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The Need for Political Transhumanism

unknought:

2centjubilee:

Alright, so…

There’s a bit of a problem with the group of transhumanists we have around nowadays.  A fair number of them are merely passive, accepting, waiting for the next change.  I realize that not everyone has the time or energy to commit to any kind of action, but I’ve seen the issue raised of “how about we, y’know, do something about this?” and someone pipes up, “I prefer transhumanism as a philosophical movement!” and everyone starts agreeing and saying politics is a dangerous practice full of -isms and so on and so forth that is corrupting to Pure Ideals.  Some say, “well, I think everything is inevitable” and thereby justify their non-involvement, to great applause.

This is a non-productive stance. We owe it to our selves and our future to work to change it to one that is better.  No force is unstoppable, and no philosophy is pure.  (788 words)

Keep reading

Why do we think the “freedom to change your body” is assured, and will not become “actually, you have to change your body in this specific way”?

YES YES YES YES YES

As a trans woman, witnessing the rise of the “low T” industry has been fascinating – and more than a little frustrating. The complex that’s emerged here is seemingly designed to ensure that as many men as possible will be on prescription testosterone. A man might feel tired, and he happens to see a commercial about how this could be “low T”. He’ll go to a site like IsItLowT.com, and a quiz that might be no more accurate than a coin flip will tell him to see his doctor. And he’ll make an appointment at his local “low T clinic”, where even normal ranges aren’t considered high enough. Before you know it, we’ve got a billion-dollar market on our hands.

But many trans people require treatment involving sex hormones as well. As Dr. Abraham Morgentaler writes, “It could be said that testosterone is what makes men, men. It gives them their characteristic deep voices, large muscles, and facial and body hair, distinguishing them from women.” So it’s no surprise that trans men would often want more testosterone, and trans women would often want to get rid of theirs and replace it with estrogen.

Yet our experiences of engaging with the medical system could not be more different from that of cis men seeking treatment for low T. A spokesman for AbbVie described campaigns like IsItLowT.com as “disease state awareness initiatives”. But there are no major marketing initiatives raising awareness of transition treatments, or running commercials suggesting that if you’re tired and depressed, you might be transgender. None of these businesses are promoting websites about gender dysphoria, or offering unhelpful quizzes that tell a significant fraction of cis people to talk to their doctor about transitioning. And there are no multi-state chains of clinics focusing exclusively on transition treatments – let alone telling cis people that even if they’re healthy, transitioning can make them feel even better.

There is no overbroad promotion of trans medications – because most of the time, we don’t even have access to the basics. Medical transition is recognized as effective and necessary by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Unlike “low T”, transitioning isn’t the subject of any real medical controversy. But if you haven’t yet realized you’re trans, you’re not going to learn about it from a commercial break during Monday Night Football. [http://genderanalysis.net/2014/09/low-t-a-tale-of-two-hormones-gender-analysis-01/](Low T: A Tale of Two Hormones)

  1. Any technology will be co-opted by normativity unless people actively pump against entropy.
  2. Every tool of our liberation will turn into yet another prison if we don’t constantly work to liberate ourselves.
  3. The system will always find a creative way to fuck you over because it is just so slightly biased against even acknowledging that someone like you might ever exist.

Right now, we are already having impressive ways to seize control of our bodies, and those ways are hypocritically regulated to reinforce, not undermine, the oppressive structures that surround us.

(this is also one of the reasons why I find the ideas of a state-run queer/feminist/anti-tradition social engineering conspiracy utterly laughable; you haven’t seen but a tiny fraction of the diversity we could have if human creativity was genuinely unleashed from its shackles!)

2 months ago · tagged #the best heuristic for oppressed people since sharp stick time · 46 notes · source: 2centjubilee · .permalink

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  4. voidfraction reblogged this from 2centjubilee and added:
    There’s probably some valuable work fighting anti-genetic-modification hysteria to be done here.
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    Any technology will be co-opted by normativity unless people actively pump against entropy. Every tool of our liberation...
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