Are you saying all identity issues are a delusion? Meaning everyone who identifies as a man or a woman is delusional? I think some would argue that every identity group is a social construct, therefore anyone who identifies with any identity group is delusional. Not sure if that’s what you mean though.
Discussion
Not only identity issues, all mental constructs are essentially delusions. Whatever ultimate truth or reality is we don't see it because the tools we use to interpret reality by their very nature dissect and filter it through all kinds of complex processes, most of which are themselves beyond our own cognition. Using terms like man or woman are simply labels, people may use them to point to very specific biological patterns within this shared delusion as markers to help them communicate but they are still only labels and don't really have anything to do with what is ultimately true or natural or right. That's all just stuff we make up in our heads. And how we love to make stuff up. If there's one thing humans will always do it's try new things, explore new avenues, and break the rules. Gender reassignment is hardly amongst the most extreme of these. Also in terms of messing with our genes and biology we may well see way crazier things than gender reassignment within our lifetimes! The way some people freak out about trans folk I'm not sure how they'll cope with what's coming!
What we mostly call reality is at best a blurred reflection of the real thing on the scratched and torn surfaces of our minds.
For that reason I'm always very suspicious of people that are very certain about what reality is because they're generally more lost in their delusion than the rest of us and often have a desire to impose that view on to the rest of the world.
As a last note, saying that terms are just labels that we make up is not to say that there's not something biologically distinct that we can point to and say "male" or "female", that can be a useful delusion, or mental model, to participate in for sure.
Our mental models of the universe are inexact, that much is true.
But I wonder: do you find yourself following this line of thinking, and making real world decisions accordingly, on issues that are not tribal or politicized? If I say it’s 85 degrees outside do you think to yourself that temperature is a social construct, so it might be freezing out and you should bring warm clothes when you leave the house? If I say the moon is made of cheese, do you think to yourself that the concept of cheese is a social construct, therefore maybe the moon is made of cheese and astronauts will never go hungry on the moon? These strike me as non sequiturs. Just because we can change the words we use to describe reality doesn’t mean we can change reality. And in my experience, almost no one would be thinking those things as they make mundane real world decisions throughout the day. But if I said I identify as an elf, many (in recent years) would say yes, you might be an elf. Why the difference? The only explanation I can think of is that personal identity has been highly politicized, as opposed to something like the composition of moon rocks, which has not.
No, I'm not saying we can just change ultimate reality with our minds and suddenly turn the moon to cheese or anything like that! I'm saying that truth is illusive because we rely on interpretation and models and that people fixed in their view of what it is are suspect. Reality is not to be found in the opinions of men and I don't believe there's any rules passed down from on high that say people mustn't alter their bodies or appearance to suit their identities.
If anything it's people that say it is "unnatural" or wrong to live out such desires that are in denial of reality because reality is showing us over and again that it's not particularly unusual for humans to want to do so.
But yes, it's all certainly become very politicised and I won't deny that there are difficult social issues around things like trans in sports, which public toilets trans people should use, or what advice should be given to youngsters with dysphoria, that I don't have the answers for. What I don't think is useful is othering trans people, or labelling them as an abonimation to nature, or imagining they can just magically stop being the way the are because a bunch of ultra conservatives object to their existence.
Trans people exist, that's just a fact. If you object to that you are not reinforcing reality you are fighting a losing battle against it.
So maybe I didn’t change the composition of the moon. Maybe it was cheese all along. If you say I’m wrong, well that’s just your opinion. Truth is illusive.
True story: a girl convinced her doctor to provide her a note for school saying she needs 45 minutes of sunlight twice a day because she identifies as a lizard. Not because sunlight is healthy for people, but because she identifies as a lizard. What do you think about this line of reasoning?
You're not understanding what I'm saying at all. Cheese and moon are conceptual frameworks we build in our minds to navigate the world and communicate with other people. They are not objective reality. Of course someone can decide to build a conceptual framework that is completely out of accordance with what everyone else is agreeing on, like the moon is made of cheese, but it's not going to help them much socially and it obviously doesn't make the thing that everyone else is calling moon become the thing that everyone else is calling cheese.
We form social concensus around how we label different patterns that we observe with our minds and through our sense organs and society is currently having a problem reaching concensus on how we classify gender, some saying it's purely biological, others saying it's more complex than that. Neither framework for viewing the world is objectively true because they are just frameworks and it's our job as humans to decide which one fits best. I choose the one that grants the most personal autonomy for individuals.