CMV: Transgender people are technically kind of delusional, right?

This is a very common argument that has a lot of flaws in it.

A human has never developed the brain of a fish. When humans are developing, there is no biological process that decides whether we're going to be a human or a fish. Sex on the other hand is decided during human development.

There are many medical studies that have found that trans people develop the brain of the opposite sex (at birth). The reason why this happens is still debated, but make no mistake, we know this happens and we've looked at it clearly (sources at the bottom of this comment), such is the beauty of science. In order for the "I'm a fish" argument to be a valid comparison, you would need to provide links to professional studies that have found humans developing fish brains. This doesn't happen and that's why "transspeciesm" sounds so ridiculous.

Trans people don't make this kind of stuff up. They literally have brains of their desired sex inside the body of the opposite. So the brain expects the body to be something it's not. This doesn't fall under the definition of a delusion. A delusion is a strong belief someone holds that directly contradicts reality. An example of a delusion would be if I said, "There's 10 ogres watching me type this". Anyone can see that there's no ogres or signs of ogres surrounding me, so that would be a delusion. Saying, "I feel like I'm stuck in the wrong body" is certainly not a delusion, because we can validate that claim by doing a brain scan and seeing that the person in question literally is stuck in the wrong body.

On another note, you seem to have the idea that trans people expect everyone to call them the correct name and pronouns even if they're doing nothing to appear as their desired gender. That's not going to happen and most trans people understand that. That's why they transition in order to get the results that they desire. If you're MtF and you haven't started to transition, you're going to get sir'd. Everyone knows that. It hurts when it happens, but nobody really expects people to call you ma'am when they don't know anything about you. The problem arises when people are aware of someone's gender identity, but still make a conscious decision to use the wrong name and pronouns when doing so wouldn't harm them in any way.

Imagine if a gay person came out to their friend who ends up being homophobic. Then that friend makes a conscious decision to talk about girls all of the time around his gay friend. What is that friend accomplishing? Nothing. All he's doing is avoiding reality because he's afraid. Talk about a delusion!

Sources: http://www.journalofpsychiatricresearch.com/article/S0022-3956%2810%2900325-0/abstract

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2011/11/09/the-transsexual-brain/#.VKpYh3vfcjw

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan.html#.VKpYfXvfcjw

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/01/26/scans-show-difference-in-transgender-brains/

Read this to inform yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender

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