Future said:Had to reply to this, only because I think you might be in the extreme minority on that. I think most identify strongly with their gender attributes (big reason for this thread). Losing one breasts or penis would be devastating for people, and are decisions that should not be taken lightly. Adapting is not an easy thing
I don't think there are any that would voluntarily lose their breasts or penis, unless they had severe gender identification issues.
But it's different from saying that people wouldn't be able to adapt to the loss of such things.
To put the idea in another way - if we could enter a VR simulation where we could perfectly simulate what it was like to be of the opposite gender - a lot of men would do so (even if it meant be locked into these VR bodies in the lifecycle or span of the game or simulation), and certainly a fair number of women would try out playing guys too.
Of course, we already have primitive VR environments in the form of World of Warcraft and Second Life, and we have players playing opposite genders consistently - to an extent, these preferences underscore a little about how people would like to be viewed by others given a choice.
I understand that's not exactly scientific research - the main point I'm trying to make is that gender issues are complex - and run the gamut of highly adaptable to completely inalienable in many broad areas.
If the options were available to switch genders easily at no significant costs and no significant side effects, with 100% reversability (e.g. you're zapped by a gender changing beam, and it's done) - it would probably become an almost fashionable thing to do; to try out. And would you be surprised if a significant percentage of people might want to stay the other gender?