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.

But what does understanding your self as female means when you aren't so can't?

There is diagnostic criteria for those conditions.

There is no diagnostic criteria for being 'trans'.

And before you try to pull the sleight of hand that I know you will, having gender dysphoria is not a necessary condition for being trans, as we are always being told.

Agree. It is repulsive.

How do they know? What criteria are they using?

There isn't any "criteria". There isn't any "believing" involved. It's a cognition - like - hunger.

Hunger is a cognition. I don't have any "criteria" for how I know I'm hungry. I don't "believe" I am hungry. I don't know how you experience hunger. I directly experience hunger in my brain. I know I am hungry.

You missed my question, how do you decide who is part of your study?

"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."

It's interesting to me that any other condition that involves a delusion (and I don't mean 'delusion' in a pejorative sense) is regarded as a mental disorder that requires psychological treatment to fix the mental state but trans is exempt from this and accommodated.

Take Cotard's syndrome for example. People with this syndrome have an absolute conviction (profound, pervasive, persistent ) that they are dead. They recognise themselves to be dead even though they are objectively alive. These poor people maintain they are decaying, and will stop engaging with daily activities (because dead people don't do that). I heard of a case where someone kept breaking into funeral homes to lie in the coffins.

In one sense, it's parallel to transness, because these people really do subjectively believe they are dead and experience great distress when they are told they are alive, or treated as if they are alive. But of course they aren't dead, and it's not possible for any human to actually know what it's like to be dead. Yet these people go into mental hospitals and get extreme therapy...we don't grant them death certificates, and legally treat them as if they are actually dead.

We have decided as a society that some concepts are objective and people's individual mental states don't override that. So things like 'being alive', race, age...private mental states don't override objective reality. But for some reason when it comes to sex, the usual rules don't apply.

Is there diagnostic criteria for being gay?

Did you read the Stonewall definition (no mention of medical conditions) or are you just ignoring it?

To give you another example of a trans person

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/there-no-legal-bars-woman-10297113

"Alex Drummond is helping people break out of their conditioned ideas of what men and women are “supposed” to be."

I think your approach would be to say that to be trans, Alex must believe that there is an inconsistency between his gender identity and his sex, and that this must cause him distress.

However, I think Alex would argue that there is just no need to define sex and gender in a narrow way.

Whether or not you agree with Alex, he has sat on various advisory committees, so I think it's difficult to argue that he doesn't represent trans people

If you are excluding people like Alex from your research, or aren't aware of them, I'm afraid it does rather suggest that your research might be 20-30 years out of date. Do you have funding?

Hunger means something physically real and demonstrable. Your body requires food. If you ignore hunger for a long time, you starve

if you ignore your hunger to be a member of the opposite sex for a long time, what real physical impacts will there be?

Oh now it's a 'cognition' 😂

You're going to run out of vague words soon Tandora.

But hunger is a caused by physical symptoms. Hunger comes from blood sugar levels and hormone levels, triggered by the stomach being empty.

I wouldn't say diagnostic criteria, but the criteria is pretty black and white.

Are you exclusively sexually attracted to people of the same sex? yes/no

It's observable on brain scans and in sexual response to stimulation, yes.

Not that this is particularly relevant as being gay impacts on no one else, so doesn't need to be backed up in the same way.

You realise that homosexuality used to be considered a delusion? Being trans is much more comparable to that than your example.

To believe one is dead would presumably be completely debilitating . How would one function in society? It is like being anorexic - not compatible with life. That's why we try to treat it.

Whereas being trans - there isn't actually anything inherently wrong or bad or dangerous with being trans. It's perfectly possible to be trans and otherwise live a completely normal, healthy, long, fulfilling life and to be an ordinary constructive member of society. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that being trans is something that can be cured.

So, yes, we could lock trans people up in mental health hospitals, but why on earth would anyone think that was an appropriate response?

It's observable on brain scans and in sexual response to stimulation.

Lolol. To the extent this is true so is being trans. The science on this is in the same place.

The car colour analogy has intrigued me.

Some people are red/green colour blind. Society doesn't shun them as "wrong" in their colour perception; but nor does society attempt to affirm their perception by pretending that red is green and green is red, or that perception of the difference is colour-blind-phobic. We make some reasonable accommodation; red/green colour blind people are able and permitted to drive; my understanding is that the shade of green used in traffic lights is distinguishable from red, in addition to the positioning of the lights being consistent.

But we do not permit people to proceed on red because they perceive the light as green. At most, a court might accept the mistake as mitigation. And as a society we have not tried to alter the association of red with danger and green with "it's OK to proceed". We have not made blue the colour of danger, for the sake of the red/green colourblind. We have not tried to manipulate language in favour of the minority's perception of the world. And we have not pretended, in traffic control situations, that a colourblind person's perception is just as valid. When the colour of a traffic signal matters, it matters. Now where have I seen the idea that sometimes a concept or a reality matters before?

No one is suggesting locking trans people in asylums.

They are saying there are no grounds to give them access to single sex spaces that don't belong to them

It's perfectly possible to be trans and otherwise live a completely normal, healthy, long, fulfilling life and to be an ordinary constructive member of society.

absolutely, provided you don’t expect anyone else to accommodate your view that you are a member of the opposite sex

stay out of spaces set aside for the opposite sex, accept being referred to with correct sex pronouns, all good.

Hunger comes from blood sugar levels and hormone levels

Partly yes.

triggered by the stomach being empty
well no, not necessarily, hence problems with obesity, but that's beside the point.

Right, and there's similar evidence that transness has hormonal underpinnings.

Likewise the criteria for being a trans woman is the same. do you know you are female despite having been born with observable male characteristics? Yes/ no.

And if the ‘trans hunger’ to be a member of the opposite sex is ignored, the physical impact is…?

Right I really have to go work now . Take care all.

Is there diagnostic criteria for being gay?

Are you really so unaware? There is a very simple diagnostic for being gay which is to be same sex attracted. As we know from the Supreme Court judgment that’s biological sex as registered at birth.

Homosexuality is not an illness, so no. Are you homophobic by any chance?

As you should know homosexuality is an observable reality for homosexuals.

And this is the crux of the matter isn’t it?

a male person cannot and never will be female

what the trans person believes is demonstrably a delusion

Whereas being trans - there isn't actually anything inherently wrong or bad or dangerous with being trans. It's perfectly possible to be trans and otherwise live a completely normal, healthy, long, fulfilling life and to be an ordinary constructive member of society.

Except you have argued that all this is dependent on everyone else pretending that they don't know the person's sex.

This seems to be a bit of a problem.