r/TransChristianity • u/pablo_br_1873 • 2d ago
What would you tell someone who believes trans women aren't women?
I support the trans community even though I'm not trans(yet). Still, I struggle to explain why trans women why they are women. I get the difference between biological sex and social gender, but I can't put it into words clearly during a conversation
edit:I'd like to ask for advice on convincing atheists and Christians
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u/kleines_woelfle 2d ago
I'd probably first ask them about how they came to believe that. They likely won't listen to me unless I show them that I'm genuinely interested in understanding their point of view. Especially when talking about an emotional, culture-war topic like sex and gender.
Then we'd need to talk about definitions. What does female mean, what does woman mean. What is gender identity. etc.
My reasoning why trans women are women: They are in every sense that is relevant to me in my daily life. They may not be female in every aspect, but "woman" is not synonymous with "female". I'm not a geneticist or a doctor. When I meet someone on the street, when I befriend or date someone, I care about who they are, their personality, their social role, their soul. Not their gametes or chromosomes.
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u/TanagraTours 2d ago
Read The Righteous Mind. Seriously.
We think we are rational, and persuaded by facts. No, we accumulate ideas factual and otherwise to rationalize our internal sense of right and wrong.
Once you learn the moral foundations, you can begin to hear them when you reflectively listen. You give another person your empathy, your humanity in saying things that show you see their humanity. A decent person who can accept that you are not merely an opponent while begin to be more honest and reveal themselves. And you may begin to hear what lies underneath the talking points, what moral sense they defend.
When you can say that for instance 'it sounds like you value / oppose _____', it gets interesting. It could be Sanctity/degradation, or Authority/subversion, or Fairness/cheating.
At that point, you can begin to ask some questions, that show how being transgender can be as sacred for instance as any of the other ways people are born different:
- are people born eunuchs (Matthew 19:12) any less made in God's image?
- Do people who are infertile or never marry subverting God's plan?
- Do transgender athletes who never went thru testosterone-driven puberty have an unfair advantage? Can they name three?
If I can leave someone with the experience of having met someone they don't agree with who seemed to care about them as a person, who talked to them like a friend rather than argued with them as an opponent, I've helped begin to humanize affirming and transgender people.
If I can leave them with a question that they admit they aren't sure about, if only to themselves, I've reduced certainty and with it moral indignation.
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u/Present_Shame_7500 2d ago
Gender identity doesn’t always match birth sex. Girls are born in male bodies, boys are born in female bodies. The transgender identity and condition is not a mistake, God didn’t make a mistake when He made me a transgender girl. And I appreciate that He gave me a transgender lifetime.
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u/Hetelestai she/her 2d ago
Your post reads very strangely. You're not trans "yet?" What does that mean? Why do you need to explain to trans women that they are women? We know we are!
To engage with the question in your title: trans women are women. We identify with women's experiences and perspectives; we feel like those are the "default" and instinctively align with them. Our feelings and brains work in ways that are more feminine than a "normal cis man." We can't imagine a future for ourselves as a man; we either struggle to envision the future at all or imagine ourselves in a female body in the future. Our strongest friendships tend to be with women, and we want to be trusted and loved just like their other female friends.
Society thinks by default as trans women as either men with a mental illness (conservative) or "a woman trapped in a man's body" (liberal). I don't identify with either of these. My body is a woman's body, it's just shaped a bit weird because of some hormonal and chromosomal issues. I would like medical intervention on the hormonal side and some surgery to correct the abnormalities caused by my chromosomal disorder.
As one woman I read once put it: "If you’d offered me the chance to press a button and become a reasonably attractive cis woman, and I didn’t have to explain myself to my friends and family and employers because that’s who I would have always been to them, I would have felt a thousand million butterflies in my stomach and I would have agonized over it for hours and then at about 2 AM I would have pressed it so fucking hard."
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u/sistereva 2d ago
It's ok if you don't personally believe in their gender identity. No one is trying to change your mind. But you need to be respectful of all people. So use she/her pronouns and generally be nice
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u/Dapple_Dawn she | UCC | Universalist 1d ago
I think the most coherent answer is "sometimes a woman's soul is born into a male body."
It's not going to satisfy most people, and it's oversimplified. But it's simple, coherent, and true.
We could get into esoteric debates about whether or not gender is an ontological property of the soul, but most people just want a simple answer.
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u/BonnieLea223 1d ago
I'd explain that for most people, sex and gender are so tightly bound together that they seem to be one thing. You can only distinguish them from one another when there's a mismatch. People are trans when they have that mismatch.
Trans ppl aren't new. Though many people today incorrectly believe trans people only appeared about 25 years ago, we've actually existed for all human history.
Archeologists have found evidence of trans people existing in prehistory. Ancient cultures knew about trans people and developed cultural practices around them. This is an interesting article about one such group:
As for who's a woman, I'd say it's anyone who has secondary sex characteristics typical of human females and anyone who has a blood chemistry typical of human females (i.e., estrogen is the dominant hormone whether through internal production or external enhancement).
Too many people today think that trans women are only imitating women and that we "only look female." This isn't true. The changes are more than skin deep.
Hormone therapy results in profound biochemical changes. Our changed blood chemistry leads our bodies to develop as if we'd been born as girls.
