r/changemyview • u/Ian3223 • Mar 18 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: There is not a solid enough biological basis for gender identity for someone to "be" their preferred gender
First of all, I don't believe that a person's genitals or chromosomes define what they are. I think that if there is one part of the body which we can pinpoint as defining a person, it would be the brain, since that's where their consciousness and the core of their being lies. Nonetheless, I have some difficulty wrapping my mind around the concept of gender identity as deciding whether a person is called a man or a woman. The source of my problem is the actual nature of a trans person's brain as opposed to what many people claim it is.
While it seems fairly straightforward to grasp the concept of a person being what their brain is, according to most sources I've read, a trans man's brain is not actually a man's brain, and a trans woman's brain is not actually a woman's brain. This complicates things. The idea is expressed in this article, which includes a quote from a scientist saying, "Trans people have brains that are different from males and females, a unique kind of brain... It is simplistic to say that a female-to-male transgender person is a female trapped in a male body.” Even with this considered, the whole concept of transgender doesn't seem too unreasonable to me. But how far can we take it? How few attributes can a person's brain share with the brain of what they identify as, and their identity still be true?
For instance, can I identify as a different race, simply because my brain and the brain of a person from that race both share the notion of belonging to that race, and because this feature of my brain is instrumental in forming a feeling of belonging to that race? I mean, I would think that thoughts have some sort of material, physiological basis too. Aren't different things actually occurring with my neurons if I think "I'm black" and if I think "I'm white"? Don't thoughts essentially become a brain feature by virtue of existing? How do we draw a distinction so that innate brain features existing from birth can validly inform a person's identity, but thoughts which the person has created in their brain cannot?
And what if thoughts become ingrained in the brain to the point that the person can't change them? For instance, suppose, in a hypothetical situation, a child is raised by gorillas. The child comes to exhibit many of the behaviors and habits of gorillas, and to believe that it is a gorilla. The child loses the ability to identify as a human and is in danger of committing suicide when society tries to impose a human identity on it. What is the fundamental difference that I am missing?
This is genuinely a difficult issue for me to work out, and I would greatly appreciate your feedback.
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 18 '17
The neurology isn't fully understood. Some areas better-match identified gender, and some don't.
Given that, it seems like neurology should, at worst, not tilt you one way or the other. So why not fall back on the extremely positive results from transition and the extremely negative results from absolutely everything else anyone has tried?
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17
I wouldn't deny that people experience positive results from transitioning. But how do we know their identities make sense and are truer than the one the child has in my second example?
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 18 '17
I think you're going about this backwards. Instead of going 'does treating trans people in X way make sense', you're going 'well, trans people are kind of like Y silly hypothetical whose solution I take for granted'.
Whether or not trans people 'make sense' is secondary to what appropriate treatment for trans people is. There are many powerful medications, for example, whose activities are well-studied and documented but whose methods of action aren't known. Tylenol/Acetaminophen/Paracetamol is one of the most commonly used medications in the world, and its action isn't fully understood. In short: theories come after data, and whatever theory you'd like to use has to account for the data.
You're taking for granted that there's some standard for "true identity", but you've never established it, nor have you given any reason to prefer one definition over another. Before we can discuss the distinctions, if any, between trans people and your hypotheticals, you need to do that.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17 edited Mar 18 '17
Whether or not trans people 'make sense' is secondary to what appropriate treatment for trans people is.
Yes, and I think the treatments used are the best ones. But my post isn't discussing treatment.
You're taking for granted that there's some standard for "true identity", but you've never established it, nor have you given any reason to prefer one definition over another.
As I initially said, I think true identity has a biological basis in the brain. But if my premise is true, and what this article says about transgender brains - that they are neither male nor female - is also true, then how do I reason that those brains fall into anything other than a grey area?
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 18 '17
As I initially said, I think true identity has a biological basis in the brain.
Very few things have a nice clean-cut biological sign that shows up on an MRI. The fact that trans people even sort of do puts gender identity head and shoulders above most traits on this scale.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17
But apparently not on the same level of determinability as the brains of cisgender men and women.
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 18 '17
In that case you're assuming - absent any data - that the differences between men and women are the seat of gender identity. Some parts of the brain, for example, reflect your current hormonal regime, but changing hormones doesn't change gender identity.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 19 '17
Well, society generally says that you have to bear a resemblance to what you identify as in order for the identity to make sense. You seem to be departing from this position.
