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.

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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.
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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.

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@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.

Just to say… there are literally dozens of trans women where I live. And trans men.

They live, study and commute to my town as it has an arts university and a plethora of pubs that the students go to. They get off the 930 train in packs. The TM’s mainly stocky [plump], with their lumberjack shirts, DMs, blue/pink/purple hair and pubescent chin stubble; the TW’s all tall, anorexic, long-haired in their shift dresses and lippy. And yes, you can distinguish them immediately. No second glance required.

They are definitely not hiding in their basements or locked in their homes. They are studying and hanging out in the pubs, some behind the bar… and the TMs use the disabled loos, not the mens.

Is it similar to the profound, automatic, almost subconscious ,pervasive , all consuming direct perception of God? You can listen/ read the so , so many, many different ways that religious people have described this.

Is it similar to the profound, automatic, almost subconscious ,pervasive , all consuming direct perception of male superiority to women? You can listen/ read the so , so many, many different ways that abusive men have described this.

Is it similar to the profound, automatic, almost subconscious ,pervasive , all consuming direct perception of a stranger's love? You can listen/ read the so , so many, many different ways that stalkers have described this.

The human mind can be very confident and still very wrong.

It's a profound, automatic, almost subconscious ,pervasive , all consuming direct perception of self - you can listen/ read the so , so many, many different ways that trans people have described this.

my trauma is profound, automatic, almost subconscious, pervasive and all consuming.

im always on alert. Im often frightened even in a building where im behind god knows how many doors with access cards and turnstiles and card readers.

Ive described it often on here.

I will never feel peace again.

Im waiting to see if I feel a flare up of the herpes, when I’m in the loo I’m frantically listening in case there’s a man, I’m worried about the hpv and what it’ll mean, I worried for my surgery if there was going to be a man there when I was knocked out and I didn’t know and he could do I don’t know what to me even though they’d promised.

I have nightmares - flash backs really - often about him coming through a door and then I relive the rape.

I’ve had and am having counselling. One on one and also in group sessions. If those group sessions were to open to trans women I would have to leave and wouldn’t ever go back.

IF i have to suck up people knowing im disabled because i go to the disabled loo, why is it so hard to ask trans people to either use the correct loo for their sex or use a unisex loo?

My last post was deleted so I won't suggest some posters are posting in good faith.

Very good point. I take it the biological men who identify as not men who are protesting against women meeting and speaking are not afraid to leave the house.

I have read one of the papers (the other one was not publicly available) that was cited a few pages ago, about the association between some genetic polymorphism to gender dysphoria. I'll try to write something concise and clear tomorrow, unless it's already been discussed extensively before - I'll catch up with the thread later
However, in the meanwhile I have another comment: why can't a trans person simply accept to use gender neutral spaces? We had in the past at least two female to male transitioner reporting here exactly that experience: they didn't want to use the men's toilets (either because of the fear of not passing, or because they respected the single sex space). They didn't want to use the women's toilets either, because they knew they would be perceived as males by the women in there. So they planned to use gender neutral toilets, in the same way I imagine disabled people plan their trips around accessible transport and toilets. (By the way, I wish there were more provisions available, and that people would respect those spaces!).They both reported strong gender dysphoria since childhood, but they weren't negatively impacted by the decision to use gender neutral spaces. So it seems there is a way of respecting single sex spaces and, at the same time, live life in full. Even if the dysphoria had strong neurodevelopmental roots.

We are asking you to own where your beliefs lead to.

I asked you to engage because you assserted that you have explained what it is to be trans and claimed anyone who didn't understand was closed minded and uneducated.

You have carved out an emotionally pleasant little spot for yourself where you can condem women for saying things you consider nasty about trans people, safe in the warm confidence that all the problematic reasons women want to exclude men, even trans identifying ones, are not your problem because those people aren't really trans according to your definition.

What this thread has shown is there is a vast disconnect between your concept of trans and what you are supporting, directly or simply through complicit silence, in its name.

All we are asking of you is to join the dots.

And when you demure, we are joining them for you and asking you to explain (not just assert but actually explain using cohernet arguments that are not contradicted by observable facts) why our conclusions are false.

So if someone aged 30 really rally sees themselves as a 5 year old should we let them go into an infants class? If not, why not? Anorexics really really believed she was they are fat. Should we affirm them and give them gastric band surgery? If not, why not? They all have a deeply held belief of self. Why are these beliefs not affirmed?

Further to this:
Anyone who feels/thinks/believes/"knows" that they are what I am, also by implication feels/thinks/ believes/"knows" that I am what they are. "I am in the same category as you" presupposes "you are in the same category as me".

They may be arguing it intellectually and philosophically, and with detachment, or they may instinctively feel it and be very emotionally invested in it. Which, is immaterial; as soon as they make claims on me based on our perceived (by them) likeness, it is very much my business as well as theirs and my view of our likeness (or unlikeness) is no less valid.

More than happy to accomodate that person by respecting their inner gender identity as something unrelated to sex. Because it is unrelated to sex.

We can have new language for "people with an inner perception of their own womanhood and any type of body" and we can write plays and create dances and include them in soap operas and vote for them and love them and marry them. It's all good.

If they really can't be accomodated with others of their body sex, even though society entirely respects that this commonality of sex is an entirely separate thing to their inner perception of womanhood, something of no more relevance than whether they prefer apples or grapes, then I would hope activist groups raise funds to provide exactly the type of support and resources these people need as activist groups have done for so many people in the past.

