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.

To the contrary it was entirely warranted and justified.

You can shame me and call me disgusting if you want, it's not going to intimidate me into feeling like I can't speak my mind.

I'm not here to sling mud. I'm here to have a reasonable discussion about how we can understand and explain trans experience.

Also from Stonewall.

Transitioning
The steps a trans person takes to live in their gender. Each person’s transition will involve different things. For some this involves medical intervention, such as hormone therapy and surgeries, but not all trans people want or are able to have this.
Transitioning also might involve things such as telling friends and family, using different pronouns, dressing differently and changing official documents.

Transgender woman
A term used to describe a woman who was assigned male at birth. This may be shortened to trans woman, or MTF, an abbreviation for male-to-female.

That suggests to me that - according to Stonewall - a trans'woman' is a man who claims to be a woman and has (at minimum) told a few people he is a woman and dresses like a woman (ie according to regressive female stereotypes).

Why Tandora, is you definition of trans so much more restrictive and gate-keepery and transphobic compared to Stonewall's?

As it is obviously very difficult (well, I would say impossible!) to explain trans in a way which is intellectually rigorous

Ah it's but it's not at all. And that's what I am here to demonstrate.

When were you planning on starting?

I don't think people do really understand (let alone accept) what I've said at all.

Yes, I do agree with this.

@Tandora seems to be coming quite close to suggesting that trans people don't actually exist.

Of course being “trans” is a delusion. Your definition upthread perfectly describes “trans” people have a delusion that they belong to the opposite sex.

To be a transwoman is to be born with observably male physical characteristics (e.g. penis, testes, sometimes chromosomes will be observed in utero through prenatal testing but not always), but to recognise/ understand self as being female.
To be a transman is to be born with observably female physical characteristics (e.g. vulva), but to recognise/ understand self as being male.

My definition is entirely consistent with what stonewall says here.

"Transitioning" is not the same thing as being trans.
"Transitioning" are steps that a trans person may take (things that a person may do) to feel more comfortable in society or in their body as a trans person. It's like the difference between having cancer and undergoing chemotherapy.

a trans'woman' is a man who claims to be a woman

"Claiming to be a woman" is not what makes a person trans. I could claim to be autistic that doesn't mean I am. What makes a person trans is to have an profound/ pervasive/ persistent understanding/ knowledge/ recognition of self as being other than the sex one was observed to be at birth.

This thread started because you said that no one would/ can explain "what trans is"; I replied that that isn't true.

Please. If you are going to misrepresent facts, don't do it when the literal title of the thread is on every page.

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

You have, with a hell of a lot of patient pulling of teeth on the part of me and others, somewhat explained your belief that "trans" is a cognitive impairment that causes someone to believe they are the opposite sex.

You have not clarified, and having been asked so many times I have to assume actively dodged, whether in your view this means they are the opposite sex, and therefore sex for every single one of us is mental rather than physical, or are not the opposite sex, in which case there is little reason to treat them as such.

So no, you have not even properly explained what you believe trans is, let alone justified the demands being made in its name.

It’s pretty apparent to me that we’re dealing with someone who isn’t at all ok here

that’s alright. Strange people get to speak too. There are lots of frankly odd people in the world

the scandal is the level of influence such people have wielded to date. Thank goodness we’re going through a course correction (hence the howls of outrage all over the board at the moment)

Why don't Stonewall mention "profound/ pervasive/ persistent understanding/ knowledge/ recognition of self as being other than the sex one was observed to be at birth" in their definition if it is part of the definition?

I understand that's the title of your thread.

The thread started because you said that no one would/ can explain "what trans is"; I replied that that isn't true. Then you said you would set up a thread to discuss that, then you added this one with that title.

I joined to discuss the "what is trans" part. The second half is a logical fallacy.

Why am I reminded of George Bernard Shaw?

Because they weren't getting into that depth, they were just providing a headline / accessible definition - I'm trying to explain what it actually is to you in greater depth, because people think it's something that someone just "decides" or a "philosophical belief" or something. I'm trying to explain that's not the case. It's a type of neurodevelopmental difference in cognition, not an idea that someone had one day that they would like to wear a dress.

I think you said that to be trans was to hold a personal belief of being the opposite sex to that of one's body. (If I've misunderstood please repost the correct definition or link to your post where you gave it.)

The problems with this are that (a) we can't possibly know what's going on in someone else's head, so we can't know if, for example, a man dressed in typical female clothing really believes he's a woman, or if he's just a part-time crossdresser like Eddie Izzard and (b) female-only spaces are for people with female bodies, not for men who think they're women, so it doesn't really matter what's going on in their heads.

On this thread, transness is a concrete persistent neurodevelopment condition in which the sufferer denies their own physical sex. On other threads, sex is a nebulous indefinable cloud of spectrumy fluffiness, which nobody can identify what sex any living thing is.

On this thread, we cannot believe people's declarations of trans identity or childhood gender confusion because it's not sufficiently concrete and persistent. On previous threads, how we know if someone is trans is simply to believe their declaration, any doubt is literal violence.

On yet other threads, words just don't mean anything anyway, so even the indefinable is indefinable and no discussions have any meaning.

1. Why is the second half a logical fallacy?

2. You have not explained what trans is until you answer the fundamental question that was in my OP and I have asked in every single way I can up to and including hats,

Does a trans person's perception that they are the opposite sex mean they truly are the opposite sex, and therefore that sex for every single one of us is mental rather than physical, or are they not the opposite sex, in which case there is little reason to treat them as such?

I agree, this is what it boils down to.

"Claiming to be a woman" is not what makes a person trans. I could claim to be autistic that doesn't mean I am. What makes a person trans is to have an profound/ pervasive/ persistent understanding/ knowledge/ recognition of self as being other than the sex one was observed to be at birth.

How do you select the people who are trans for your work? Who do you reject?

All of these traits are subjective.

I notice Tanora's 'definitions' involve a lot of adjectives. A lot of throwing around of words like 'profound', 'deep', 'pervasive' - but are light on what it actually IS that is so profound, deep, etc.

As an English professor of mine once said, adjectives are cheap.

Ultimately, what Trans actually is comes back to a 'feeling' or a 'sense' or a 'perception'. Nothing concrete, objective, verifiable, or observable.

I wouldn't be taking any guidance from Stonewall.

I think you said that to be trans was to hold a personal belief of being the opposite sex to that of one's body.

No that's the view that I'm trying to correct.

Being trans isn't a "personal belief" any more than being autistic is a "personal belief". It's a type of neurodevelopmental difference in cognition.
To be a transwoman is to directly understand/ recognise oneself as female, despite having observable male physical characteristics.
We haven't identified a precise "cause", like autism, same sex attraction, ADHD etc, there are likely to be a complex range of environmental, biologic, and genetic factors. Some recent research has suggested a polygenic underpinning linked to sex-hormone signalling genes, other research has pointed to intra-uterine environmental conditions/factors.

All of these traits are subjective

Only in the sense that all neurodevelopmental/ psychological conditions are subjective. Do you not believe in any of these?

You keep saying it. Pervasive, persistent, profound.

But you find it impossible to provide an example of it. You can't describe it.

Despite listening to trans people telling you, and studying it and being an expert, you singularly fail to say what it is they find pervasive, unrelenting etc.

How do they know? What criteria are they using?

when a man utterly believes he's a woman, what is he basing it on?