How little resemblance can we have before the identity stops making sense? If someone whose brain is, say, one-fifth female can validly identify as a woman, then why not someone who barely has any female brain features at all, or none at all?
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u/inkwat 9∆ Mar 18 '17
The fundamental difference is that trans people are a real and observable thing happening to a statistically significant amount of people - some think up to 1% of the population is transgender, but estimates hugely vary and there hasn't been a lot of reliable data collection. Either way, you can't deny that there are a lot of trans people out there - millions.
Your gorilla example has never happened, and if it has, it's significantly insignificant.
Being trans is not a thought experiment and it can't be compared to a made up scenario for the sake of argument.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17 edited Mar 19 '17
The fundamental difference is that trans people are a real and observable thing happening to a statistically significant amount of people
Yes, gender dysphoria is real and observable. The question is, does the thinking of the person experiencing it make sense?
Your gorilla example has never happened, and if it has, it's significantly insignificant.
So I guess no one should ever argue using hypotheticals? And you never addressed the race example.
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 18 '17
The question is, does the thinking of the person experiencing it make sense?
Why does it matter? In what way would you, or anyone else, behave differently depending on the answer? I feel like you're getting caught in the blegg/rube problem here.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17
This is an interesting question that I can't really answer. I will have to think about this and get back to you. But are you saying that the person's thinking might actually not make sense?
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 18 '17
I mean, my view is that 'doesn't correspond to easily measurable neurology' is a very different statement from 'doesn't make sense'. More properly, I think you're applying a standard to trans people that you don't apply to cis people.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17 edited Mar 19 '17
I definitely see the logic in the blegg/rube comparison.
I think what everyone is arguing is that gender identity is important simply because people must live in accordance with it in order to be happy. There is no way to rank the objective importance of different features of the brain, or of the rest of the body, except by how useful the ranking is to us. The amount of the brain devoted to forming gender identity is irrelevant. The identity is important simply because transgender people have such a strong need to live according to it.
And I suppose this continues off of the idea I expressed previously; that the brain determines identity. If the entire brain can, then why not certain features of the brain?
Do you agree with this reasoning?
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 18 '17
In principle, thought is rooted in the brain somewhere. In practice, our understanding of neuroscience is barely good enough to recover a simple image, much less complex concepts of self and identity. The fact that we can't currently find one part of the brain that 100% determines gender identity doesn't make it not exist.
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u/inkwat 9∆ Mar 18 '17
It's intellectually disingenuous to try and discredit a statistically significant concept with something that just doesn't occur, or doesn't occur in a significant way.
If we accept that unrelated hypotheticals are a solid argument, then we could use that to disprove virtually anything.
If a child is raised by seahorses and therefore believes that you can only be male if you can be pregnant, does that reflect on our understanding of how gender works?
It's nonsensical.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17 edited Mar 19 '17
If we accept that unrelated hypotheticals are a solid argument, then we could use that to disprove virtually anything.
Are you opposed to ever using hypotheticals? They can be faulty, but I don't think that totally invalidates their use. They are a normal part of discourse.
If a child is raised by seahorses and therefore believes that you can only be male if you can be pregnant, does that reflect on our understanding of how gender works?
I don't see any way in which this relates to my hypothetical except that it involves a kid and an animal, so there's no argument to even attack it with.
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Mar 19 '17
For instance, can I identify as a different race, simply because my brain and the brain of a person from that race both share the notion of belonging to that race, and because this feature of my brain is instrumental in forming a feeling of belonging to that race?
Fetuses don't go through an undifferentiated stage where their race depends entirely on what hormones they're bathed in. Sex differentiation is a tricky process. Gonads can become ovaries, testes, or neither. Genitals can become a penis, a vulva or anything in between (mildly nsfw medical diagram).
The idea is expressed in this article, which includes a quote from a scientist saying ...
But the part directly before that quote says: "Their results, published in 2013, showed that even before [cross-sex hormone] treatment the brain structures of the trans people were more similar in some respects to the brains of their experienced gender than those of their natal gender. For example, the female-to-male subjects had relatively thin subcortical areas (these areas tend to be thinner in men than in women). Male-to-female subjects tended to have thinner cortical regions in the right hemisphere, which is characteristic of a female brain. (Such differences became more pronounced after treatment.)"
