addressing gender roles purely to counter the false narrative that increased awareness of transgender issues will "encourage" impressionable youngsters to decide they'd rather be a boy/girl. This is something that's often mention on the subject, just as how (small c) social conservatives warned that extending equal rights to gay people would "encourage" more people to "choose" that lifestyle.

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I agree that’s a total misconception. Gender dysphoria is not common and is a very complex mental disorder. You can’t “catch it” or be impressed upon by it any more than you can’t turn a man gay by exposure.

The part I've quoted though, I'm wondering, hypothetically, why gender roles which you agree are prescriptive should be defended so steadfastly?

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Because I think they’re healthy and part of the foundation of our civilisation. Biologically, men are driven by different things to women. There’s therefore a natural division in gender roles. Society sets expectations very early, as it does for a great many things. Of course, individuals can choose to buck society and do what they think is best, or what suits them. Not all men are protectors or providers and not all women are caregivers or childbearers. But by and large, that’s how gender roles are divided, and that’s how it’s been in our extraordinarily successful western civilisation for thousands of years.

Part of me wonders whether people wish for a genderless society to avoid a lot of the very complex issues arising from people wishing to be transgender.

A greater problem for society is "toxic masculinity" and the related issue of how we educate boys to behave in terms of sexuality, but that's off-topic for this thread (other than the dodgy "girl-guides" diversion!) and I'm not starting a new one because it's a minefield and I have enough insomnia as it is!

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I agree. Patriarchy is good but we must be self-aware. Toxic masculinity is a big problem.

I'd say gender roles are healthy, except when they're not. If you broadly fit the typical gender role that tallies with your sex, that's all well and good... but if you don't, being "othered" isn't going to help. I also wonder how much of those roles is down to nature as opposed to nurture (I have no idea which is dominant though). I'm also unsure of whether the "success" of Western civilisation is all it's cracked up to be. Some of that success required some pretty horrible things in order to be realised (colonialism, slavery for example) though at the same time I don't believe in punishing the son for the sins of the father.

All that said, as I present as (and broadly speaking am) a cisgendered straight white male I'm never really going to have a full real-world understanding of the issues in this thread. The pronoun discussion is an area where I would worry about coming across as ignorant or even bigoted. Though "ask them" is probably the best course of action even if it feels awkward, along with "don't be a douche!" Though as we rarely use gendered pronouns when directly addressing people it isn't actually as big an issue as it's made out to be.

As I understand it there are members of this forum who are transgender and may offer a more informed perspective, though given some of the bile posted upthread I can understand why they may give this thread a wide berth... as they'd probably end up being accused of playing identity politics by someone who's read too many (read 'any') Richard Littlejohn editorials!

I may make a greater assault on this travesty of a discussion at some later point, but for now I will settle for the following:

AlterEgo said:

I’m all for respecting and protecting people’s rights to live in whatever gender role they want. I don’t want to have to remember a dozen invented extra pronouns, like co, zir, ey, seir, hir, peh, thon, ve and so on in my native language.

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I'm all for respecting people's rights to say and write whatever they want. I don't want to have to remember a gross or so invented words, such as selfie, gotten, effectualise, and so on in my native language.

Seriously, if you can remember someone's name, you can remember their pronoun preferences. If you don't like them, you can simply not have contact with that person, I'm sure they'd be quite glad to have one less negative person around them.

Bromley boy said:

Intersex?

Now that you mention it, no I’m not. Should I be?!

I didn’t think that that was possible.

Maybe because I’m bamboozled from being told that gender is completely separate from sex!

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It's a very rare medical condition where a person has extra chromosomes or has sexual characteristics of both male and female. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex There was a House episode once where a girl finds out she is dying from testicular cancer.

AlterEgo said:

Not all men are protectors or providers and not all women are caregivers or childbearers.

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And look how society reacts when someone doesn't conform to this. Think about homophobic name-calling in the playground, just for starters.
Let people just get on with their lives.

Bromley boy said:

You’d like to think so wouldn’t you!? But then you read tweets like this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/munroebergdorf/status/954775972863193088?lang=en

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If you want to meet a woman that doesn't have a reproductive system, I'll introduce you to my mother or my wife.

