Some people are trans

When Sophie-Grace Chapell was four, she told her mother she wanted to dress female for school. Her mother asked, “Why?” She said, “I just want to”. Aged 57, I can’t come up with a better answer. Later, having read about George in The Famous Five, she wanted to know what word like “Tom-boy” described her, but her question was “met with a nasty silence”.

Prof Chappell tells that story in her book Trans Figured- On being transgender in a cisgender world. I got the kindle sample. I am not certain I will get the book. I like her work- here she is, introducing Philippa Foot– but I find being transgender in a cisgender world really scary right now, and it has been getting scarier for years. Don’t read the bad experiences when you are not feeling confident: we imagine ourselves in that situation, and feel the pain.

I love Abigail Thorn’s work too, and her dramatic scene of meeting her younger, pre-transition self is beautiful and moving, and I want every cis person in Britain to watch it, but in that video she explains the term “Abjectification” which I find completely terrifying. It means turning people into Unpersons, whose feelings and needs do not matter, often by casting us as a threat to the community.

What makes someone a woman? For JK Rowling, what makes her a woman is the fact that she produces large gametes in reproduction. But women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome are women too. They have a Y chromosome, and testicles, but AIS means they do not develop a penis. What makes them a woman? A medical decision, confirmed by law. Without any medical tests, the midwife would look between the legs and say “It’s a girl”, and nobody would notice anything different until the child did not have a normal puberty. Now, there are such tests, and those who have made the decision consider it is better for such children to be assigned female, brought up as girls, and given medical treatment including hormones and removal of the testicles so that they can function in society as women.

The law calls them women because the law has to call them male or female- that some be assigned Other is officially Unthinkable. Actually, the abolition of sex as a legal category might have some advantages.

What could make me a woman? In English Law, the Gender Recognition Act does. We need a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” from a psychiatrist on an official list, even though that is no longer a medical diagnosis under the International Classification of Diseases. In Ireland, France, Germany, Spain and other countries, as enjoined by the European Convention on Human Rights, people can get gender recognition without needing a diagnosis. They self-declare.

The Equality Act says trans women should be treated as women, from the moment we decide to transition, with tightly-regulated exceptions. If I am treated as a woman, that makes me one: the treatment is “performative”, in Judith Butler’s sense. She does not mean that my gender is a “performance”- there is no ideal “I” underneath my actions, performing. I am just being me, in this society.

What, separate from law and society, makes me a woman? I want to be a woman and want to be seen as a woman. I want to move through society as a woman. Powerful, well-funded voices say I should not, and challenge me. AIS women are simply assumed to be women, but I am commanded to prove myself.

Why am I a trans woman? It might be something in my mind or soul, my brain or genes. It might be capable of being found, or not. It might be a cast-iron cause, or a propensity. There are more visible trans people now because for a time there was greater trans acceptance, just as there were more visible left handed people once schools stopped forcing children to write with their right hands. To say we have a gender identity, or are trapped in the other sex’s body, is not an explanation, leave alone a cause. It just says we are trans in different words.

Anti-trans campaigners claim the cause is autogynephilia (AGP) which is an alleged sexual perversion. Positing a cause people find disgusting makes trans people disgusting in their minds. I find the hypothesis ridiculous. I really tried not to be trans. I couldn’t, though people still suffer, too terrified to transition. Therefore we should not be ashamed. The shame tortures trans people, and benefits nobody.

As a queer person, I don’t think queer people fully understand what it is like to be straight even though we are surrounded by the poor dears- their experience is fundamentally unknowable.

At various points, I have realised that facts don’t matter, because however many facts you command you will not convince someone who does not want to hear. Possibly, by saying what you feel, you might touch someone’s heart. That’s different from what I was taught as a child- facts are rational and important and feelings are subjective and valueless. So it still feels a desperate act, the last thing I have to try, to say what I feel.

Some people are trans. You either accept that fact or you don’t. So many people just not accepting the fact, or that the fact matters, or claiming we are a threat, is really really scary. Transition gave me Trans Joy, being with other trans does now, I will always be trans and can’t imagine reverting however scary it gets. This is who we are.