Ethics of "curing" homosexuality and transexuality

This is just backwards, let alone unethical. Besides, there is many more things that scientist should be working on than trying to find a way to 'treat' something which isn't even bad. (Autism, fair enough we should try to cure). But I fail to see how you could ever 'cure' homosexuality, and as for trans* people it's an awkward line, because how are you supposed to know your child will be trans* when a lot of the time trans* people do not know themselves until they're a bit older, usually teens?

 

Ok I started reading this, then I saw the sentence about autism and vaccination:***: and my head exploded. I'm not capable of reading the rest.

 

Id agree with the above that it just seems more backwards than unethical...

Wouldn't it mean that at some point during the pregnancy that the parents actively look out for gay or trans features in their unborn baby?.... i think that this part is maybe not unethical... but really sad...

 

If we where able to figure it out while the baby is still in the womb, I'm pretty sure we'd have a massive and possibly deadly issue on our hands. To alter any kind of bodily issues with a fetus is definitely not something anyone should do. Now if there where some way that the fetus would go unharmed, as in, being born without any complications.. who's to say that the complications wouldn't show up in later years? I honestly believe that once the child is conceived, the deed is done and there's no way to change it. That's just my opinion, I'm not saying I'm right. I just think that messing with something like that would end in a disaster.

 

Going through the wrong puberty ruined my life and I might kill myself over it. It's so painful that even death looks like a decent alternative, and this is a very common feeling among trans people.

I would have preferred to have had my body feminized in the womb, but that is present day 20 year old me saying I would consent to it. Fetuses can't consent to this, and if it had been done to me, it would have been wrong on so many levels.

If we had such technology, we could probably also grow new sex organs for trans people with bottom dysphoria, and that, combined with the technology we already have to put trans people through the right puberty and skip the wrong one (which is so unfortunately out of reach for most trans people), is enough to curb dysphoria in most (binary) trans people, and, crucially, is consented to.

I think the stigma against trans people might increase even more if fetuses could be made to all grow up into cis people. Consider also the loss someone would feel if they found out they were going to be one gender, then doctors came in without their consent and so fundamentally changed their life forever.

Something similar, and I think even more horrific, happens all the time to intersex babies.

And as for autism, considering it a disease in need of a cure stigmatizes autistic people. It sure is a disability, but I think nobody's body should be modified without their consent. I would instead call for better accommodation of disabled people, and less prejudice, and more acceptance. If we some day have the technology to change an autistic person into someone who isn't autistic, then that'd be fine and dandy as long as it's only ever used consensually, and we still strive to treat autistic people as people.

 

They also cannot consent to being aborted, but that doesn't stop anyone. Jus Sayin.



I like your little what if scenario here.

Most people are losing their minds over this concept, but if you could in effect alter a fetus to not be trans I would consider that perfectly acceptable. You would save them from a lot of pain and confusion. They wouldn't grow up and suffer as they struggled to figure out who they really were.

I personally find it more acceptable to alter the body to fit the mind. In my view the body is a tool and our mind is what makes us who we are so I'd find it less appealing to alter who someone is, but changing their physical body to match who they are is a more appealing way to go about it for me in our little imagined scenario.

 

I do too, but even in the case of binary trans people, where this is most likely to be appreciated, it isn't consented to. And what about nonbinary trans people?

Since we're speculating so much already, I'll go ahead and put this out there: if we could make every fetus (or just trans fetuses) develop intersex, should we? This wouldn't take anything away anatomically, but would give more options.

 

Well I feel like either something was altered or added to my original post to adjust what I actually said, but seems unimportant

If we don't need fetus consent to kill them, why would we need it for this? Seriously, if you can answer this question than I'd happily indulge the consent argument, but where it stands I think once you decide that it's okay to kill a fetus without consent than anything you do to a fetus prebirth is fairly acceptable.


Oh and I actually said alter the developing body to make it match teh developing brain. I find the mind more important than the body and if you know the mind is going to identify female but the body is going to be male than 99 times out of a hundred that person is going to be trans and want to become female later in life anyways so why not just skip the wait.

