If you could change gender for 1 to 3 days

Susie - You could call it "political correctness," but this is simply "correctness." This is one of those times when politically correct just means that something is correct but ignorant people disagree with it. You refuse to see how it is correct, so you qualify it by adding the word "political."

Yessirree bob! I do luv it when the best argument someone can come up with is, 'if you disagree with me, you're ignorant'! It just tells me there is no better argument available; no refutation of the scientific evidence, no rationale as to why the dictionary AND bible are wrong after several hundred (or thousand) years.

If you would like an explanation, feel free to read my previous comments that are conveniently located in this thread, for anyone who appears incapable of unbiased research of outside sources. I think this is one of those situations where you are too ignorant about the topic to see why you are ignorant about it.

This other thing you said here is also obviously problematic:

no rationale as to why the dictionary AND bible are wrong after several hundred (or thousand) years.

If you want to measure the accuracy of information by how long that information has existed, consider the fact that transgender people have existed for as long as humans have existed. That predates the bible and the social constructs of western civilization that both the bible and dictionary are based on.

Do you know what "Eurocentric" means? That is the mindset that what is normal, what is real, what is valid, are based on certain customs of a certain culture. According to that mindset, anything categorized as "Other" is inherently inferior, uncivilized, and downright wrong- no matter how long it existed before the traditions and beliefs typical to western civilization were established. Sound familiar? Perhaps, if your dictionary is up to date, you will find that listed in it as an example of ignorance.

no rationale as to why the dictionary AND bible are wrong after several hundred (or thousand) years.

Dictionaries are compilations of definitions of words as recorded by what are considered learned men in the field of language studies. Or rather, let's say a dictionary is compiled under the supervision of such people and the work is probably done by all manner of assistants, grad students and so on.

For a language like English - spoken by hundreds of millions of people of all different cultural provenance and ethnic and national origin - there will always be disagreements about what is 'correct' or not. Because some usages of words will have different meanings for different groups. Also, meanings change and evolve over time. Also consider, English has more than 1 million words (and counting). It is a huge work to keep track of so many.

So dictionaries are at best a snapshot in time and maybe provide just a sampling of definitions for a number of groups, but not all. So it's not so much a question of dictionaries being 'wrong', but more a question of them not being complete and up to date. They are useful tools, but usually as supportive evidence, not as definitive evidence.

As for the bible ... that too is a (3000 to 2000 year old) compilation, but of stories, texts, words of wisdom and advice, laws and social customs, oral history (often quite slanted), fulminations and quite often horrible rants and predictions, along with far too many instances of murder, adultery, fornication, wars and genocide. The bible is just one of many religious texts. It has nothing to do with any kind of science except possibly metaphysics.

There is no use quoting anything from the bible as proof of anything, unless in a group of like minded religious people of the same faith. The members here are from far too varied backgrounds, nationalities and social groups to think such would be the case. Hence politeness would require not bringing up the bible or any other religious text.

Everyone, how did we ended up having such a big debate on this topic? It is only about closing your eyes and picturing what it would be like to be someone else? Imagination...

Everyone, how did we ended up having such a big debate on this topic? .

Because it is a fascinating question and offers scope for some very serious fun as well as ruminating on subjects that go the heart of our core identity. Moreover, it feels like we are on the cusp of a bio-technical revolution waiting to happen in the coming decades. It may not be far fetched to think that not all that long from now, people will be able to change their outward gender appearance and back again without much effort.

And also discussions on a matter like this are often complicated because there is no agreement on definitions or many words are still lacking, haven't been coined yet. Many of the words and the concepts themselves are just too new for there to be any general consensus on what they mean or should mean. Or even if the concepts should be allowable in a moral sense.

All of this gives the potential for long and serious discussions and debates and exchanges of ideas. But hopefully not for arguments.

I would do it for 3 days as long as I wasn't having a period during the three days. I would want to experience as much sex as possible during the three day. I would want to experience multiple organisms like women do.

