A Dysphoric Thought Experiment

If you are cisgendered, consider for a moment that you have never once actively chosen to be, or wanted to be, your gender. You simply are, and that makes sense to you.

Now, imagine that I took that beautiful brain of yours out of your head and dropped it into a body of the opposite sex. You wake up, and suddenly everything is different. Your proportions, your hair, even your voice, all changed. You’re still you, but also, somehow, not you.

How are you feeling about that? Some of you may not feel particularly strongly about that, and some may even be having a positive reaction to the idea. To those groups, I would encourage you to explore those feelings, because there may be something more to them, and you should think about that a bit more.

As for the rest of you, I imagine you’re probably feeling pretty upset right about now, maybe even disgusted. Your physical body is radically different to what it was, and there’s a disconnect between it and the gender identity you are experiencing in your brain. For many of you, I imagine that you would much prefer that I reverse the procedure and put your brain back into your original body, so you can get on with your life as you would prefer to live it.

Unfortunately, the procedure is irreversible. Your original body died without your brain in it, so that’s gone forever. However, what I can do is help you through a course of medical treatments and cosmetic surgeries that will help you get back to looking like your old self as quickly as possible. I imagine you’re pretty likely to take me up on that offer.

And if you would take that offer for yourself, what right do you have to deny transgender individuals who want the same? To live their lives in the bodies they were supposed to have, one with the right voice and proportions.

To believe otherwise is nothing short of hypocrisy.