EM2 said:

And look how society reacts when someone doesn't conform to this. Think about homophobic name-calling in the playground, just for starters.
Let people just get on with their lives.

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In case you missed it, I’ve stated explicitly at least twice in this thread that yes, people should be allowed to just get on with their lives. This ideal doesn’t clash with the fact that debate around the issue of transgenderism is both important and necessary.

It’s classic shut-down stuff, implying that I wouldn’t “let people get on with their lives”. I am. But I’m also going to state my considered view on an Internet forum thank you very much.

The issue of bullying should be addressed by punishing and ostracising bullies, not by changing society wholesale.

AlterEgo said:

The issue of bullying should be addressed by punishing and ostracising bullies, not by changing society wholesale.

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Refusing to use someone's preferred pronoun is bullying. It's imposing your worldview on someone else. It's saying 'your views about you don't count'.
You wouldn't deliberately misname someone, you wouldn't insist that their favourite loco is a Class 73 when they've told you that it's a 47, you wouldn't say 'it's actually Everton' when they say that their favourite team is Crystal Palace.
Why would you deliberately not use their preferred pronoun?

EM2 said:

you wouldn't insist that their favourite loco is a Class 73 when they've told you that it's a 47, you wouldn't say 'it's actually Everton' when they say that their favourite team is Crystal Palace.

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But if they’ve said “that class 73 is now to be identified as a class 47”, you might acknowledge it to be polite, but you would also know that the statement is factually incorrect.

Although some people might be deluded about their identity that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) entitle them to deny fact.

TheNewNo2 said:

I may make a greater assault on this travesty of a discussion at some later point, but for now I will settle for the following:

I'm all for respecting people's rights to say and write whatever they want. I don't want to have to remember a gross or so invented words, such as selfie, gotten, effectualise, and so on in my native language.

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But with great respect these are not pronouns. “Gotten” is not a recent invention, selfie is a noun and occasionally a verb, and I’ve never heard of effectualise. Critically, misusing or forgetting any of those words doesn’t have the potential to cause offence to a third party or embarrassment to the self.

Seriously, if you can remember someone's name, you can remember their pronoun preferences.

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No, you can’t. A name is a proper noun. It’s easy to remember that the capital city of Spain is Madrid, or that Mo Salah plays up front for Liverpool. It’s easy to remember that Jack Monroe isn’t Melissa any more and that Frank Maloney is now Kellie Maloney.

Pronouns are a fundamental part of the building blocks of the English language and have, in general, evolved very slowly until the last 20 years or so, when some more were invented by special interest groups. The problem with new pronouns is that they really are quite difficult to remember. I don’t know what zhey and vir actually mean, I don’t know what contexts to apply them in, and they’re very difficult to incorporate into language when you’ve had 31 years of using standard ones.

I know that Jack Monroe is gender non-binary but really, I don’t give a damn about that - Jack is a person like anyone else and I’ve no idea whether they prefer “they”, “she”, “he” or some other pronoun. I will usually refer to people whose gender is unclear or non-binary as “they” to be safe, but even this requires thinking. It’s also much easier to commit a fallacy in this area when speaking.

A lot of people don’t like the idea of these invented pronouns not because they are difficult to remember but because it puts them at risk of forgetting the preference and offending the subject. People don’t like to feel awkward.

I will fight tooth and nail for trans rights but there’s a lack of awareness about the pronoun issue. It’s alienating some pretty reasonable people. Have your civil rights - nobody is free until we are all free - but don’t ask the whole of society to change to suit you.

If you don't like them, you can simply not have contact with that person, I'm sure they'd be quite glad to have one less negative person around them.

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Sigh.

EM2 said:

Refusing to use someone's preferred pronoun is bullying. It's imposing your worldview on someone else. It's saying 'your views about you don't count'.
You wouldn't deliberately misname someone, you wouldn't insist that their favourite loco is a Class 73 when they've told you that it's a 47, you wouldn't say 'it's actually Everton' when they say that their favourite team is Crystal Palace.
Why would you deliberately not use their preferred pronoun?