Oh yes if I could change gender for a couple of days, and get to see the other side of things, especially having a prostate that I could stimulate, I would get to see what men go through when this gland is massaged during an enema. mmmmm just this thought turns me on. I could also go around wearing no shirt always wanted to do that, but with boobs it makes it a little impossible to do, with out wearing a bra.

If I suddenly were actually transformed by a Genie into a woman, with my luck I'd be on my period, be bleeding enough to wear super tampons and a pad, and have crippling menstrual cramps, be emotionally upset, find out that DD boobs cause shoulder pain, get pinched in the ass by a rude man, attract gross guys at the bar, find out the dry cleaner charges me more for my clothes than men, and get a lower pay offer for a job than the one I got last week as a man.

I eased into being a transwoman over the last 2 years, the most difficult part being social and professional transition. Most male friendships--ones with whom the relationship was 'guy' stuff--don't work any more. I'm still learning peer social relations with women. As an accountant I had mostly unfounded fears of loss of business when I transitioned. I'm down only 10%. Business clients in San Francisco often have non-discrimination rules that cover transgender.

Believe me when I say that I honestly would not wish gender dysphoria on my worst enemy.

It is not something that we just get up one morning and decide that we want to be the opposite sex.

We are that sex, in every single way, other than our body is wrong. We think like the sex that we should be, we act like the sex that we should be, and have exactly the same thoughts, and characteristics, except for the mistake of the wrong body. It is a medical condition, just the same as only being born with one arm, or being born blind, or autistic etc etc.

Our minds are the same as a genetic female, but our body is the same as a male.

Many trans people can't come to terms with it and live their lives in pain and confusion. They live a lie, and many often commit suicide.

Others just know that they have to put things right, usually to prevent all of these other things happening for any longer.

You suffer pain, rejection, ridicule. You usually lose all of your friends, often your family and loved ones.

Employment is often difficult, and then of course there is the humiliation of having your life and soul laid bare before a complete stranger. The mental and physical examinations and questions, almost under interrogation conditions. Believe me, it is not nice having a complete stranger demanding to know all about your sexual life, and your childhood. Asking all of the most intimate and personal questions, just to see if you are basically a mental health patient. That is before all of the physical examinations and tests.

Believe me, it really is one of the worst scenarios that can ever be bestowed upon a person. As I said at the start, I would not wish it on anyone.!!!!!

Believe me when I say that I honestly would not wish gender dysphoria on my worst enemy.

Believe me, it really is one of the worst scenarios that can ever be bestowed upon a person. As I said at the start, I would not wish it on anyone.!!!!!

The question was if you'd like to experience a change of gender for a few days only. No one was talking about a permanent mandatory change against their will. Light years and light years of difference.

The question would in effect be asking if you'd like to assume a role in a 24/24 play in which everything is completely adapted and changed, all attributes down to physical gender attributes. And all voluntarily ...

I'm quite sure it would be very enlightening, educative and useful as a temporary experience.

I don't know. I think I really like being a guy. We kind of have it all. We can fuck and be fucked and don't have as much to deal with as women.

All that being said, of course in my mind I think it would be fun.

I think that I would love most of all getting to feel really fucking sexy (because women are) and I would love having that power over a man.

My dream date would involve a man who'd spend the time figuring me out and making me very wet. I would want to be appreciated in the way a woman should and adored the way they should be too. I would really like having breasts and would want them fondled, caressed and sucked in every way imaginable.

Yes I will do it. Whats wrong with experiencing, heh? :p

As for what I'll do. I might go for the gay guys whom I couldn't date cos I was gay hahah. Or I'd masturbate and compare lol.

Ya I would do it. I would pee on everything lol , I was always jealous of my older brothers , then I would have so much fun. I would want to have sex with men and women to feel the difference and I would want to experience what it felt like to have all the testosterone of a manly man haha. I'm very satisfied as a woman but dang I could do some damage sexually if was a guy for a couple days . I would be a manwhore 😁

Yes i would definitely do it if i could,,,,can't say for sure what would be most exciting about it,,,,,i would hope i could do it for longer than 3 days.

