- Joined
- Jul 28, 2020
I always saw transgenderism in that same vein. As a sub culture of body modifiers same as the goths who tattoo their whole body and get implants to look like vampires and aliens.This reminds me of the much lighter topic in the philosophy of transhumanism: at what point a hypothetical person with an increasing number of bionic replacements stops being a person and starts being a machine...
The reason I bring it up is that in introductory philosophy classes, people freely debate this (or used to, maybe things have changed with the rise of transgenderism). And there, one person could say that this transhumanist would still be a human until they're 100% machine, another person might say they're considered a unique blend, say a "cyborg" as soon as they have any implants. Amusingly, I think hardly anyone would argue that they could be called a "machine" after making some half-assed attempt at replacing some of their parts and modifying their outward appearance.
Obviously the parallel isn't perfect, but it's funny to me that transhumanism is considered a fun and free discussion topic, and transgenderism really isn't. Maybe if people with prosthetic limbs collectively demanded to be called robots under threat of suicide, then we wouldn't be allowed to debate that either.
Is weird to me still that it gets mainstreamed and treated as something different other than a sub culture.
People into the body mod stuff are allowed to do as the please, they have their own bdsm clubs and conventions and stuff and no one cares because they are framing it as an extreme form of self expression not as objecttive reality. That lady who sawed her teeth to look like a vampire or that guy who modified his body to look like a lizard are doing radical things with their image but are not trying to convince anyone in earnest that they are a vampire or a lizard, you may be shocked seeing them in a street but they ackknowledge what they do is shocking instead of shaming people for finding them odd and in that sense circus freaks are more sane than your average transgender.