What is "trans" and why does it justify undoing sex in law, society, culture and history?

[FlirtsWithRhinos]

In the Trolls thread @Tandora and I discovered that in a recent thread she had thought she was very clear about what "trans" is while I thought she was simply describing symptoms that could have many causes and did not justify why these symptoms should be treated as actual material facts by others.

• Trolls thread with our interaction on this page: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5420701-a-little-piece-of-insight?page=15&reply=147554941

• my question on the earlier thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5420701-a-little-piece-of-insight?page=15&reply=147554941

Clearly I missed something in that earlier thread but I can't go back because it has reached its post limit, so rather than derail the trolls thread, I am restating my question here.

Looking forward to @Tandora engaging with my questions to help me understand what I missed about her position in the original thread.

__
Tandora · 02/10/2025 21:28
Right- this is your question. which is why im trying to explain what being trans is. It's entirely relevant, the reason people can't comprehend the issue is that they simply can't comprehend what it is to be trans.
_

FlirtsWithRhinos · 02/10/2025 23:13
But Tandora you haven't explained what being trans is. All you've done is played the old TRA game of "Not that" when anyone else tries suggest an definition, any definition at all, that appears to fit the random claims you are making that feeling very wrong in the sex you actually are is somehow interchangeable with being the sex you are not, or that a characteristic of the mind somehow overrides the reality and consequences of differences of the body for both the trans person and for others.

You have made all sort of hand wringing emotional claims on behalf of trans people, and roundly insulted everyone who doesn't accept your argument of "they just are, alright" as closed minded and uneducated (which frankly would be hilarious to anyone who'd ever met me), and yet never once explained exactly why this thing makes the differences of sex and the social consequences of those differences, facts that are entirely and unproblematically accepted as real in all other circumstances, suddenly inconsequential and irrelevant in the face of a trans person's mental self image.

So I'll ask you again.

What is "being trans" Tandora?
Is it being one sex but with a deep and aching wish you were the other sex, maybe like a blind person has a deep and aching wish to see, or a lonely little girl has a deep and aching wish that she had been born as one of the popular kids instead?

Or is it actually being, in an innate mental way, in ways we don't yet understand, the other sex, implying that sex is not in fact a descriptor of the body but of the mind?

Because take away the emotional manipulation and neither definition actually justifies the demands being made of women in its name.

Neither definition changes the fact that people with female bodies do exist and do face social and physical consequences because of those bodies, and neither a man's deep feeling that he should have had a female body, nor a man's deep feeling that women don't need to have a female body, changes the embodied experiences and needs and self knowledge of the people who actually have a female body one iota.

Because these are things that are entirely to do with the experiences of women, and so no experience or feeling, no matter how genuine, of a man is relevant to them.

And regardless of which definition you go for, in fact regardless of any definition you go for that places more weight on a man's idea of himself as a woman than the embodied fact of female existence, outside his own mind he is simply not relevant to who women in the original female sense are and what women in the original female sense need at all.

No definition of woman that is stretched to include male people is more relevant to the needs and experiences and reality of female people than the simple old fashioned sex based definition and there is sinply no way round that.
face of a trans person's mental self image.

So I'll ask you again.

What is "being trans" Tandora?

Is it being one sex but with a deep and aching wish you were the other sex, maybe like a blind person has a deep and aching wish to see, or a lonely little girl has a deep and aching wish that she had been born as one of the popular kids instead?

Or is it actually being, in an innate mental way, in ways we don't yet understand, the other sex, implying that sex is not in fact a descriptor of the body but of the mind?

Because take away the emotional manipulation and neither definition actually justifies the demands being made of women in its name.

Neither definition changes the fact that people with female bodies do exist and do face social and physical consequences because of those bodies, and neither a man's deep feeling that he should have had a female body, nor a man's deep feeling that women don't need to have a female body, changes the embodied experiences and needs and self knowledge of the people who actually have a female body one iota.

Because these are things that are entirely to do with the experiences of women, and so no experience or feeling, no matter how genuine, of a man is relevant to them.