What we can't do is give over single sex protections that are based on the body over to someone of a different body because of this unrelated inner perception of their own sex. Because that is not the purpose of single sex protections, spaces and opportunities.

A blue car is still a blue car even if its owner is totally, utterly convinced it is red. The owner may be right in his reality. But the car is still blue.

Yes I said that. that's what it is. It doesn't matter if it's "right" or "wrong"- (or if you think it's right or wrong). It's just is what it is.

This is a very interesting post. Not only have you stepped back from they are women because they experience themselves as women, you're saying it doesn't /matter/ if they're actually women or not. If I read this right. I'll wait for confirmation on your meaning before I draw logical conclusions from it.

Your post was deleted as you were using inflammatory language and personal insults. It hardly seems you are posting ‘in good faith’.

Popping this here, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with this data. It is relevant to two questions: Who comes under the trans umbrella? What are the real-life consequencies of allowing a subset of males into women's single-sex spaces?

Ministry of Justice 2020 Data

...MOJ stats show 76 of the 129 male-born prisoners identifying as transgender (not counting any with GRCs) have at least 1 conviction of sexual offence. This includes 36 convictions for rape and 10 for attempted rape. These are clearly male type crimes (rape is defined as penetration with a penis).

Here is the number compared with figures for sex offending rates in men and women over the same period.

Comparisons of official MOJ statistics from March / April 2019 (most recent official count of transgender prisoners):

76 sex offenders out of 129 transwomen = 58.9%
125 sex offenders out of 3812 women in prison = 3.3%
13234 sex offenders out of 78781 men in prison = 16.8%

From https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/

I agree, a few months ago that poster was arguing up and down being trans was a DSD and no one could define sex as it was all sooooo complicated. Now it appears trans is either a nebulous feeling or a neuro disorder. There is no good faith. And the dismissal of women’s concerns and minimising any distress and trauma disclosed is shocking, I’m just wondering why the absolute need to have women accept males as women. It’s starting to seem like a crusade. Even in the light of the SC ruling and women categorically stating they want and need single sex spaces, this poster seems determined to bully women into agreement
I do not think this poster is posting in good faith. Either they are here just to cause arguments or they are here to bully women. Neither is a good look.

Agree completely. I know the MRA's are a peculiar bunch but I'm struggling to believe that someone truly believes the nonsense that is being posted. I feel for the women reading this thread who have experienced sexual abuse and violence. Some of whom have been trying to engage with @Tandora in a polite manner with no acknowledgement. I realise no-one is due a response or reply but given the nature of the debate I think the questions being asked deserve an acknowledgement at least.

In have asked several times on this thread why Tandora no longer believes transness is a DSD but she has completely ignored me. I haven't even had one of her 'I never said that' responses or a particularly filling word salad. She claims to be an expert but can't even keep her message consistent from thread to thread which tells me (almost) all I need to know. Her staggering lack of acknowledgement of the pain caused to several women on the thread with experience of male violence tells me the rest.

I’ll respect someone who believes that they are the opposite sex, I’ll also respect someone’s belief that a virgin was impregnated by the son of God, or in purgatory, transubstantiation, that Allah is the one and only God, reincarnation, karma, nirvana or that YHWH is the one creator.

I do not think that a belief which requires that everyone and everything else must behave as though the belief is true would be classed as “worthy of respect in a democratic society”.

The problem is that single sex spaces are about others perceptions of women.

They exist because of how male people treat female people, how society frames female people, and how female people learn to behave in public because of those pressures and experiences. Our own self image doesn't come into it, it's about how people react to our body sex.

The thing you believe trans women are experiencing is entirely separate from the real world needs that lead to the creation of single sex protections and opportunities, and whether you think sex is fundamentally mental doesn't change that.

Either womanhood is about the body, in which case trans women are not women, or womanhood is not about the body, in which case the spaces and protections of female people were wrongly named when they were labelled "women's". Either way, trans women have no moral right to them.

You can't reject the basis upon which women are assumed to be female while also claiming "as a woman" things that only exist in the form they do because women are assumed to be female.

Considering your previous comments about sex and gender I find it very interesting that you are taking the position that Izzard's self identification as a 'trans woman' is not sufficient to identify them as trans.

Indeed. It would appear that you can't 'just ask them' after all.

You have to conduct an in depth, analytical conversation to decide!

Oh, the transphobia.

What matters is how it affects the person, what can be done about it, and whether/ how to accommodate that person with that condition in society.

I think this actually states it totally clearly.

Tandora wants to worry about that person specifically, and how to satisfy them.

Tandora has taken on the role of this person's saviour, or benefactor, and is going to use everyone else to make that person happy.

There's absolutely no acknowledgement that this "accommodation" is asking anything of anyone else.

Because Tandora doesn't worry about what affects any other people, what can be done about it, or how to accommodate those people in society.

What matters is how it affects the "trans" person.

So that gives a form of answer original question - "what is trans?". It's the state of being cared about by Tandora.

You tell if someone is trans by whether or not Tandora cares what affects them.

The siloing being done has become apparent and is fascinating.

Wanting to discuss only the theory and then complaining about discussion on what that theory means in real life application.

The dismissal of the distress of female people vs the full acceptance and prioritisation of a group of male people’s distress.

The declaration that this group must be accommodated while then declaring that excluding them from single sex spaces is not the answer.

This has been pointed out many times on many threads and not just Izzard. Maybe one day, so many of us pointing this out will finally register as being worthy of consideration.

This is exactly what you’re doing; your posts are routinely deleted due to personal attacks on the same poster.