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.

I have done this - at least, I have tried to do it.

With one person, I got nothing back beyond "I feel more comfortable in women's clothes". This is from someone who used to be a "skeptic" and enjoyed a vigorous debate.

With the other, they said a whole lot of ideology about sex being a spectrum, and other trans talking points, but as soon as I tried gently to probe a bit deeper, or to question assumptions (such as sex being a spectrum because the gender unicorn and Meg-John Barker say so), this turned to distress. This has been on a number of occasions - I haven't tried to probe all the confused thinking in one conversation.

Both these responses to someone trying to understand their thinking struck me as defensive, and in the latter case as programmed. The first person doesn't appear to me to fit your definition of trans; the second might, but could also be a classic case of a social contagion - she has made various conditions and trauma responses and beliefs her identity. She has used cutting as a means to deflect from her trauma, as in cutting she feels in control. Her trans identity also gives her a measure of control, this time over how all the people around her behave, as they jump to affirm her desire to be treated as a man (except that people treat her more gently than they treat men). She genuinely has a lot of challenges to face up to, and I admire her efforts to make a positive future for herself. I do not see how the pretence that she is male can help with this, and I hope she can lose the desire to self harm via cross sex hormones and surgery - forms of control which would damage her body.

In athletic terms of course. What's the issue?

Well, we can all see that you cropped a crucial bit of that quote 🙄

Really? I think is it far more 'profoundly degrading' women to suggest that they are actually just as strong and as faster as men but for some reason their world records lag behind by an average of roughly 11% for no reason. That is actually profoundly disrespectful to female athletes.

It a provable that female skulls are lighter/thinner and thus more prone to damage than male skulls so why are you in favour of disregarding this science to put womens lives at risk on sports pitches? Why is science really important when it comes to including trans people but really unimportant when it comes to protecting women?

It looks like it.

So many of these activists seem to imagine that all the mummys need is a good talking to, and then we'll get it.

Failing to understand that we've been talked to for at least 10 years, and we do bloody get it

Of course. I continue to argue for secularism (accommodation of different beliefs even if we don't share them) rather than against gender ideology. Trans people will have to cede that ground - ie accept that theirs are just one set of beliefs amongst many - sooner or later.

@Taztoy Tandora won't answer you.
You're being studiously ignored.

Maybe Tandora will answer me, though. @Tandora please look at Taztoy's posts and answer her question. She's asked several times.

I don't know if my friendship would survive the revelation of such misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and utter selfishness, tbh.

And yeah, if after decades of research on the observable and totally physical causes of transness, the best you've got is 'just go talk to trans people and beeee kiiiind' then I would think you're either a pretty rubbish researcher, or there's nothing to find and it's time to move on.

@Tandora If you want to give a subset of men access to women's spaces then you have to prove conclusively that their sexual offending profile is exactly the same, or lower, than that of women. It must never include rape, ofc.

You can handwave away MoJ statistics and the observations of prison psychologists, but the onus is on the TRAs to provide the robust counter-data.

So your analysis is that female athletes just aren't trying hard enough?

If true, it's odd that World Athletics hasn't just told them to get off their arses and train. All those men in blazers having to put up with stroppy women insisting on equal rights to competition when they could have just told them to bog off and run faster?

On balance, it does seem rather more likely that World Athletics has considered the research and found that your argument is a load of old tosh.

I wonder if before the thread runs out, Tandora can identify which of the people in this photo is the 50 year old man? In a young women's college level team.

Presumably due to the 'reality of course there is a huge amount of variation/ complexity, with some generalisable trends' it will be virtually impossible to tell.

Even then, if the argument is that some men are less high risk and can share facilities with women, then the logical conclusion is mixed sex prisons, not that only some men who declare a feminine identity can share women's facilities.

We should just train harder.

Didn’t Semenya write that in that autobiography about Lynsey Sharp? That Lynsey should have trained harder?

I just find it of interest that they can't even get over this first hurdle, so they handwave it. There is zero concern for women in this ideology

Yep.

That kind of picture is striking, but height is not always an advantage, and the average height of elite male marathon runners is about 5'7", so not an unusual height for a woman.

They still aren't being beaten by women.

www.runnersworld.com/news/a20855134/great-marathoners-over-six-feet-tall-are-rare/#:~:text=As%20reported%20in%20a%202013,to%205%20feet%206.9%20inches.

Well this ENTIRE ideology is predicated on the idea that men's desires matter more than women's needs/safety/dignity. So this shouldn't surprise us in the slightest.

In all seriousness, if scientific truth is something you find degrading you might find talking therapies help you get over your irrational negative feelings.

Please can you look up what "trend" means.

And the thread draws to an end.

The best we've got is trans is a conviction you're the sex you aren't, with physiological roots. With muchly adjectives and social science jargon to indicate how deeply it is felt. So that's nice.

Tandora is not answering frequent requests for clarification as to whether she thinks holding such a conviction actually makes such a man a woman, or a man with a brain condition.

And the answer to OP's second point is because tandora thinks such men will suffer greatly if everyone else doesn't go along with their false conviction.

Tandora does not wish to address the fact that her description of transness is at odds with that of many many trans people, in their own words, in their own time, in their own forums and in real life. Or that reorganising society has material practical difficulties and implications for women and particularly vulnerable women.

You forgot that women are using their rape and sexual assaults as a justification for their transphobia.

Tandora does not wish to address the fact that her description of transness is at odds with that of many many trans people, in their own words, in their own time, in their own forums and in real life.

Perhaps Tandora could do some research and meet some trans people?

I am not an expert but it is my understanding that some / many (not sure which) very good male gymnasts are able to do elite level women's routines. I have seen female olympians reacting to men doing women's routines and being blown away that a twenty something man is doing something that they could do as a young child but couldn't do as an adult, something that they assumed was easier for women.

If women have any gymnastic advantage over men it is about grace, not flexibility or basic ability to do the move in question.

I'm sorry you have been subjected to that. Was trying to keep to the original question in this particular response but yes, that aspect of this thread was particularly unsavoury.