Thinking on this, I realized that a change being temporary, what a cloak of social invisibility it would give me. No one would know me as a person of the opposite gender, no one would be able to judge me afterwards either. I could indeed engage in wildly out of character (sexual/flirtatious) behavior without thinking of any repercussions.

It would be better than having a role in a Broadway play if you ask me ... 😃

Of course I hope it wouldn't be asking too much for a younger and attractive body while we're at it ... ha ha

I think it would be great fun and a real eye opener to be able to live as a woman in a female body for three days.

I would spend the first one hetero-, the second day as a lesbian, and the third day bi-.

Each day I would do all of the following: I would reserve some time for myself in the morning, including two masturbation sessions, one slow and sultry, one fast and furious. I would want to spend some time with platonic friends. I would want to share an experience with a friend with benefits. I'd like to have a night out on the town each evening. I'd like to have passionate sex with a lover (perhaps several each night).

Through the course of the three days I would want to have lots of different kinds of sex. There would be straight up pussy fuckings, oral giving and receiving, ass fucking, lots of toys, double penetration strap-on play, threesomes and foursomes.

Whew! I'd be exhausted after that, sure, but you said I'd only have 3 days so I'd make a point to fit it all in. (Pun intended)

With only three days I wouldn't want that time to include a period. I would certainly like to experience a menstrual cycle if I had a whole month for the experiment though.

The question was if you'd like to experience a change of gender for a few days only. No one was talking about a permanent mandatory change against their will. Light years and light years of difference.

The question would in effect be asking if you'd like to assume a role in a 24/24 play in which everything is completely adapted and changed, all attributes down to physical gender attributes. And all voluntarily ...

True, agracier, but I think that transgirl was referring to the point in this topic last year when a rather heated debate erupted about trans people. Incidentally, I recently read an article (written by a trans woman so she must have the experience to prove what she is talking about) that captured what I was trying to say at the time. I have pasted the key points below that I thought were most relevant to our discussion here in the past, but I recommend checking out the rest of the article as well:

13 Myths and Misconceptions About Trans Women

http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/11/13-myths-and-misconceptions-about-trans-women/

Gender identity is an internal sense of self and what one fundamentally is. It’s the sense of being a man or a woman (or both, or neither, or in-between, or something else). It is divorced from concepts of what a man or woman is or isn’t supposed to be like, and appears to be very much innate and unchanging. It also appears to be related to the neurological “body map” and relationship to one’s body- feelings of either comfort or alienation....We transition not because we feel we’re too feminine to be men, or that the presence of feminine characteristics means we must be female. The motivation is far deeper and far less analytical than that.

We transition simply because we know ourselves to be female… totally independently of how well we do or do not fit into female stereotypes.

Hence we are not simply basing this off of an overly strict concept of gender roles where we need to get our bodies to conform to a socially mandated binary.

We are only seeking to get our bodies to conform to our sense of self so that we can feel that they are our own rather than a creepy gross alien thingy that happens to be attached to us. And our existence does not in any way support, perpetuate or rely upon those binaries… we are fundamentally transgressing them and asserting that they may be broken, and sometimes must.

Myth 10. You don’t really become female. The process is only cosmetic. You’re still technically a man.

To summarize: there is no particularly valid reason to prioritize the genetic definition of sex above all other aspects of physical sex: hormones, secondary sexual characteristics, genital configuration, etc. Chromosomes actually don’t play nearly as much of a role in human sexual differentiation as we often think they do. The Y chromosome is mostly deteriorating junk DNA that’s only real function is to turn the gonads into testes. In an XX cell, one of the X chromosomes is deactivated.

As such, there’s no real functional difference between a “female” cell and a “male” cell. The process of sexual differentiation in humans is not genetic in nature, but hormonal.

As for the matter of being “cosmetically” female… a trans woman’s secondary sexual characteristics are in no substantial way different from that of a cis woman and are formed through the exact same physical processes. If my breasts are to be deemed “cosmetic”, so too must the breasts of any woman at all.

