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 NO. Neuroplasticity does NOT mean autistic brains can change and stop being autistic .

IT IS UTTERLY FUCKING OFFENSIVE to posit this. I mean, just how fucking dare you post this crap?

I am done trying to engage with you but if there are any lurkers, please go and read anything by Prof Simon Baren-Cohen’s research team at Oxford university to understand the neurological and organic nature of autism.

I am hiding this thread and will not engage any further with it, or this poster.

@Tandora can you please explain why you are putting the distress of trans women above mine?

People constantly use the fact that some people de-transition, or 'grow out' of their gender dysphoria in order to debunk what they call 'trans ideology', but one doesn't logically from the other - the same could be said for 'autism ideology'. We need to learn more about detransition certainly, but we cannot use it as a distraction/ deflection from the huge numbers of trans people for whom being trans is persistent and permanent..

No, we definitely can. Because once you take the drugs there IS no going back. You can't say 'for some people it is persistent and permanent and that's why we should remove someone's genitals' and then say 'well, for some it is permanent'. Because taking drugs that lead to sterilisation and mutilation IS permanent'.

There is no evidence that exists that isn't published or produced by biased sources that shows any evidence that treating a mental health distress by keeping children in a child like stasis for life, or removing genitals cures anything. The fact that even ONE detransitioner exists shows that the whole thing is flawed otherwise the safeguards to stop this would have worked.

Because then there might actually have been a ‘cure’ a clinical/medical route to ‘fixing’ it?

Why do you say this?

There is no cure for the vast majority of known neurodevelopmental conditions.

You can shout at me that I'm uninformed but I'm not. I'm a scientist who has dedicated decades of her life to studying this.

I understand you have your own personal experience and I am in no way trying to undermine or invalidate that, but there is a much larger picture here that incorporates the experiences of a significant minority of the population .

What of the men, including some very prominent trans activists, who have said that 'pornography made them trans', and who view femaleness almost exclusively through the lens of sexually reductive cliches and imagery?

Neuroplasticity does NOT mean autistic brains can change and stop being autistic .

But that's not what I said. it's really important to read my posts instead of just reacting and getting angry and shouting and swearing. Otherwise we just can't have a meaningful exchange.

@Tandora can you please tell me why you deem the distress of trans people more important than mine.

thank you.

So back up your expertise and tell me why you the great expert spent several threads just a few weeks ago berating us a stupid for not understanding that transness is a DSD and now you are claiming with equal certainty and nebulous claims of proof that it is a neuro diversion.

What great scientific developments have happened in the last few weeks to prompt your change of position?

But there isn’t. There is only patience, therapy and a long term approach to supporting young people into finding a way to integrate their sense of self with the material reality of their actual sexed body.

Even if we use this NHS definition for Neurodevelopmental disorder:

"Neurodevelopmental disorders are conditions that affect the development of brain function. They range from mild impairments, allowing those affected to live fairly normal lives, to severe disorders that require lifelong care.

Examples of neurodevelopmental disorders include attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conduct disorders, cerebral palsy, and impairments in speech and language."

And agree that there is no medical cure for many of these conditions, you are still left with patience, therapy, and a long term approach to supporting people to live in the world as it is.

Obviously accommodations should be made, but we can't fundamentally change the world to create the impression that the disorder doesn't exist.

You are conflating the fact that those on the autistic spectrum are far more prone to devloping trans identities, with the idea that this identity is itself a neurodevelopmental condition. It isn't. An identity is socially and psychologically constructed.

And how would the idea that transness is down to neurological patterning explain those many thousands, and growing, who have detransitioned and come out the other side - and have spoken of their susceptibility to social and familial messages about what it means to be male or female?

How does the significant number of children who are in care but identifying as trans fit into that theory? Or the significant number who have a sex offender for a parent?

Or the groups of children who all 'come out' at the same time? Entire friendship groups. Seventy in one year, in a school in Brighton, iirc.

Trans people aren't asking you to "change the world" - that's moral panic. They are just asking you to accept the fact that they are trans and make basic accommodations sensitive to that difference so that they can be included in society. The way we do for people in wheelchairs etc.

your lack of empathy, something you are constantly demanding women show to "transppl", is simply staggering

@CautiousLurker01 has described their own situation at great upset to themself and because it does not accord with your view you tell them to basically "calm down dear"

this is why despite your obvious passion you do not persuade. You are incapable of empathising or understanding why so many women here feel as they do. Treatment of @Taztoy is a case of point. You cannot justify why her trauma doesn't matter but a man's does so you just ignore her posts

@Tandora can you please explain why you deem the distress of trans individuals more important than mine.

thank you.

What do you mean by 'moral panic'?

What do you say to women and girls who say NO we do not want biological men however they present or identify, and regardless of what pieces of paper they have in our single sex spaces and categories?

Just quoting this in case it's missed by @Tandora.

The way we do for people in wheelchairs etc.

So reasonable accommodation - additional unisex facilities where possible and acceptance of the need for sex based rights and that sex exists. Problem solved!

Couldn't quite work that one out either. My objection to the phrase 'trans women are women' is the same as my objection to the phrase 'Paris, Texas is in France'.

@Tandora just in case you missed this.

YOU said that transwomen recognise/ understand themselves to be female. Based on the definitions for recognise/ understanding oneself, this means they are making category errors - they are not female, if they were they would not be trans. Cognitive pathways do not come into it.

You seem to be suggesting that trans people are not distressed by their natal sex but other people knowing their natal sex.

The only way that your argument makes any sex is by redefining sex to relate to something other than reproductive systems. Even if you do this, and adopt a more cognitively based definition, sex as originally understood still exists. Well over 90% of people will be fertile at one phase of their life and over 99% of people can be accurately sexed by looking at their genitals.

Why don’t you just make a case for why transwomen are male but should be exempt from being grouped with other males? Your arguments would be more sound.

You're saying that everybody should pretend they're the opposite sex and cede all that sexes right to them.

Of course that's changing the bloody world. It's pretending that sex isn't immutable.

but more than that, you're ignoring the fact that there is no evidence to say it's a neurological development condition. You're ignoring all the fetishists. You're ignoring all the social contagion.

And you're ignoring women. The sex who is meant to suffer to accommodate these men.

I was recently reading a strip called "Dykes to Watch Out For. It's basically a historical record of Alison Bechdel's time in Minneapolis/St. Paul and her experience with the lesbian community there. The main character Lois works in Madwimmin Books, a lesbian bookstore based on the first US lesbian bookstore Amazon Bookstore Cooperative (founded long before Bozos' behemoth)

What's amazing is she presents a contemporaneous account of how this started WAAAY back in 1994.

Mo is organizing a event for a local lesbian writers' goup - Mo is a serious minded feminist, whereas Lois is a hip, sex-positive, 'third wave' lesbian activist.

We'll see if MN allows me to post an image of the strip.

i didn't say "calm down dear". I said it's important to read my posts instead of reacting , getting angry and swearing.

Do you want to have a conversation or a mud slinging match where you accuse me of being a dreadful human? Because if the latter, this really isn't a valuable use of my time.

This.

additional unisex facilities. Open categories in sport as well as single sex categories which are based on biological sex.

Rather than the removal of single sex spaces and the inclusion of biological males in women's sports.

That way everyone gets their needs met without the erosion of sex based rights. But for some reason it doesn't seem to be an acceptable solution.