Candid wrote: I take it you don't believe in soul, or spirit. Plenty of people believe they're living in the wrong bodies.
I understand the desire to conflate a term that is a scientific with terms that are not scientific. Whether or not someone has ovaries is a question for science. Whether or not someone has a soul is not a question for science. I might feel like a woman, but as a man this doesn't mean a surgeon can remove my ovaries. Why? Because I'm a man.
If we want to pretend that gender is equivalent to soul or spirit, if as a society we wish to pursue that path and modify what gender has meant over the last 300,000 years, then I would say you can't prove to me that gender exists. You are neither man or woman or anything in between Candid. You have neither soul, nor spirit, or maybe you have all of these but only every other Wednesday. You think having major surgery for whatever manner your spirit/soul/gender exists or doesn't exist at any particular moment in time based on how you feel is the way to go?
Maybe I was born in the body of an angel, but my soul is that of a demon. Surgery perhaps? Lets' carve up this body to make it more congruent with my demon soul. After all, I feel this way and have spent years reflecting upon, and doing my research and feeling much more a person that identifies as demon than angel. This does happen. People get implants to make them more vampiric. Why not? It's a feeling. Vampire is a gender?
I'm sure they've always been among us, but in the past they were silenced by public opinion, law, and above all surgical limitation. I'm glad things have improved for society's misfits.
There is a long history of many societies being much more accepting than your society or my society Candid. I have been to Sulawesi, just last year in fact as well as Thailand. Many societies both historically and today are much more accepting of people that feel like a woman one day and a man another day, than Western cultures.
https://listverse.com/2015/10/21/10-exa ... t-history/ I'm glad things have improved as well and I agree with you that "above all surgical limitation." This, in my opinion, is my main focus or area of concern. I'm not at all against it. It is a free world and people should be free to do what they want with their bodies, up to and including end of life decisions.
Again, I'm not anti-surgery or body modification, regardless if it is because you feel like a vampire or a particular gender. The surgery doesn't make you into that. You are not actually a vampire post surgery, but I agree it might make a person feel better and I agree it is every person's individual right to pursue what makes them happy. My only caution, is if you "feel" like this or that, feelings can change.
Ultimately I agree with you Candid. This sister is a 20 year old adult. If she wants to modify her body to match what she feels, more power to her. In all of it, the OP needs to respect that right and support her as a sibling. That doesn't mean the OP need pretend the sister is not a female.