Investigating the possibility that environment factors such as plastics and pollution led to a rise in homosexuality/transgenderism doesn’t invalidate the living experiences of these people. Thinking that they need to be corrected because of this is where the bigoted lies. There isn’t really much to be squeamish about environmental factors interfering with sexuality (although I understand this often becomes fodder for right-wingers with an agenda).
But I think a more fundamental issue lies under this squeamishness: the thought of dividing “gender” and “sex” (or more broadly “culture” and “nature”, or even the Cartesian notion of “mind” and “body”), whereas the two cannot be separated in reality. And I think this monism is probably something that trans people would actually understand by intuition far better than me, because changing your sex requires a lot of physical and hormonal changes inside your body that interferes with every other social aspect of their lives (and the social pressures in return create substantial changes in their bodies). Sex isn’t just socially constructed, they’re also biologically formed, it’s just that the dynamics surrounding them are just far more complex than what typical right-wingers think of (a clean separation between man and woman).
It’s worth noting that a trans person is just someone whose gender identity doesn’t match the identity they were assigned at birth. Not all trans people have gone through (or plan to go through) any kind of medical ‘transitioning’ or ‘sex change’ procedure.
Yup I’m obviously not talking about the full range of trans experiences here, but most of the people I’ve heard anecdotes so far have done some kind of medical decision (usually hormonal therapy) because of gender dystopia. I was just saying that in general trans people would be the ones who would understand the physical/biological mechanics of gender in its full capacity.
But I think a more fundamental issue lies under this squeamishness: the thought of dividing “gender” and “sex” (or more broadly “culture” and “nature”, or even the Cartesian notion of “mind” and “body”), whereas the two cannot be separated in reality. And I think this monism is probably something that trans people would actually understand by intuition far better than me, because changing your sex requires a lot of physical and hormonal changes inside your body that interferes with every other social aspect of their lives (and the social pressures in return create substantial changes in their bodies). Sex isn’t just socially constructed, they’re also biologically formed, it’s just that the dynamics surrounding them are just far more complex than what typical right-wingers think of (a clean separation between man and woman).