And regardless of which definition you go for, in fact regardless of any definition you go for that places more weight on a man's idea of himself as a woman than the embodied fact of female existence, outside his own mind he is simply not relevant to who women in the original female sense are and what women in the original female sense need at all.

No definition of woman that is stretched to include male people is more relevant to the needs and experiences and reality of female people than the simple old fashioned sex based definition and there is sinply no way round that.

_

@Tandora I don't have much free time this afternoon. Please don't take slow replies as bad faith and be assured I will be coming back to this thread when I have to engage properly as I really appreciate you wanting to explain this to me.

I mean, was that condescending remark "am I going to hear you..." meant to shame us into silence or something?

Honestly, women's history seems to have passed Tandora by.

Women DID campaign for their own toilets. For safety and dignity.

They did campaign for their own rape refuges, their own sport.

The suggestion that we start compaigning for our own stuff is risible.

We have. It's ours.

There is a disconnect between the brain's cognition and the external reality, yes.

The issue is that you seem to be saying the internal brain reality is as authorative as external reality. That it can't be contradicted by others not even by reference to actual reality. That it is the responsibility of everyone else to accomodate the internal reality of others even if this means denying their own knowledge.

But the man's wife was not, in fact, a hat. His attempt to wear her failed because his cognition of her was actually, objectively wrong. The thing was not as he perceived it. His reality could not be accomodated within actual reality. The truth to his wife of her head being her head was more important than the truth to him of her head being his hat. Accepting and supporting him did not require that his wife pretend to him and to others that yes she is indeed a hat.

Ad so it is with your conception of trans. Sex exists. People see it and react to it in ourselves and in others. And the truth of this is important. We cannot pretend it away for the mental comfort of [Tandora style] trans people any more than the man's wife could pretend to be a hat to support her husband.

It's not about "changing sex" , that's not what being trans is.

As you already helpfully explained being "trans" is a delusion that one is a member of the opposite sex.

The problem is obviously having men in women's spaces. It is the reason that exceptions to discrimination on grounds of sex in situations where sex matters were granted in the first place.
The weakness of @Tandora 's argument here suggests someone who has no idea why we have this exception in the first place, or someone who just doesn't care

Yes, that is a logical possibility. It's also logically possible that they have some kind of cognitive disorder or neurological condition

Exactly. Thank you. I wouldn't use the language of "disorder" I would say "difference".
But yes, neurological - neurodevelopmental condition. That's exactly it. With physical/ developmental underpinnings.

As with all areas of science that relate to the complex, adaptive systems of the brain, we haven't identified a single biological/ environmental "cause" that can explain it- same with autism for example, or same sex attraction, or lots of other things - but some studies have indicated a polygenic underpinning related to sex-hormone signalling genes; other studies have pointed to environmental factors linked to intrauterine conditions/experiences, etc.
Like autism there is likely to be a range of complex pathways - but this does not cast doubt on the underlying physical reality of the condition.

However, as explained before, this analysis excludes huge swathes of the trans community

This is where you are simply wrong.

@Tandora We need to find ways of organising society so that we can accommodate a diversity of different needs. That is what it is to live in a decent society.

Indeed we do. That is the strength of a democracy. In Europe and the Anglosphere we have been very lucky to live in diverse, responsive, and decent societies for between 35 and 100+ years.

It's remarkable. It needs the occasional tweak, particularly to preserve hard-won women's rights and to protect children from shapeshifting predators, but it ain't broke and doesn't need fixing. Particularly not by sociologists, the prime fuckwits of academia.

Right I really do have to go work. x

However, as explained before, this analysis excludes huge swathes of the trans community
This is where you are simply wrong.

These throwaway one line answers just don't move the discussion forward. Most scientists are so excited to share their theories and research and to have them discussed and debated, but with @Tandora it is like getting blood out of a stone. It suggests a set of theories that Tandora knows are built on a house of sand.

frit

Most scientists are so excited to share their theories and research and to have them discussed and debated

You've hit the nail on the head here @MurkyWeather2
The scientists I deal with (I am not one) seem desperate to share their findings! And the good ones are able to explain these findings and conclusions in an accessible way, with reasoning, to those of us who are not scientists.
People on this thread have expressed a willingness to understand.
I don't get why this is not happening.