There is no single variable we can point to that suggests someone is “really” female or not. Doing so for any individual trait will necessarily require excluding some cis women from the category. There are some traits that no trans woman possesses, but there will always be cis women who don’t possess those traits either.

As such, there is no definitive way that you can suggest trans women are outside of the category “woman” but all cis women are in. At least not without going into tautologies like “only cis women are really women because trans women aren’t really women”.

In so far as the term “woman” is to be at all meaningful and consistent, trans women must be included.

I discovered the link to that article on the same page as the following article, which I also highly recommend to anyone who wishes to consider themselves accurately informed about the subject of gender, or to inform others about gender:

What is Gender? This Guide is Sure to Deepen Your Analysis

http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/05/guide-to-gender-identity/

In our cisnormative world, we are taught from birth about the things that divide and define men and women. It can be hard to step back and see that those deeply engrained markers are socially constructed, not inherent to being a man or a woman.

Through various forms of media, we have been given idealized images of men and women our entire lives – images of people who are white, thin, straight, able, and on the extreme ends of masculinity and femininity.

But no one, including cis people, embodies these impossible standards. Cis people don’t have to embody all the right markers of a certain gender to be respected as that gender, and neither should trans people have to.

Sex is always already gender.

The words “male” and “female” come pre-loaded with socially constructed ideas about maleness and femaleness.

You can’t separate sex from gender by describing gender as in your brain and sex as in your pants because the categories “male” and “female” come with so much attached to them that you’re not really just describing a body type.

Using male and female to refer to trans people’s bodies allows for arguments along the lines of “well, you may feel like this gender, but you’re really this sex and nothing will change that.”

It can also create hoops for trans people to jump through in order to be respected as their true gender.

Many cis people believe that trans people aren’t really their gender until they’ve transitioned through hormones and surgeries. The thing is, trans people's genders are valid from the moment they identify as a new gender.

It shouldn’t take jumping through hoops in order to conform to what cis society expects of male or female bodies to achieve respect for our identities.

Lol @ submissivlee, yeah that sure is an advantage of being born a male I guess. Just whip the penis out and pee everywhere whenever you want to. Lol

I read the entire article.

People can do whatever they like, I'm not prejudiced against anybody and we all have our desires, goals, likes and dislikes.

But I will voice my opinion and say, with a few exceptions, the article is unadulterated crap.

I don't have the energy to hash out this argument again while having my replies twisted by several members having opposing views.

Well, thanks for reading one of the articles I guess.

If you think it is crap, then maybe that has something to do with your lack of energy at this time, that you mentioned. You might not have processed the info. That used to happen to me sometimes when I would try to read something when I was really too tired to read. Maybe you should give it a chance sometime when your mind is fresh. Another trick I use sometimes when I can't make sense of something I read is to read it more slowly. That might help you process it too. Please have some patience, with us, Susie!

I posted numerous times in this thread until last summer.

You probably didn't notice since I had no recent posts in this thread.

I was aware of your posts last summer because they were part of a back and forth that I was also participating in at the time.

My last comment was meant to specifically address the reaction you posted yesterday to one of the two articles that I shared here yesterday.

If the article lists "myths and misconceptions" and provides facts that disprove those myths and misconceptions, I don't know how you can maintain that the facts are "crap" and that the myths and misconceptions are the truth. Unless you can prove these myths being true outside of the social constructs and opinions that are responsible for people believing in them.

The idea that everyone born with a penis is a boy and everyone born with a vagina is a girl is just an idea. This belief that body parts have a gender is merely a social construct. If a person's body parts really had an innate gender and dictated the gender identity of the person born with them, then everyone who was born with a penis would be a 100% masculine dominant rational alpha male badass like Chuck Norris or Batman or John Wayne, and everyone who was born with a vagina would be a 100% feminine submissive emotional housewife like June Cleaver, and every 1 out of every 100 people who are born intersex would never quite be a man or a woman. But we know that obviously, none of that is the case. So gender cannot be determined by tangible factors such as anatomy.

