Our sex should obviously not be a major part of our lives outside of, like, medical things. But our society forces gender on us as a set of roles, expectations etc. to follow based on our sex. So, ideally, there would be no gender, right?
But trans people throughout history have wanted to present as the opposite gender. This is in addition to cis people who oppose their own gender’s roles and do the opposite things. But trans people, obviously, go much further than any cis person does.
Is this because trans people want to actually be the opposite sex and for a long time being the opposite gender was the only possible thing? But now thanks to medical advancements they can get closer to that goal than any other time?
Why is this? Is it something in the brain, like with gay people? So, can you do a brain scan to see if people are actually gay or trans? Would that even help? Actually, I can imagine it helping in an ideal world, but in our fascist reality that will probably just end up genociding people. So, uh, scrap that.
Any essential books for reading up on all this stuff? Thanks
These seem like good faith questions, I like it.First thing first, trans people don't need any justification for being trans, they can present how they want and need no one's permission. There's a lot to be said that physical sex is as much of a construction as gender. At least 1% of people are born intersex, not to mention the history of women athletes getting disqualified for high testosterone levels. Sex isn't even necessarily intrinsic to chromosomes, because your DNA changes over time and something like a bone marrow transplant can give you DNA of the opposite sex. There's also 46,XX/46,XY, a chimeric condition where an outwardly female seeming person will have ovaries, breasts, and a uterus, but has XY chromosomes. When you mention this kind of thing to reactionaries or terfs you'll often hear them say something like "that's a disorder" or "people aren't supposed to be born that way." Well ok, intersex people exist and we live in a reality with them. They're proof that physical sex isn't some absolute written into the laws of reality, but furthermore they're normal people who deserve acknowledgement.
Also it depends on the trans person. Not every trans person is in agreement on this stuff. Also, not every trans person wants to be the opposite gender, because many want to be neither, or both, or something else entirely.
i think the best thing to consider though is trans people are just people with their own experiences, they don't need any medical acknowledgement, and I've met some who felt uncomfortable pointing towards intersex people to help explaining gender, and I get that
Thanks!
Biology is complicated. I’m clearly not an expert so I appreciate all the information. So, trans is a broad category that includes all people who want to be another sex or gender than the one they’re assigned to. That’s really simple and I don’t know why I got confused about that.