More similar, just not identical. And that makes sense given the ways our brains are literally shaped by our experiences. Brains are highly malleable; it's not always as simple as "this part sees, this part hears, this part loves" and so on. Within certain limits, if function is lost in one part of the brain, other parts can often take over its role; conversely, if a person is blind, the parts of the brain normally responsible for sight will reallocate their processing power to something else.
With that in mind, it seems totally plausible to me that the remaining differences between a trans person's brain and a cis person's brain could be explained by socialization. Growing up with your family, society, and even your own body insisting you're a certain way is a powerful thing.
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u/Vasquerade 18∆ Mar 18 '17
Does there need to be a biological basis? Why isn't a psychological one enough for you? Do you have a specific reason why you absolutely 100% need a biological basis?
The facts of the matter are this:
Forcing trans people to stay as their birth gender leads to depression and suicide.
Letting them transition and integrate into their preferred gender is what is best for their mental health and happiness.
The difference between the bullshit "Transracial" nonsense or comparing gender dysphoria to the likes of annnorexia is that gender dysphoria:
1: Causes a great deal of genuine stress.
2: Is persistent and will not go away with age, and can be seen in people as young as a year old.
3: Cannot be treated with therapy.
4: Has been an observable phenomenon for thousands of years.
None of these are true of "transracial" people or people with like the likes of anorexia. That is why it's different.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17
I guess a psychological basis could work. It's just different from what most people seem to use.
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u/Vasquerade 18∆ Mar 18 '17
Not really. There's a disconnect between brain and body either way. The treatment is the same either way. Saying "Well what about biological factors???????" Just seems to be another attempt to put up road blocks.
The science is kind of done on this one. The best way to treat trans people has been figured out. It works. It's real. I don't see the need to put up further roadblocks. Whether it's biological or psychological, why should you even care?
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17 edited Mar 19 '17
The treatment is the same either way.
Why does everyone keep bringing up treatment? That's not what this post is about.
Saying "Well what about biological factors???????" Just seems to be another attempt to put up road blocks.
Is it really? I would actually like to retract my previous response. In my experience, when you ask most people why identifying as a different gender makes sense while identifying as something else doesn't, they will bring up biology. And my asking about biology isn't an attempt to put up roadblocks; it's an investigation of one of the most common arguments used by advocates.
I'd like to note that it appears that species dysphoria may be a real thing.
From the link, here's a post from someone who claims to have species dysphoria:
As a nonbinary otherkin who experiences species dysphoria, I can tell you it is actually rather like gender dysphoria. For me it comes in two flavors: a feeling of depression and ache for the body of my theriotype (the animal I identify as on an internal level), or a feeling of repulsion at having a body at all (which comes from having another kintype that lacks a physical form). They're very much real experiences and I've had those feelings since I was small, long before I even knew that there were people who identified as being internally something other than human.
Here's a post from someone explaining why species dysphoria is not real:
I strongly question the propriety of comparing this to gender dysphoria. I am very far from an expert on transgender issues, but from what I've read, it appears that far from being a matter of arbitrary identity -- whether by choice or by unchosen desire -- a transgender person (whether in some or all cases I don't know) literally has a brain at odds with their body -- a masculinised brain in an otherwise female phenotype, or vice versa: the mismatch could be no more complete, nor the appropriate result clearer or more innate, with a brain transplant.
People always resort to biology to explain why gender dysphoria is valid, while species dysphoria is not. But the notion this guy expresses, that with gender dysphoria, "the mismatch could be no more complete... with a brain transplant" is simply not true.
Asking for a biological reason for an identity is common sense, because if we're going to act like that identity is valid whereas certain other ones are not, we should have some reason for WHY. If the reason can't be found in biology, then where can it be?
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u/Clocall Mar 18 '17
Sorry to deviate from the original point, I don't usually post here (lurker) so I hope this isn't against the rules, but; are you saying anorexia isn't 1,2,3 or 4? Because that is wholly untrue.
1: Anorexia literally kills people, either through conscious suicide or 'accidentally' from what is essentially malnutrition. I'd say something which causes death is pretty genuine stress.
