alt Hacker News> You seem to be partly arguing from a position of ignorance.
Quite the contrary. I speak partly from personal experience.
> The trans-ness some people experience is extremely general and durable, far more consistent with the explanation that they innately are their gender somehow[^1], than with choice or psychosis.
A human cannot change sex no more than one can become another species, no matter ho much one can be convinced of it. And there's no such thing as gender detached from sex.
> The trans-ness some people experience is extremely general and durable
The transness is nothing more than a general condition of self-loathing which is quite durable, I agree. And those people are given the escape hatch of "transness" which is a lie politely allowed by society which gives people the delusion of trying to be what they cannot ever be.
And while I agree that personal delusions should be allowed as long as they're harmless, this one isn't: many young people are mutilating themselves and crippling themselves irreversibly by using hormones, and when doctors try to treat these people correctly, according to their true nature (sex), trans activists have attacked the doctors calling it "misgendering". We must always remember what the truth is, even when allowing this kind of lie.
> And those people are given the escape hatch of "transness" which is a lie politely allowed by society which gives people the delusion of trying to be what they cannot ever be.
I'm arguing that it ought not to be a polite lie if there are people whose mental makeup is better suited to a gender expression not corresponding to their sex, who then inhabit that different role in everyday life. I frankly don't get your assertion that this cannot happen, as there exist people for whom this is reality right now (in part because they are simply not easily identifyable as trans).
> young people are mutilating themselves and crippling themselves irreversibly by using hormones
My understanding is that the worst side-effect of using hormones is infertility, while surgery comes with more risks.
Anyway, it's about trading off mental anguish against possible complications of medical intervention. Where is the problem here? People do cosmetic surgeries for similar, if not more vain, reasons.
> when doctors try to treat these people correctly, according to their true nature (sex), trans activists have attacked the doctors calling it "misgendering"
Trying to ignore the reality that ones body is different in medical contexts would be indeed harmful. If this kind of activism exists, I do not condone it. I imagine that treating a trans person does not boil down to treating them like a cis person of their sex however, as hormone replacement causes a bunch of differences.