Gender is therefore intangible. If your intangible gender allows you to be one with every aspect of your tangible body, you might feel that your gender is derived from your body and so is everyone else's. But we already know that this is not the case, because most people who have the genitalia that is supposed to be absolutely masculine, according to society, are not necessarily absolutely masculine people overall. Some are even "wimps," despite our society's presumption that they are supposed to be strong and tough. And most people who have the genitalia that is supposed to be feminine, according to our society, are not necessarily absolutely feminine people overall. Some are even pretty cool and independent, despite our society's presumption that they are supposed to be weak, irrational docile, and excessively emotional. And you may even have met intersex men and women who are completely masculine men or completely feminine women and you had no idea that they were intersex, because we cannot assume what is between someone's legs.

If a person's intangible gender identity causes them to feel so disconnected with their body that they must transition their body, then their gender identity is clearly an inherent trait and the socially constructed gender of their body is not an inherent trait.

Hormones determine whether a body turns out to be one way or another. The sex of everyone's body relies on their hormones. Someone is born with a penis and develops a body that our society identifies as "male" due to testosterone. Someone is born with a clitoris and develops a body that our society identifies as "female" due to lower testosterone levels and higher estrogen levels. So a "male" body can become a "female" body and develop all the characteristics by which a "female" body is identified simply by increasing the estrogen levels to a degree that will reduce the testosterone levels down to almost nothing. And a "female" body can become a "male" body and develop all the characteristics by which a "male" body is identified simply by increasing the testosterone levels to a degree that will reduce the estrogen levels down to almost nothing.

So transitioning with hormones is not merely a cosmetic change. It changes the body to the biological sex opposite that which it had previously been, on just as profound a level that anyone else's biological sex is either male or female.

If the article lists "myths and misconceptions" and provides facts that disprove those myths and misconceptions, I don't know how you can maintain that the facts are "crap" and that the myths and misconceptions are the truth. Unless you can prove these myths being true outside of the social constructs and opinions that are responsible for people believing in them.

The idea that everyone born with a penis is a boy and everyone born with a vagina is a girl is just an idea. This belief that body parts have a gender is merely a social construct. If a person's body parts really had an innate gender and dictated the gender identity of the person born with them, then everyone who was born with a penis would be a 100% masculine dominant rational alpha male badass like Chuck Norris or Batman or John Wayne, and everyone who was born with a vagina would be a 100% feminine submissive emotional housewife like June Cleaver, and every 1 out of every 100 people who are born intersex would never quite be a man or a woman. But we know that obviously, none of that is the case. So gender cannot be determined by tangible factors such as anatomy.

OTOH, if an article provides opinions and unsubstantiated factoids in an attempt to discredit significant hard science (e.g., biology and genetics), and further attempts to replace hard science with a consensus of popular psychology, I would argue that the scientific concepts remain intact. MUCH more than an idea, the DEFINITION of a person with a penis (or an XY chromosome pair) as male, and a person with a vagina or (XX chromosome pair) as female, IS a scientific definition with centuries of basis in proven fact. The existence of a relative handful of aberrations, abnormalities, and genetic defects does NOT disprove those facts.

It is EXACTLY your "social constructs" that popularize the myth that gender is NOT genetic. There is NO science behind your statement that "everyone who was born with a penis would be a 100% masculine dominant rational alpha male badass". Only "social constructs" such as gender ROLES would even begin to support such a claim. Hormone therapy (or abuse) can enhance or diminish the type of BEHAVIOR you describe, without having ANY effect on the person's actual gender.

One can be a genetic male and "prefer" to take on the social roles of a woman - and vice versa. Transvestites and "he-shes" have been doing it for centuries. That does not in any way change their gender, which was determined at conception. A genetic male CANNOT get pregnant and give birth, and a genetic female CANNOT produce semen and impregnate a female. OTOH, either a male or a female can play with trucks (or dolls), work in a factory or in the home, wear pants or dresses, or pee into a toilet.