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I’ve outlined why pronouns are fundamentally different to all of these things in a previous post.

It isn’t a form of bullying to not use invented pronouns. We have sufficient pronouns already in the language to refer to people of both genders and none perfectly adequately.

Crucially, the pronoun issue forces a higher burden on the rest of civil society and in my view alienated a lot of people who are or would otherwise be trans allies.

I’m rather depressed that you insist it’s bullying. In my view the issue is a complete detraction. I don’t agree with the invented pronouns, they’re put forward by fringe elements of the trans lobby.

If people who are decent, law abiding advocates for civil rights keep getting told they’re bigots or bullies then the consequences won’t be pleasant. Society must progress on a consensus basis.

We have already seen the results of ostracising decent people with pretty mainstream but “verboten” ideas in Trump and Brexit. Please do not assist this process.

Bromley boy said:

But if they’ve said “that class 73 is now to be identified as a class 47”, you might acknowledge it to be polite, but you would also know that the statement is factually incorrect.

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If the 73 was quite clearly a 73, then you'd have a point, but if it was being presented as a 47, it looked like a 47, it sounded like a 47, it had a number that started 47, why would you not say that it's a 47?
No-one says a 57 isn't a 57, even though we all know it's a rebuilt, converted 47.

EM2 said:

If the 73 was quite clearly a 73, then you'd have a point, but if it was being presented as a 47, it looked like a 47, it sounded like a 47, it had a number that started 47, why would you not say that it's a 47?
No-one says a 57 isn't a 57, even though we all know it's a rebuilt, converted 47.

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Not really equivalent or relevant.

You’d be allowed to consider it a 47 of sorts, and even be allowed to explicitly say it used to be a 47. You could even say “it’ll always be a 47 to me.”

Also, a 57 is a 57 - something entirely different - and isn’t claiming to be a 73.

I don't think that you've understood the post that you quoted at all.

EM2 said:

I don't think that you've understood the post that you quoted at all.

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I have. The issue is that if a person self-identifies and presents as a particular gender, it doesn’t change their sex and it doesn’t make them exactly the same as a cis person in the same gender role. It fundamentally doesn’t, and a lot of feminists in particular agree. They assert that womanhood and female perspective is a lived experience, that being born with and growing up with female sexual organs and vulnerability are integral to female experience. In this way a lot of feminists accept that trans women are trans women, but not the same as cis women.

I agree with their analysis. My manhood isn’t something I relate to simply in the present, like it only occurred yesterday, but is a lived experience from birth. This includes sexual activity and discovering and understanding the inherent power men have over women, understanding that dynamic and how to exercise it responsibly.

No amount of badgering or cajoling will make accept that trans men are men in the same way as me, or that trans women are the same as all other cis women. This, by the way, doesn’t affect the civil rights trans people should have to marry whoever they please, be protected from harm, or be accommodated by the state in every way that any cis person would be.

I hold that my view is both reasonable and mainstream. I don’t think most men would accept that a woman who became a man at 21 is a man in the same way that a cis man is.

EM2 said:

I don't think that you've understood the post that you quoted at all.

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AlterEgo’s response is right on the mark. A 57 is something derived from a 47. A 47 is not (and will never be) a 73. That is a matter of fact and is not something that can be denied. Just as a man who transitions to a woman will only ever be a man who has changed gender and had gender reassignment surgery. They will never truly be a woman.

The overarching point for me is that there comes a point where I do not want to be asked to lie or deny facts, just to appease the sensibilities of others.

Once we start engaging in “double think” and denying reality we start to go down a dangerous road. Where does it end? If I’m told the holocaust never happened should I be compelled to accept that as truth to avoid offending the person making the statement?

AlterEgo said:

I don’t think most men would accept that a woman who became a man at 21 is a man in the same way that a cis man is.

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Then I am very happy to not be 'most men'.

EM2 said:

Then I am very happy to not be 'most men'.

