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Shadowstalker16: Lets recap. Gender is another term for sexual orientation. Sex is the physical characteristics(of the genitals) of a person's body.

Gender dysphoria or transgenderism / transsexualism comes about when a baby in the womb receives unbalanced level of sex hormones to his / her brain and body. So the brain may receive testosterone and the body, estrogen. This will lead to a feeling of a person being trapped in the wrong body, a la gender dysphoria. Basis IS biological. Effect is lifelong.

Hermaphrodites / intersex people are born with whatever body and sex but are chromosomally not XX or XY. They are a third sex (3rd sex, not gender). Basis is biological. Effect is lifelong.

Homosexuality is not a less-aggravated form of transgenderism. The person feels comfortable in their body and feel like normal persons of their sex who are just attracted to the members with their own sexual features. People can very rarely shift from homo to straight, although it is very rare, it does happen. Basis is probably biological because trying to force someone to change their orientation has never worked. But natural change back to straightness is also possible so it may be biological but its necessarily needn't be from birth itself. The basis on which straight person changing into a homo(if it can really happen) is doubtful though, since as before, changing someone's orientation forcefully never worked other than when it happened automatically as a result of ''straightening out'', and I haven't read anything on the opposite happening.

So a M-F transsexual undergoes castration and (estrogen)hormone therapy to make her body match her brain. But this person cannot have a full set of female sex organs transplanted into them, and are hence incapable of direct reproduction.

An F-M transsexual undergoes (testosterone)hormone therapy but may retain female reproductive organs. Again, to make the body as similar to the brain as possible. They are incapable of male reproductive functions.

So if someone wants to classify persons based on reproductive roles, and and they see transsexual persons as as incapable of it (which is true), then how is that person ''transphobic'' is he /she is only speaking the truth?
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dtgreene: First, there is a mistake in the very first sentence. Gender (and in particular, gender identity) is not another term for sexual orientation. The way to think of it, as I have read elsewhere, is that sexual orientation is who you want to go to bed *with*, while gender identity is who you want to go to bed *as*.

Second, some intersex people do have XX or XY chromosome configurations. In fact, there has even been a case of an XY person becoming pregnant and even giving birth (to an XY daughter, incidentally):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190741/

It's also worth noting that not all cells in a person's body will necessary have the same genes. (In the case above, apparently some of her cells are 45,X.)

Third, never say never in terms of reproductive functions. (Actually, never say never is a good rule in biology, and even science as a whole, in general.) There has been some research suggesting that transplanting a womb into someone born with male anatomy may be possible.

As for your final question, the problem is that classifying people by their reproductive roles is rarely necessary, and it invalidates the identites of those who can't reproduce.
Ok gender and gender identity are different, thanks for pointing it out. Its small but ya never know when you'll need to talk about it again, and having more info is always better.

Isn't a person with XX or XY already a normal person then? What makes them intersex if they have normal chromosomal structure?

Yeah, I think we can bet medical science will advance to there some day.

But my main point is that we shouldn't classify what is necessary and un-necessary for other people to think / say. If they want to look at gender reproductive role wise, they should be free to do so. I mean, the point of all the advancement in all the fields through these years is to ultimately benefit the common person right? Then why should we impose such subjective things to monitor other subjective things? Its not anyone's business if anyone else drinks a de-caf, and I say the same to this.
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dtgreene: The way to think of it, as I have read elsewhere, is that sexual orientation is who you want to go to bed *with*, while gender identity is who you want to go to bed *as*.
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Starmaker: Sigh.
Small children don't want to have sex, usually aren't romantically attracted to any gender (and don't know who, of anyone, they will be attracted to when they grow up), and often don't want to go to bed fullstop. And yet they tend to know what gender they personally are. Gender isn't limited to sexual relationships. If it was, the issue of transgender rights wouldn't be nearly as important.
Hmm seems fair. Are there any studies on this?
Post edited November 26, 2015 by Shadowstalker16
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Ghostbreed: Before I begin, let me point out that I am in no way, shape or form a religious person. I was raised by atheist parents and they decided to let us children chose what we wanted when we were old enough to understand.

