I sent the following note to Juliet Jacques on April 4, 2021. Jacques is a transgender woman in England who wrote an article in the New York Times about a year ago, explaining why "transphobia" seemed to be on the rise in England, but less so in the United States. I believe it's on the rise in the U.S. too. I didn't receive a reply from her.
Dear Ms. Jacques:
I just read your article in the New York Times from March, 2020; and even though it is an old article, I nonetheless want to share my views with you. Just so you'll know who I am, I consider myself to be an anti-transgender activist, and I live in America. I don't consider myself to be against transgender people themselves, but against transgender ideology, which I consider to be illogical on many levels. I am also a gay man.
If transphobia, as you call it, is increasing, it may have something to do with the ideology that trans people are pushing. The ideology states that human beings essentially don't have a gender. Rather, we have a "sex" (expressed by our bodies) and a "gender identity" (expressed by our minds). It also says that our "gender identity" is our actual gender. Thus, I am not a man because I have a male body, but because I feel like a man (which I actually don't – I just feel like myself). You, in turn, are a woman because you feel like a woman, despite the fact that you have a (modified?) male body.
So here we have two obvious objections to transgender ideology. I, and many other people, object to having our gender redefined to mean "gender identity", and we are also skeptical that a woman with a male body can be a real woman. Our position is really quite logical. It seems to me that transgender people are treating the body as if it doesn't exist, yet human beings are physical creatures. What our bodies say about us is important.
In order to avoid the labels of "hater" and "bigot", so-called "cis" people are expected to accept transgender ideology lock, stock and barrel, and that too causes resentment. To me, the issue is just a matter of simple science: Human beings are animals; biologists categorize animals by their bodies; so humans must be categorized by our bodies too. Thus, I am a male because I have a male reproductive system, and for no other reason.
Don't get me wrong. In social situations, I always treat trans women with respect as the gender they feel to be. It's called being polite.
The specialized vocabulary of transgender people is also something that some "cis" people object to. Please don't tell us how to speak.
After ten years of reading about trans people, the inescapable conclusion is that they are obsessed with their gender. This is yet another reason to be skeptical of this redefinition of "gender" to mean "gender identity". Why should the very people who have a problem with their gender be the ones who get to define what "gender" means?
There is, in fact, a disingenuous aspect to transgender ideology. The basic tenets of it (described above) were devised to make transgender people feel normal and/or good about themselves. The result of that reasoning is this: "I feel like a woman, and that makes me a real woman, and that in turn gives me the right to enter into ALL single-sex spaces reserved for women." That reasoning doesn't work.
If, when transgender people burst into the news cycle about a decade ago, they hadn't brought with them their ready-made ideology, the reception to trans people might have been much more positive. There is only one rational position that trans women can take, and it goes something like this: "I am a biological man, but I feel like a woman, and I am trying to live my life as a woman. Please be considerate and treat me as a woman so that I can live my life as I choose."
That's the reality of the situation.
As far as women's sports are concerned, trans women as a group have all these advantages over natal women:
* they are taller
* they have greater body mass
* they have longer legs
* they have longer and thicker muscles
* they have thicker and stronger bones
* they can reach farther
* they have larger hands and stronger grips
* they have larger hearts that pump more blood
* they have larger lungs that take in more air
* they have narrower hips (which gives them an advantage when running)
Hormones do not remove all those advantages.
In closing, the answer to the obnoxious test that trans people are currently using – "A trans woman is a woman" – is "A trans woman is a trans woman". A human being with a male body cannot lay claim to the word "woman".
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