I promise I am not a reactionary, but I am somewhat uneducated on the subject so I might say something offensive accidentally, sorry in advance about that.
So, does gender dysphoria stem from a disconnect between the body and some “gender socialization” function of the brain, which could be solved by getting socialized and treated by everyone as the correct gender from the start, or something that stems from a disconnect between the brain and the actual body parts and hormones, so the transition is needed to alleviate that, or both?
And what I’m saying is that I think we can answer this, by asking trans people about their experience of transness. There’s clearly a biological component to some gender feelings, because if there weren’t you wouldn’t have so many trans people talking about how much better they feel on hormones. But also, some gender feelings are clearly social, which is why so many trans people really, truly enjoy performing their chosen gender. And I just don’t see what more science can tell us here. That those of us who feel better on hormones aren’t imagining it, I guess? I suppose it would be nice to have proof of that that cis people can’t argue with, but they still will, because transphobia doesn’t come from a place of logic.
I guess, to sum up, I’m not in principle opposed to science being done to try to study transness, but I am also extremely wary of bad science being used to try to get rid of us, and anything trying to make a hard distinction between transness being social or biological seems quite dangerous to me.
you are by no means wrong, but there is a lack of empirical research in this field. that is all that i want to say really. i absolutely agree that it is both, but we aren’t some idiots who just go off what sounds right, we do science to know what is right. and that is really hard to do. and that means i won’t just say it is that, if i don’t have or partially lack empirical prove that it actually is.