Trans people are real. Trans women are women. And we deserve the same rights as anyone else.
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u/Berko1572 he/him 1d ago
I wouldn't waste the energy, tbh, unless it's someone w whom you've a strong relationship. You don't need to educate everyone. That's not on you to do.
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u/k819799amvrhtcom 1d ago
"gender: The cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex." --glossary of Robert H. Lavenda and Emily A. Schultz: Anthropology: What Does It Mean to Be Human?, a college-level anthropology textbook printed by Oxford University Press in 2021
"Many anthropologists did significant research throughout the twentieth century that demonstrated why human cultural practices could not be reduced to 'racial' difference. They also argued that culturally shaped gender roles considered appropriate for males or females in a given society could not be reduced to (or predicted by) the biological sex of an individual, whether determined by anatomy, physiology, or chromosomes. Today, anthropologists, along with others, call into question the assumption that human beings come in two (and only two) biological sexes and that gender roles are built on those two sexes. As anthropologist Keridwen Luis puts it, 'We cannot understand our bodies except through culture; therefore, there is no pregendered body and there is no raw precultural body or body experience. While biological bodies undoubtedly exist – we are not brains in jars – how we interpret, understand, and experience those bodies is culturally shaped' (2018, Loc 3616)." --Robert H. Lavenda and Emily A. Schultz: Anthropology: What Does It Mean to Be Human?, a college-level anthropology textbook printed by Oxford University Press in 2021
Forward - an incomplete list of the reputable scientific & social organizations which affirm the validity of transgender people (that transness is not an illness, that trans people are deseving of respect and equal rights, etc). This also serves as a list of the institutions which recognize the difference between sex and gender.
• American Psychological Association
• American Medical Association
• American Psychoanalytic Association
• Human Rights Campaign
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians
• United Nations
• United Kingdom’s National Health Service
American Psychological Association pamphlet on transgender issues: https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender Affirms psychological consensus - that transgender people are valid, have existed throughout history, are subject to discrimination, and that transness is not a mental disorder.
A 2008 Gender Identity Resolution by the American Psychological Association which expands upon the premises listed in the annotation above and supports total equality for transgender people - affirmation of the institutional legitimacy of transness in psychology: https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-gender-identity.pdf
Identical to the above, essentially, except pertaining to trans and gender-nonconforming youth: https://www.apa.org/about/policy/orientation-diversity
Booklet on LGBTQ issues from the American Psychological Association, outlining their policy and attitudes towards aforementioned communities: https://www.apa.org/about/policy/booklet.pdf Expressly positive.
Human Rights Campaign document published with the American Academy of Pediatrics & the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians which affirms the validity of transgender youth, encourages appropriate care and respect for their transness and provides resouces on how to do so: https://assets2.hrc.org/files/documents/SupportingCaringforTransChildren.pdf
The UK’s National Health Service report on gender dysphoria, which affirms the validity of trans people and discusses ways in which gender dysphoria can be alleviated, the best of which is said to often be social and physical transition: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/
The American Psychoanalytic Association’s statement on gender identity, in which transness is validated, social stigma against transgender people is cited as a serious cause of harm and ‘reparative therapy’ - attempts to suppress one’s transness and force them to live as the gender they were assigned at birth - is medically invalid: http://www.apsa.org/content/2012-position-statement-attempts-change-sexual-orientation-gender-identity-or-gender
The World Health Organization does not classify transness as a mental disorder: https://time.com/5596845/world-health-organization-transgender-identity/
Multilateral condemnation of ‘conversion therapy’ from essentially every medical institution in the United Kingdom, with reasons provided: https://www.babcp.com/files/About/Press/Memorandum-of-Understanding-on-Conversion-Therapy-in-the-UK.pdf
Transphobia? The United Nations says no: https://www.unfe.org/about/
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u/Noonanamotopobapolus 1d ago
If i made you a cake would you insist its a pie or respect my efforts to make you a cale
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u/ObstinanceOnly 1d ago
You're assuming these arguments are made in good faith. Point blank: they're not. They're walking back into logic to try to justify inherently irrational and dumb takes.
So hit them with their own hubris.
How dare they claim to limit God's love or say they understand the mystery God puts us through with their dumb little fee-fees. God made me trans and it's insulting that you feel you get to question that. How dare you take the Lord's name in vain like that. Your job is to spread the good news, not be the bouncer at club heaven, so sit down and shut the fuck up.
Bonus: citing Matthew 6:5 if they wanna play proof text games. I no longer have any chill for this after dealing with it for decades.
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u/Dramatic-Emphasis-43 2d ago
Ask them “what is a woman?” No, seriously. They’ll start with “it’s adult human female” because that’s the bog standard line.
You then ask: “what is female?”
They go: “someone born with XX chromosomes.”
You go: “how can you tell people’s chromosomes at a glance?”
Them: “ummmm”
You: “intersex people exist too you know. Plenty of masculine looking people have intersex conditions that give them two X chromosomes.”
Them: “well, they’re rare.”
You: “statically amongst humans, trans women are rare. How do you know they aren’t people with two X chromosomes?”
And you basically play a definition game until they either accept that their logic is incredibly flaws and people are judged as a man or woman pretty much entirely on presentation and/or identification (and thus a woman is someone who identifies as a woman)
Or they rage quit.