A woman is not a hat.
A man is not a woman.

It's that basic. Either the wife is a hat because her husband thinks so and Oliver Sachs wasted his and our time writing about something entirely unremarkable, or the wife is not a hat and the husband is deluded. The analogy breaks down as soon as it is put forward.

Did Tandora indicate whether they're a sociology 'scientist' or a biology scientist yet?

Are we definitely sure that Tandora isn't Sally Hines?

That is so unfair, sharing my theories and research is exactly what I am trying to do.

What would you like me to say in response to claims like *this analysis excludes huge swathes of the trans community. *
This is just a statement of someone's opinion about the "trans community".
What am I supposed to say?

If I came on here and explained that autism is a neurodevelopmental condition, and someone came on and said "well your scientific description of autism excludes huge swathes of the autistic community".
What would I say? Ok - I hear you that you think that. And what?

If the person said - I believe it excludes people because I think this (x,y,z alternative idea) about autism then I could engage with their argument, but as it stands they don't have one.

100%.

Where sex matters, sex matters.

Where sex does not matter why on earth would regressive sex-based stereotypes matter?

those basic accommodations are fine as long as they don’t involve using any facilities relevant to the opposite sex or demanding recognition as the opposite sex. They can wear what they like and call themselves what they like. It’s up to other people if they want affirmative action them or not.

You also seem to believe that most women would see themselves in the "feels like a woman so might as well be a woman" women + trans women group.

I think you vastly underestimate the number of women whose lifetime of experiences of male sexual agression and social entitlement makes them appreciate and utilise single sex refuges and support from time to time.

Pretty much every woman I know, including myself, qualifies for the single sex space and would chose it given the option.

GIven the choice of Women+Trans Women and Women-only, of course I'm going to choose Women-only, because there is literally no circumstance that justifies segregation of men and women in the first place in which Women+Trans Women is appropriate.

Women-only spaces exist for reasons. Those reasons are directly related to our actual sex in the physical world, because they are primarily to do with how others react to our sex. Our inner view of ourself does not come into it (I mean fuck me, if we could get society to see us as we see ourselves we'd never have needed bloody Feminism in the first place!).

There is simply no justifcation for adding some men into that because they do not need the same things. Not even if some of them truly are people who genuinely perceive themselves as women for as yet undiscovered biochemical reasons. Their needs are not our needs, and our needs also matter.

Most scientists are so excited to share their theories and research and to have them discussed and debated

I'm guessing after decades of work, and establishing that it is possible that some men could believe that they are female, hasn't provided anything worth sharing.

Biological men who identify as not men would still want in the female only pace.

Great that you answered @Taztoy question.

@Tandora so you believe that the current sex based protections for women in the equality act and the provision of single sex spaces should not exist?

how do you square that with the law as it currently is in the U.K.?

This is where you are simply wrong

Should be simple to explain why then!

You seem to be excluding anyone who identifies as trans simply because they follow queer theory or believe that 'trans' is the best way to describe their gender nonconformity. These people are currently part of the trans community, but apparently you think they shouldn't be and would prefer a narrower definition?

So there should be no women’s sports, hospital wards, toilets, Athena swan. Nothing?

Its an odd thought experiment because it imagines a world where TW and woman are a class separate from men, but TW are also a subset of men that can be excluded from the 'female rape survivors' toilet.

Why don't you engage with the substance/ topic of any of my posts?

You seem to think I'm here to answer any question you come up with on any related topic, and if I don't answer, you ask over and over again with increasing levels of demand/ indignance.

Discussing how I square my ideas with the current state of law in the UK is not why I joined this thread.

I joined this thread, because OP said that I had never explained what being trans is. I have of course done this at length, but I was willing to do it again.

Like autism there is likely to be a range of complex pathways - but this does not cast doubt on the underlying physical reality of the condition.

I don't think whether falsely believing yourself a woman stems from physical brain differences or cultural influences or a combination of the two actually affects the outcome much. The person is still the sex they are. Not the sex they wish/believe/feel themselves to be.

A male with a physical brain difference isn't actually female. If in some ways they are different from other males, I would encourage them to recognise that and celebrate that difference within the wider category of males.