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Indeed, not all men think that. But try not to be smarmy about it and don’t try to undermine other men by calling them bullies simply for holding a reasoned but contrary view. If some men think what defines them as men is the fact they’ve had a penis since birth, then who are you to tell them that’s wrong? Bear in mind that your view, in the same way that mine does, seeks to define male sexuality and risks telling other people their sexuality is either misconceived or wrong. I’m surprised that some men view their masculinity and sex through a lens other than the one I explained above, but I recognise and tolerate their views without the need to resort to smugly claim the high ground.

I haven’t heard your reasoning for the way you perceive male sexuality, so it would be good if you could outline it.

AlterEgo said:

Bear in mind that your view, in the same way that mine does, seeks to define male sexuality and risks telling other people their sexuality is either misconceived or wrong.

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I don’t seek to define anything. A person's sexuality is theirs to define and theirs alone.

EM2 said:

I don’t seek to define anything. A person's sexuality is theirs to define and theirs alone.

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That’s just not the case with transgender issues. This is why it is a thorny issue.

If you hold that a person can become a man overnight (or more likely a number of years), either through surgery or just self-identity, then your position is that the condition of being male - and not just that but you say it would be an *exact equivalence* to cis males like you or I - is not down to lived experience since birth. This does seek to redefine the principles of sex and gender, but contrary to (what I imagine to be) the majority of cis men.

The issue of transgenderism is not thorny because it’s just difficult, it’s that constant public discourse around what constitutes a man or a woman does not just affect trans people, but rather defines sexuality in *all of us*.

AlterEgo said:

I don’t think most men would accept that a woman who became a man at 21 is a man in the same way that a cis man is.

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EM2 said:

Then I am very happy to not be 'most men'.

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But you should recognise that your view is an eccentric view, and is certainly in no way morally superior to the views of others who may disagree with you.

I’d suggest it’s also the view you think you think you should hold rather than the view you actually hold.

Thought experiment: as a straight male, would you be prepared to enter into a sexual relationship with a “woman” who was born a man? Based on your stated view above, presumably you would? After all they are 100% woman in your view.

But if push came to shove I bet you wouldn’t. Why? Because of the reality that a person’s identity has an objective element, which goes beyond what that person subjectively wishes to be defined as.

AlterEgo said:

If you hold that a person can become a man overnight (or more likely a number of years), either through surgery or just self-identity, then your position is that the condition of being male - and not just that but you say it would be an *exact equivalence* to cis males like you or I - is not down to lived experience since birth. This does seek to redefine the principles of sex and gender, but contrary to (what I imagine to be) the majority of cis men.

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What are the experiences which are required to be a man? All men's experiences will be different depending on their age, location, background, etc, there isn't just one universal experience. What happens when a cis male hasn't experienced all the things that you have? Is there a checklist (perhaps Rudyard Kiplings If–)?

The experiences of a trans person will also always be different from a cis person, not least because they've experienced it all through the lens of a trans person. It's true that there may be things which trans people need to learn and adjust to beginning to live as male/female, but at some point that new experience will outweigh the old. Should we put someone in a box based on their experiences in the past, which could be 10/15/20+ years ago. How about someone who transitioned as a teenager?

alxndr said:

The experiences of a trans person will also always be different from a cis person, not least because they've experienced it all through the lens of a trans person.

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This is exactly my point. Of course there’s a lot of variation between cis men, and some men have more “masculine” experiences than others - but a trans man is never the same as a cis man. Fundamentally because they have not always been male. This does not however make them women. They’re trans men.

AlterEgo said:

If you hold that a person can become a man overnight (or more likely a number of years), either through surgery or just self-identity, then your position is that the condition of being male - and not just that but you say it would be an *exact equivalence* to cis males like you or I - is not down to lived experience since birth. This does seek to redefine the principles of sex and gender, but contrary to (what I imagine to be) the majority of cis men.

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We are both, I believe, cisgender heterosexual males. But I bet our sexuality is different.
I find dark-haired women more attractive other men prefer blondes.
I find women of size 12-16 more attractive, other men prefer slimmer women.
And that's before we get on to proclivities in the bedroom.
My lived experience of being male is not exactly the same as anyone else's, and nor is yours.