Until we fully understand the underlying causes of why humans develop with the brain-mind of one sex and the body of another, there's not a whole lot of room but to behave as ethically as we can and be compassionate or to choose actively immoral responses such as prejudice, persecution, and so on. And even then, depending upon what is going on, the bioethics is likely to be a huge morass.
Should in utero fetuses that show signs of their body developing one way and their mind another be pushed towards the mind or the body or should it be on a case by case basis? If it's case by case, what rubric for deciding which way to go should be used? Whichever is cheapest? Is it too late by then and one would only be able to tell by doing a pre-implantation screening? How does one negotiate that can of worms and avoid allegations of attempting to wipe out trans people by having people cease to give birth to them?
As it stands, it seems that the best thing to do is to facilitate individuals transitioning as far and as much as they are comfortable. With science continuing to expand our understanding of psychology and neurochemistry, fetal development and stem cells, and genetics, I imagine that within the next 50 years we'll start to see some good progress on at least one of the two of transitioning later in life(my money would be on chimeraism being understood enough to start working on making actual organs that won't be rejected) or how fetal development causes individuals to become trans and others to become cis to the point where they could start looking into whether anything could be done in utero.
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Originally Posted by
Parra
I wonder though about other birth 'defects', such as dwarfism (just the only one that comes to mind right now), and how they are perceived. Are we not encouraged to simply accept them as they are, that there is nothing wrong with them and that they a simply a little different.
I always thought the cultural notions went in two directions, on the one hand we view them as different and thus found amusing/acceptable targets/strange/weird/pitiable and on the other that we're supposed to overcome that and treat them decently as fellow human beings and to show compassion for those who need it.
On the third hand, I believe there's some low level of desire to do what can be done to help limit any suffering and understand conditions which could becured enough to cure hem or at least learn how to prevent them.
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Originally Posted by
Parra
Why would/should/is that be different to how a transgender person should be perceived?
Well, with sexuality and gender it's much more problematic to say exactly what the problem is. Generally, pro-LGBT people say it's the body that's wrong, but it is technically possible to imagine a way in which a fetus developed so that the resulting human had altered brain chemistry which can have a lot of profound effects on a person and their body. Generally people who don't focus on the body being wrong, though, either are associated with or conjure up bad memories of the time when torture was accepted practice for dealing with LGBT individuals.
It's also viewed as being rather disrespectful and marginalizing of trans individuals, IIRC, to say that their body is fine and it is their brain/mind that is messed up, as mental illness is such an illegitimizing thing as well as damned scary(plus it ties back into the torture motif anyway)
Mostly it all boils down to treating people with dignity and respect, which, unfortunately, is not humanity's forte. :smallfrown: