While we think of it as recreational, I assume it's a big deal to guys who can't get it up but want to have kids. It corrects a dysfunction.
Transsexual surgery, on the other hand, mutilates someone's body so that they can feel better about themselves.
While you can argue that taxpayer dollars shouldn't go to Viagra, there's a reasonable argument for it. There's no reasonable argument for the military to take on the added costs of sex surgeries. Otherwise, as I said, why stop there? Boob jobs, butt jobs, collagen implants, facelifts...you name it, taxpayers should pay for it (by your logic)
I am asking a few questions to understand the completeness of your viewpoint. Note I am NOT trying to say your viewpoint is wrong, I am just trying to understand it.
1) If a person has surgery on their dick or vagina due to a medical reason it is okay? Aka there is some urgency where there are negative real life consequences like they can't pee normally, infections, and so on?
2) If a person has surgery on their dick or vagina due to a cosmetic reason, yet this cosmetic reason is not about changing their gender identity it is okay? Aka they wanted a prince albert and thus they got a prince albert, for they think it is cool to mutilate their dick even though they are definitely mutilating the dick?
3) If a person has surgery on their dick or vaigna not due to a medical reason that is not urgent but is purely cosmetic, is this okay? Aka let say they are "male gender" and they want to look more natural male in the external sexual development
So what I am saying with 3 is there are disorders of the reproductive system that are not really "medical disorders" where there is not a real medical problem from a functional perspective but there can be one from a cosmetic perspective. What I am saying is not a hormonal problem, or a chromosomal problem, but the outwards appearance of the genitals did not form correctly for biology is not always perfect.
But "reconstructive" surgery of the male genitals that is okay?
4) Is similar to 3, some men have testicular cancer, or they lose a ball or something due to an IED and so on. So sometimes they put "reconstructive" fake plastic balls there and so on. Is this okay?
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So Question 5 is pretty much my real understanding question but I still am trying to understand the internal logic and thus I ask questions 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Question 5's setup)
Many of the reasons you would do questions 1, 2, 3, and 4 you would never know as an outsider than a man or woman would have some form of surgery. Once it is done the unit will never know unless the solider tells his unit.
Aka we never know from an outsider point of view that there was a mutilation of the body once the final experience is done.
End setup for Question 5, and now asking the question)
Is the real standard is that we can tell from an outside point of view that this person had an a genital operation? Or is the real question on what is acceptable and what is not is we do not want a gender reassignment operation but other forms of genital operation are okay?
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I can ask more questions about your standards for they seem very arbitrary. I probably understand why you draw those arbitrary lines, but I am trying to understand from a greater point of view and I want to make sure you consider all of these things.
After all people who have some form of reconstructive surgery of the genitals for the reasons I asked above are probably also NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD.
Prince ALbert person is probably crazy. Who would do that to the male junk, while would you mutilate it?
Person who had junk that did not look normal as a middle schooler and high schooler probably has emotional baggage and self esteem issues. Sure SPECIFIC individuals may not, but if you gather all them up in a data set I would not be surprised to see relative risks of these group of people is probably 2x, 3x, maybe even more where these people have unresolved self esteem issues, and so on.
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Note Tom I am not arguing that the arbitrary nature of your point of view is a bad thing. Nor am I saying the decisions of the military or the president with arbitrary things are a bad thing.
In fact many things in the military are arbitrary and that is a GOOD thing.
But I just want to understand your point of view better, for me as an outsider I do not fully understand your point of view. I understand some of it, but I want to get a more complete picture by arguing similar but not the same test cases to full understand your point of view.