Yeah, I think the fact that humans often want things regardless of whether or not those things are conducive to life/happiness is a huge factor. This factor is magnified when the individual is young enough to have a brain that is still developing, but arguably applies at all ages, with the primary difference being that we generally trust the consistency of the internal states of adults more than we do the states of minors.

Clearly wanting something isn’t enough to justify it, for many reasons.

I think the thing that needs more examination is how we tell the difference between the kind of mind that wants to saw its own arm off for no apparent direct gain from the kind of mind that knows it was born into the wrong body. These are clearly both deviations from the norm, but as a bisexual man, I also realize that a large portion of the population still believes I’m mentally ill, even if wanting other body parts isn’t part of my “illness”, and so I can’t reduce the plight of a pre-op trans person to just a simple matter of wants.

Continuing on the future tech thought experiment, I also wonder how opinions would change if a test were developed that could reliably predict if someone would be happier after an operation. Something that detects/indicates compatibility.

It seems that most opposition to these operations fall into two buckets:

1. The religious one, where this is an abomination and no amount of progress will change the nature of the opposition. I have little interest in arguing against this, since the premise is inherently illogical.

2. The logical one, built on the legitimate concern that an operation can’t be undone, and therefore could potentially cause more harm than benefit in the long run if the patient later realizes that they were mistaken.

Difficult for sure.