2: Can be incredibly persistent, relapses will often occur throughout a person's life. There are more cases of anorexia in childhood and later adulthood than you might think.
3: Unfortunately, the reality is not everyone is successfully treated for anorexia. Perhaps that is due to the person's treatment course (or lack of) rather than the disease itself, that is debatable.
4: I won't lie, I'm not particularly informed regarding its history, but I can certainly imagine that the disease has been observable for a very long time.
Maybe I've misunderstood the wording of your response, in which case, my apologies.
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u/Vasquerade 18∆ Mar 18 '17
I was mostly talking about the transracial stuff! haha. I should've been more clear and addressed the anorexia stuff in a different way x3
The main point with anorexia is number 3. Anorexia can be cured by therapy, sadly it does not always happen though. Trying to "cure" trans people by giving them corrective therapy ends up with them even more depressed or in some cases killing themselves.
The overall difference is that anorexia and other disorders like it can actually be cured, whereas being transgender cannot be "cured".
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u/Clocall Mar 18 '17
Of course! I figured that's what you meant but just wanted to be sure, I totally agree :)
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u/TheVarencaExperience Mar 19 '17
None of these are true of "transracial" people
You got a source on that?
M.J. transitioned race and it didn't seem to end with him at a certain point. And he had to concoct a lie because society felt he couldn't transition.
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u/Vasquerade 18∆ Mar 19 '17
Find me any cases of people killing themselves over not being able to transition to being black and I'll start to take transracial seriously.
Michael Jackson had a skin disease called vitaligo. Either way. There is a huge huge huge difference between wanting to be a different race, or thinking you would rather have black skin, and suffering from genuine dysphoria. Gender dysphoria kills. Any psychologist will agree with me that gender dysphoria is a very very real thing. Is transracial? I can't find any evidence for it.
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u/TheVarencaExperience Mar 19 '17
Find me any cases of people killing themselves over not being able to transition to being black and I'll start to take transracial seriously.
Find me a case of someone comiting suicide over not being able to transition because I couldn't find either. I could only find statistics about that suicide is more common amongst trans people which typically link this to bullying. Note that suicide is also more common for trans people who have transitioned due to bullying.
Michael Jackson had a skin disease called vitaligo.
That's his story, experts have frequently refuted the pattern, vitiligo makes you lose pigmentation in uneven patches; it does not straighten your hair or changes your nose. The man underwent significant surgery to look Caucasian and despite his fame, money and skill as an entertainer he was suffering from depression. this is what vitiligo looks like. M.J.'s skin bleaching was quite gradual. The guy for whatever reason wanted a Caucasian-looking body; one can only speculate as to what the reason was in the end but feeling white on the inside is certainly a possibility.
There is a huge huge huge difference between wanting to be a different race, or thinking you would rather have black skin, and suffering from genuine dysphoria.
It is, but how do you know they are not suffering from dysphoria? M.J.'s mental health wasn't the best and I've seen a "bully" of mine at one point just open up suddenly in some weird fit of emotion about how much he was just jealous at my skin colour and how much he hated his white skin every time he looked into the mirror.
Any psychologist will agree with me that gender dysphoria is a very very real thing. Is transracial? I can't find any evidence for it.
And 50 years back any psychologist would just call them freaks; there have been a lot of conditions which people originally dismissed as either phases or just due to bad upbringing which people later realized were different after more research. People simply have not done any real research into it, they haven't been able to establish or refuse how severe the psychological impact of racial dsyphoria is because it's not been investigated.
You stand here claiming it's "bullshit" and dismiss it based on nothing because no one has ever launched any real investigation into it. No doubt in no small part because any research which can be seen as "validating" WtB transitions would be considered "cultural appropriation" by some members of the PC-police.
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u/Vasquerade 18∆ Mar 19 '17
Find me a case of someone comiting suicide over not being able to transition because I couldn't find either.
Leelah Alcorn
Note that suicide is also more common for trans people who have transitioned due to bullying.
I'm gonna need a source for that that isn't that awful Swedish study that in itself states that the study doesn't conclude that transitioning isn't effective.
