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gjm comments on What false beliefs have you held and why were you wrong? - Less Wrong Discussion

28 Post author: Punoxysm 16 October 2014 05:58PM

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Comment author: gjm 23 October 2014 03:40:56PM -1 points [-]

you didn't seem to be at all bothered by the lack of choice.

How can you tell?

In particular, what reason do you have to think that Jackercrack's former position was not something like this?

  • Beyond early childhood, no one has any substantial ability to change (1) whether they are sexually/romantically attracted to men, women, both, neither, etc., or (2) whether they find it highly distressing to have the sort of body they have rather than (e.g.) one with different sexual characteristics.
  • For exactly that reason, attempting to change those things is futile and the most likely effect is to distress the people it's applied to.
  • In particular, it should be up to them what sexual orientation they see themselves as having, what gender they present as, etc.
    • Not because they have a free choice about it, but because the alternative to leaving it up to them is for someone else to tell them what they have to be, in which case sometimes it won't match what they more-or-less-unalterably very much want it to be, and then they'll be miserable.