Again

This is a imaginary what if scenario.

 

Simple Thoughts:

I believe the difference between abortion and altering a fetus is fairly simple. When one alters a fetus, through changing gentalia or what have you, you're affecting how the baby will function in its life. This has a large impact on society. Through abortion, it isn't consensual, but at the earliest stages of development it is just a clump of cells.

In other words, we worry about the consentual part of "fixing" a fetus because it will affect its life, and our society.
We don't worry about consent with abortion because in the early stages of pregnancy, it is only a cluster of cells without life.

 

General medical ethics apply to it really, treatment must not cause any undue stress or harm (as the church does by shaming people) to the individual. Is it necessarily bad to be gay or trans? Well from a purely functional perspective, yes, as you are effectively unable to have children which is bad for our species. But just because humans have these traits does not make us detrimental to our species, it's like saying infertile people are a disgrace to the human species.

At one point the ancestors to our species would've been regarded as defective monkeys. And now we rule the world.

 

Who would have access to "the cure" and how much would "the cure" cost? Changing the sexuality of an unborn child would be seen as an unnecessary procedure by insurance companies (since homosexuality is not an illness) and would most likely be an out-of-pocket expense. Affluent families typically have access to better medical care and can afford these more costly treatments. If a cure for homosexuality were allowed, there would be two likely consequences. The first consequence would be that there would be fewer homosexuals in the world. The second consequence is that there would be a higher prevalence of homosexuality among low-income families and less developed nations. Both of these consequences would contribute to the further marginalization of homosexuals. And so, I can only conclude that an in utero cure for homosexuality would be unethical in any society that values equality.

 

Fair point.

My thinking is still the same ( for Trans only I'm actually opposed to the gay cure version ) I think if we can stop the pain and suffering we have an obligation to do so. So many trans people suffer so deeply from dysphoria and I just feel like if we could go in early and stop the pain from ever happening, wouldn't we have an obligation to do so?

 

That's a hard one. On one hand, there's still the whole consent issue. If someone could've made me more biologically male in the womb that would have been amazing, but as Systems said, that's me now saying that. Your point with the whole body mind thing makes a lot of sense though, and I agree. On the other hand... Yes, it would save us so much trouble, even save lives that would be lost through suicide. It seems to be a moral grey area in my opinion, definitely thought provoking.

 

That's what I meant.

I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I was justing indulging the thought experiment.

I think if we know that someone is going to be trans and can just go ahead and align their body and mind it would stop their suffering before it begins.

 

A cure is something that has been designed to prevent or remedy something that is perceived to be harmful to the individual or society. The latter can be debated, especially in the case of sexuality and gender identity.

The problem, the way I see it, is in treating something that is generally harmless and happens naturally, such as homosexuality, autism, or even baldness, but is deemed to be dangerous or unappealing by society. Just to remind you, only a very small number of individuals on the autism spectrum are not functional. Most of the people with some kind of autism disorder fare well in the society, they have jobs, education, families, they earn money and are responsible citizens. Theoretically, you could fix them, but that will be an unneeded expense. Then there are also problems with safety, most cures have side effects, some of them are minor but sometimes the side effects can be very serious or life threatening.

TL. DR; Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Oftentimes the problem doesn't lie with the individual, but with society. The same is true of the cure for baldness.

 

I wonder how many people this would save from hate crimes and suicide.

 

Your questions, beg the question that these things fall into the cure/illness catagory.
Your first question should be if this could be the case.
Imo, no, it's not. There's nothing harmful about it.

 

Being gay is not a medical condition because in a society that accepts gay people, gayness doesn't cause the gay person any harm, if you get what I'm saying.
However, in a society that accepts trans people, the trans person would still suffer from dysphoria regardless.

Like SimpleThoughts, I think that changing the body is more ethical than changing the mind. If we could cure transsexualism in the womb, I'd be all for it, but I also want the options for the trans people who have already been born.