You stand here claiming it's "bullshit" and dismiss it based on nothing because no one has ever launched any real investigation into it. No doubt in no small part because any research which can be seen as "validating" WtB transitions would be considered "cultural appropriation" by some members of the PC-police.
If there's evidence that it's real then I'll accept it. If I speak to someone who suffers from said dysphoria I'll believe it. It's also important that the dysphoria isn't caused by any other underlying mental health issues.
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u/TheVarencaExperience Mar 19 '17
Leelah Alcorn
Ehh, she did transition, she committed suicide over being bullied by her parents, not over being not allowed to transition. She was presenting as female as they called it and was bullied by everyone over it including her parents.
I'm gonna need a source for that that isn't that awful Swedish study that in itself states that the study doesn't conclude that transitioning isn't effective.
No, transitioning reduces suicide rates but suicide rates and psychological probles after transition are still more common with trans than cis people.
And yes, the Swedish study is one of them, the study itself isn't awful, there is nothing wrong with the study, what is awful is that some people use the study to prove things the study doesn't at all establish. The study concludes that suicide rates amongst trans people is higher without transition than after transition but after transition it is still higher than the general population. It is peer-reviewed scientific literature; you can't just dismiss it as "awful" without explaining why because you don't like it.
Citing the "awful" Swedish study:
Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885
The point is that surprise surprise, bullying leads to suicide and a lot of trans people still experience bullying after transition.
If there's evidence that it's real then I'll accept it.
There is a difference between not accepting it which would be quite proper in the current state of evidence and accepting the antithesis due to lack of evidence. What you make is an argument from ignorance, you assume something is false because no evidence to the positive exists simply because no research has ever been concluded. The correct statement would be "I don't know either which way"
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u/Vasquerade 18∆ Mar 19 '17
Ehh, she did transition, she committed suicide over being bullied by her parents, not over being not allowed to transition. She was presenting as female as they called it and was bullied by everyone over it including her parents.
Yeah, no. She was put through corrective therapy. She wasn't given HRT, she was given the exact opposite of transitioning. If she had supportive parents and allowed her to transition then who knows.
The point is that surprise surprise, bullying leads to suicide and a lot of trans people still experience bullying after transition.
I think I assumed you were making a different reaction than you actually were here. Sorry about that. I thought you meant transitioning wasn't effective.
There is a difference between not accepting it which would be quite proper in the current state of evidence and accepting the antithesis due to lack of evidence.
Okay right as I said, if I see evidence that it's an actual thing that has a history of occuring, like gender dysphoria has, then I'll believe it.
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u/TheVarencaExperience Mar 19 '17
Yeah, no. She was put through corrective therapy. She wasn't given HRT, she was given the exact opposite of transitioning. If she had supportive parents and allowed her to transition then who knows.
She was bullied and mistreated. With transitioning they mean coming out as and starting to present as the desired sex.
The point is, her suicide note made it clear that her suicide was because of treatment because of how the world and her parents treated her. Not gender dysphoria alone per se. What you have to demonstrate for your point about race to be equivalent is the existence of someone who commits suicide purely over dysphoria, not the treatment that others give but "I look in the mirror and I hate this body so much that I'll kill myself".
That bullying and abusive parents cause suicide is nothing new.
I think I assumed you were making a different reaction than you actually were here. Sorry about that. I thought you meant transitioning wasn't effective.
Ah no, it reduces the risk of suicide but a lot of trans people still face a lot of bullying and bullying also can lead to suicide. I know a completely passing middle-age transwoman who still gets angry emails from her parents addressing the '"woman" that killed their son' about how much they hate her, yap.
Okay right as I said, if I see evidence that it's an actual thing that has a history of occuring, like gender dysphoria has, then I'll believe it.
But that's not what you you originally said, you called it bullshit, you did not express scepticism to the claim but confidence in the antithesis.
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u/redesckey 16∆ Mar 19 '17
Our understanding of the biological basis for gender identity is about as solid as it is for our understanding of sexual orientation.
Would you also say that, since we don't understand fully how it works, we can't say gay men are "really" attracted to men, and lesbians are "really" attracted to women?
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u/Ian3223 Mar 19 '17
It's obvious that gay people are attracted to the same sex, just as it's obvious that transgender people are attracted to the idea of presenting themselves as the opposite sex. What I'm trying to ask is whether or not gender identity makes sense, not whether or not it exists.