While I recognize the existence of relatively rare genetic defects and abnormalities that may confuse gender determination, IMO the vast majority of "transsexual" people are simply people who choose to attempt to take on the social roles of the opposite gender. To claim that they have ACTUALLY changed gender as determined by their chromosomes is itself nothing more than a social construct.

So a "male" body can become a "female" body and develop all the characteristics by which a "female" body is identified simply by increasing the estrogen levels to a degree that will reduce the testosterone levels down to almost nothing. And a "female" body can become a "male" body and develop all the characteristics by which a "male" body is identified simply by increasing the testosterone levels to a degree that will reduce the estrogen levels down to almost nothing.

I have NEVER heard of a penis turning into a clitoris, ovaries turning into testes, or a uterus growing in a man - even after extensive hormone changes. Breast size, muscle mass, and body fat content may be controlled extensive by use of hormones. However, these are ONLY secondary or tertiary characteristics, and do NOT determine gender.

Intruder,

I see where you are coming from. That's where I used to be. If we were talking about this several years ago, I probably would have agreed with you and Susie. But given your views on this, it was not enough for me to accept that the only reason anyone transitions is because they don't know who they are. How can I claim to know someone better than they know themselves? So I started paying more attention to this subject, which has brought me to where I am now.

The question you need to ask yourself is how I could be where I stand on this topic now, if I used to be where you are with it. It's not like I never saw it the way you see it. I did at one point. But the more I learned about what gender really is, and about what transitioning really tends to consist of for most people who do, the more I realized that the way you feel about this, the way I used to feel about it, is inaccurate. Let me tell you, it all makes a lot more sense now. Wouldn't you like to try seeing it in a way that makes sense, rather than looking down on people just because they are different from you? If I have looked at this from both sides, and you have only looked at it from one side, who would you bet is the one with the accurate information about this?

Anyway.

I am not saying that anyone is changing their gender. I am saying that according to the facts that I have presented, everyone is the gender that they identify as in the first place. Some trans people just need to transition their bodies, often hormonally, in order to be more connected with their bodies rather than alienated from their bodies. The fact that they are alienated by their own bodies in such a way proves that their gender identity is not what you are imposing on them with your perception. If it was, they would be totally ok with having the anatomy that they were born with.

My example that NOT everyone who was born with a penis is a 100% alpha male badass was to demonstrate that a person's anatomy does not automatically dictate who they are, not even in terms of their gender. I am sure you can agree that all the people who were born with penises are clearly not all the same as each other. That's all I was saying there.

If you understand, as you mention, that gender roles are merely a social construct and not dictated by one's anatomy, then I do not think it is too much to ask you to understand that assigning a gender to a person's anatomy is also a social construct and not based on biological science either. You have to identify with your anatomy on an intangible level in order for you to be the gender that society assumes you to be based on society's projection of a certain gender onto your anatomy.

Fyi, a male or female is not created at conception, as you claim. At some point during pregnancy, a male body develops as a result of a spike in testosterone levels. So, as I said, if hormones are the only thing that makes a person's body the biological sex that it is, then the only thing a person needs to do for their body to biologically transition to the opposite sex is to switch the hormones.

If you read the articles, you would see the explanation that when it comes to chromosomes, everyone is really just an X chromosome because the second X chromosome in females and the Y chromosome in males are just left over and non-functioning. If you are as concerned about science as you claim, you need to take all of it into account rather than twisting it to conform to your bias.

Anyway your comment is full of assumptions and misinterpretations that I am sure you would get over if you just took the time to read this stuff with a clear head. What do you have to lose? Are you too insecure about your own gender to consider gender from a broader point of view? Like I said, gender does not change. You can take some things into account and you will still be the same person, except you will be less ignorant. Wouldn't that be nice? Of course it would, because judging by your comments it seems important for you to know things. I bet that you would rather have the right information about something than the wrong information.

If I have looked at this from both sides, and you have only looked at it from one side, who would you bet is the one with the accurate information about this?

MORE information? Likely. More ACCURATE information? Not necessarily, especially since your information tends to deal with "feelings" rather than substantial information...