Now that we got that out of the way, I still think Richard Dawkins is a fucking idiot.
I can respect people with different religions and cultures as long as they don't try to force it upon me or use it as reason to harm others. Richard on the other hand, doesn't respect at all. There are thousands upon thousands of videos with him on Youtube with titles that says how he "pwns" christians etc etc. And of course, the comment sections of these videos are full of trolls.

TL;DR version: As long as it doesn't affect you, fuck off. If it DO affects you, then do something.
But sitting in a chair and bitching with people who are religious, trying to make them look like idiots and trying to take away what they believe, that's just an asshole thing to do.
Richard Dawkins is just a very minor, populist figure in the intellectual world, a superficial here today gone tomorrow pied piper. He appeals to the masses who don't want to venture into philosophy proper and its extremely perplexing questions. I wouldn't mind figures like him so much if he would just stick to science, but he actually seems to believe himself that he is qualified to dismiss religion and philosophy with an arrogant wave of the hand. He is an embarrassment to Britain in my eyes, continuing our tradition of third-rate thinkers. He's like a poor man's David Hume, who himself is a poor man's Immanuel Kant, who is not a patch on Nietzsche, who is surpassed (just) by Martin Heidegger. Let the masses be beguiled by his whining sermons, he is not altering the opinions of anyone of any account.

I wouldn't exactly call myself religious either, but neither would I say i am an atheist. I deeply respect the solid metaphysical foundations of religion, unlike Mr.Dawkins. In philosophy "Being" and "Nothing" turn out to be the same (Hegel, Heidegger and others). If we use the concept "God" as a substitute for the concept of "Being" Is that a reason to conclude that "God does not exist" ? Or is it rather the case that we habitually assume the "existence" of everything which becomes and mistake becoming for Being ? From the point of view of becoming (the world of change), Being ("God") indeed does not "exist". But that is a relative (and thus false) point of view from the outset. Philosophy is the (in a sense futile) attempt to achieve the absolute point of view. We cannot judge the absolute by relative standards, that is patently absurd. The truth is that, strictly speaking, nothing in the universe exists, and neither does the universe itself. But astounding, mind-bending conclusions such as this do not reveal themselves in the course of ordinary, "commonsense" thinking, and Dawkins never leaves the plane of the ordinary. He appeals to the commonsense point of view and it is not surprising that he gains masses of followers.

Those YouTube videos are pretty obnoxious, I agree. You just have to remind yourself that Dawkins is only influencing shallow folk anyway, so it really doesn't matter. To equate religious belief with insanity is, from my point of view, rather ironic and amusing. "Philosophy is the world stood on its head" (Hegel). This statement is true, always has been true and always will be true. There will never be a time when philosophy does not look like madness to "the world".

I've upvoted your post but it looks like a lot of people don't like your perfectly reasonable complaints :)
low rated
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dtgreene: The way to think of it, as I have read elsewhere, is that sexual orientation is who you want to go to bed *with*, while gender identity is who you want to go to bed *as*.
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Starmaker: Sigh.
Small children don't want to have sex, usually aren't romantically attracted to any gender (and don't know who, of anyone, they will be attracted to when they grow up), and often don't want to go to bed fullstop. And yet they tend to know what gender they personally are. Gender isn't limited to sexual relationships. If it was, the issue of transgender rights wouldn't be nearly as important.
I am just using it as an example to help explain the situation.

Also, many transgender people don't realize it until later in life. Some realize it at puberty, while some are unaware until adulthood.
Here are two pairs of statements :

1. Things exist.
Nothing does not exist.

2. Things do not exist.
Nothing exists.

It would be interesting to know which pair most people assume to be true. Richard Dawkins clearly assumes the truth of the first pair and bases all of his "arguments" on these assumptions. The great philosophers, however, begin from and arrive at the second pair. Who is right ? I know who my money is on....