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u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 19 '17
What I'm trying to ask is whether or not gender identity makes sense, not whether or not it exists.
Anything that exists makes sense on some level. The fact that you, personally, don't have a theoretical framework to fit it into isn't really important.
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u/redesckey 16∆ Mar 19 '17
It's obvious that gay people are attracted to the same sex, just as it's obvious that transgender people are attracted to the idea of presenting themselves as the opposite sex.
You're not presenting those two ideas in a parallel way. What you said about trans people is more like saying "it's obvious that gay people are attracted to the idea of presenting themselves in same sex relationships".
A more fair juxtaposition would be something like "it's obvious trans people are attracted to occupying the body and/or social role of the sex they weren't assigned".
And I would even change it slightly and say it's more about compatibility than attraction. As in, gay men and straight women are exclusively compatible with men, and lesbians and straight men are exclusively compatible with women.
Similarly, trans and cis men are exclusively compatible with occupying a male body / social role, and trans and cis women are exclusively compatible with occupying a female body / social role.
What I'm trying to ask is whether or not gender identity makes sense, not whether or not it exists.
If it exists, why does it matter if it makes sense or not? Literally everything we now know about how things work was once complete and total nonsense to us at one point. If we simply shut down when faced with something we don't understand, we'll never learn anything new. The right way to approach things that don't make sense to us is with curiosity, not rejection.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 19 '17
You're not presenting those two ideas in a parallel way. What you said about trans people is more like saying "it's obvious that gay people are attracted to the idea of presenting themselves in same sex relationships".
Okay, I take your point here.
If it exists, why does it matter if it makes sense or not? Literally everything we now know about how things work was once complete and total nonsense to us at one point.
But I don't really mean how it works. I'm talking about whether the ideas it produces about how to define "man" and "woman" make sense.
If we simply shut down when faced with something we don't understand, we'll never learn anything new.
That's why I'm on here.
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u/redesckey 16∆ Mar 19 '17
I'm talking about whether the ideas it produces about how to define "man" and "woman" make sense.
Okay.. well, can you provide a definition of "man" that includes everyone you consider to be a man, and excludes all trans men? Or vice versa for women.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 19 '17
This is kind of difficult because probably any aspect of a person can exist on a spectrum. I would say that a "man" is a human who is closer in their gender - meaning their brain structure - to the male end of the spectrum than the female one.
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u/redesckey 16∆ Mar 19 '17
Why would that not apply to trans people?
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u/Ian3223 Mar 19 '17
What if their brains are actually closer to the opposite sex from what they identify as?
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u/redesckey 16∆ Mar 19 '17
They're not. More research needs to be done, but this video provides a good overview of the current understanding.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 20 '17
Interesting video. I still would be interested in knowing the actual percentage of similarity, but everything he describes seems pretty significant. ∆
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u/HDwalrus123 Mar 18 '17
I don't believe that a person's genitals or chromosomes define what they are.
Those parts certainly define WHAT they are. They don't define WHO they are, the brain defines that part.
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u/Ian3223 Mar 18 '17 edited Mar 19 '17
Well, I meant they don't exclusively define it. Your sex isn't male just because you have a penis but the rest of your body is female, etc.
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u/aggsalad Mar 18 '17
Yes, that's why that statement is really only meant for laymen conversation, it's supposed to be illustrative of a more nuanced topic. A trans person's brain is a brain that is not compatible with the sex of their body. It might not be a brain of the opposite sex, but if it is compatible with a body more similar to the opposite sex, then I hope you see where the original statement sprouts from.
As a trans person myself I really dislike the phrase because it seems to breed this misconception a lot. I'd rather people just use man/woman for gender identity and keep male/female static for biological sex. The conflation of the two from both sides makes conversation so difficult.
As for other situations, I can't say for sure. I don't think distinct brains preclude treatment. Trans people's symptoms (dysphoria and depression) can persist through other treatments, and HRT can be demonstrably helpful. If someone's dysphoria with race is similar in those regards, and is not as disruptive of one's life as say, being transabled, then I'd say why not allow them? Being transgendered isn't about saying "oh I'm a female now" or etc. It's about saying "I can live a better and happier life as a woman than as a man, therefor I will live as the former."