The question you need to ask yourself is how I could be where I stand on this topic now, if I used to be where you are with it.

To me, the answer to that one is relatively easy: You wanted to validate your feelings, so you sought any and all information that would tend to validate your feelings.

I am saying that according to the facts that I have presented, everyone is the gender that they identify as in the first place. Some trans people just need to transition their bodies, often hormonally, in order to be more connected with their bodies rather than alienated from their bodies.

According to the ARGUMENTS you have presented... IMO, you have presented no substantive FACTS. As others in this forum and other threads have already pointed out, psychoanalysis is NOT a hard science. While certain circumstances and concepts may apply to a low number of individuals, there is nothing I have found that yet comes close to convincing me that a desire for a changed "gender identity" is anything more than an aberration or abnormality.

One significant piece of the puzzle is the increasing number of prepubescent children who claim to be transgender. Effectively, their bodies are identical, except for the undeveloped and usually unseen genitals. So ONLY the different social gender roles imposed on them by parents, relatives, and later peers and teachers really affect them in the realm of "gender identity". IMO, the transgender claims are nothing more than a different type of child rebellion that has become popular, because it brings them a significant amount of the attention they want.

Another significant fact that debunks your claim is that relatively few transgender people have, or even seek, the "transition" of their bodies that would MOST divorce them from the "wrong" gender perception - i.e., the "bottom surgery" that would remove/change the offending genitalia and reduce the natural production of the offending hormones. Most of them appear to be concerned most with outward appearance, highlighted by hair, breast size, and cosmetics. Again, they primarily seek to play the social public roles of the opposite gender. Again IMO, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner is the best (or worst, depending on viewpoint) example. he has the means to complete hir transition, but refuses to do it, and even claims he prefers girls to guys. makes for great popular press coverage, which is what makes Hollywood go 'round...

Another indicator to me is that there is now an increasing number of "transgender" people who claim to "feel" male some times, and "feel" female other times. I've even heard a new term (transfluid?) that tries to cover them as another segment of a "protected class"...

Fyi, a male or female is not created at conception, as you claim. At some point during pregnancy, a male body develops as a result of a spike in testosterone levels.

Gender is DETERMINED at conception, as I stated before. The fact that the development of differentiated sex organs starts later in the process doesn't change that. The presence of the Y chromosome is the trigger, and that is determined at conception. From a NOVA/PBS tutorial (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/miracle/dete_flash.html):

. . .If the fertilizing sperm cell contains an X chromosome, the egg will develop into a female. If it contains a Y chromosome, it will develop into a male. . .

A crucial event that determines whether the embryo will develop into a male or female occurs in the second half of week six. If the Y chromosome is present in the embryo's cells, a gene within the short arm of the chromosome called SRY will turn on, initiating a chemical chain reaction that will turn on other genes and stimulate the production of male hormones. . .

Are you too insecure about your own gender to consider gender from a broader point of view?

Exactly the opposite. I am definitely male, and very secure. I don't believe in a lot of this evolving psychobabble that places individual, often transient, "feelings" above everything else.

. . . ..Gender is DETERMINED at conception, . . .

SEX IS DETERMINED AT CONCEPTION.

Gender is social and sometimes fucked up.

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. . . .Some trans people just need to transition their bodies, often hormonally, in order to be more connected with their bodies rather than alienated from their bodies. . . .

I would like to know what is wrong that causes them to be alienated from their bodies.

I wouldn't care if I was a male because I would probably do exactly what I do as a female. Why don't they accept what they are? You can take a horse and paint stripes on it, so it looks like a zebra, but it's still a painted horse.

Back to the original topic...

I think the only way I'd want to change gender would be to swap bodies with my wife for a few days. I think it would be a real eye-opener to feel what I do to her, and vice-versa.

SEX IS DETERMINED AT CONCEPTION.

Gender is social and sometimes fucked up.

I think that, more accurately, gender ROLES are societal. In context, gender = sex. I agree with the "sometimes fucked up", though.