I agree with you. Trans activism states that self-identification is all that one needs to be trans. What I think people struggle with here is nuance. One can be part of a group seen as marginalized, yet still do something that would be considered immoral. Even trans activists have failed to see this, as they reject the Club Q shooting suspect's claim of being non-binary. I wrote about it here:
I think you are making an error in positing a strict binary, "trans people are either trans or not". I would recommend Kathleen Stock on this topic, it really benefits from a rigorous philosophical approach. What does "really trans" mean here? If the only answer you'll allow as satisfying this is "trans is just an adjective like in 'tall women' or 'thin women'", skip the rest and simply note my agreement with your point.
Every sane person will admit that sex is real, and not dependent on self-declaration or identity. But I'm sympathetic to the argument that given enough medical intervention (think bottom surgery, hormones etc.), it is possible to functionally change sex. So even in terms of prisons, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to distinguish between a post-op trans woman and biological females.
The question is, what about trans women with a penis? Stock's point, with which I agree, is that saying they are simply "women" is a kind of useful societal fiction. If it doesn't hurt anyone, and greatly improves someones life, there is a moral imperative to treat them as they want to be treated; that doesn't mean you agree in principle that the presence of a penis or vagina is inherently irrelevant for the category "women". Which gives you a straightforward case for legal protection from discrimination etc. And of course, gender dysphoria is real and further bolsters that case, since it raises the harm of not adhering to their preferences.
However, in that view treating someone as their identified gender is still fundamentally a courtesy. A required courtesy in most cases, but a courtesy nonetheless. This doesn't mean denying that they are "really trans", which I would merely take to mean they really, truly, honestly identify as their chosen gender. But it does give you some leeway to abandon that fiction when the benefits no longer outweigh the harms, as for the "penised individual who raped a woman". Sure, that person will still feel better when treated as a woman, but other women (and especially the victim, who might have some understandably conflicted feelings about the perpetrator) might feel worse at the forced inclusion of a raping penis amongst them, if only linguistically included. It also simply makes activism against sexual assault easier and more forceful if you don't need to hedge your words at all times; the threat of rape for women (trans and cis alike) almost exclusively comes from "people with a penis", and replacing that construction with "men" makes for better and clearer campaigns. Insisting that a person with a penis who doesn't identify as a man is a woman seems to have a negative benefit/cost tradeoff in some edge cases, which I imagine is what sets off people like JKR in those cases, since it values the concerns of some people with a penis higher than those of some people with a vagina.
Can this view be described as believing trans women aren't really trans? It's not "trans women are women", but I would say it's "trans women are trans women". Which should in most cases be taken to just mean "women", but not as a dogma that supercedes all other considerations. And in my opinion that is a perfectly consistent view that simultaneously acknowledges that people can be "really trans", at least in my interpretation of that word.
Trans isn't fake (insofar as it is a demonstrable historical phenomenon), but it is massively and systemically pushed because it serves a number of interests for the ruling class. Every trans person represents hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pills, surgeries, and procedures for their pharmaceutical interests; their commercial interests are equally well-served by someone who is constantly affirming their gender identity to themselves. It's deliberately aimed at the youth in order to depress birthrates (allowing insecure people to trade their fertility for very valuable social capital), and that's why the rate of young people identifying as trans in recent years has increased at such an increasing rate. Most importantly are both the transhumanist connotations, and the control over discourse that it facilitates: the more ambiguous terms like "woman" become, the easier it becomes to play along the ideological fault lines to prevent the peasants from realizing how badly they're getting bent over. One of the few places that psychiatric evaluation has in the developing mind are addressing these concerns: allowing a judgement-free zone for young people to become who they truly are.
Trans is a privilege. Trans is the privilege of having the rest of your society deny what they understand to be reality (men are born with penises, women with vaginas) in order to allow you to feel more comfortable within your own skin. This is a courtesy extended by a decadent society of high-empathy, respectful individuals who largely acknowledge that the mental health challenges associated with gender dysphoria are not something that should be pointlessly and frivolously antagonized, but they ultimately understand that they are lying to you in order to make you feel more comfortable. Your right to deny the reality of your birth is abruptly terminated when you decide to violate the laws of the society that tolerates your delusional world-view. This is not complicated: you go to the gender commensurate with the genitals you had when you were born. People like Christian Chandler make a mockery of the justice system, of femininity, and of the trans rights struggle. Ad-seg exists in male prisons if you truly think that your gender is going to make you a target, but if you think that you'll be a target if you're sent to prison... Maybe factor that into the mental calculus you do prior to commission of a crime.
Interesting piece - and one I fully agree with personally.
You say that a "clearly defined choice has to be made". I believe this is the core of the problem. The transgender movement cannot define itself, it cannot seem to define "trans" and it cannot even define a "woman" or a "man" (Ground Magazine did a great job on this: https://ground-magazine.com/08-07-2020-at-1205/). Without clear definitions, female prisoners are at the mercy of biologically male sex offenders, which is a crime in itself!
Now, if saying that makes people transphobic, then we'll never get to have an actual debate on this matter and that's the problem. We must find a solution for trans women (and trans men) that doesn't infringe on other people's rights, and we need to do so fast. Legal self ID is on its way (it has already been approved in Scotland) and I'm afraid that this will only make matters worse: https://twoplustwo.substack.com/p/i-identify-therefore-i-am-the-illusion
I agree with you. Trans activism states that self-identification is all that one needs to be trans. What I think people struggle with here is nuance. One can be part of a group seen as marginalized, yet still do something that would be considered immoral. Even trans activists have failed to see this, as they reject the Club Q shooting suspect's claim of being non-binary. I wrote about it here:
https://societystandpoint.substack.com/p/the-court-system-is-not-non-binary
Both sides of this culture war would be helped by nuance.
I think you are making an error in positing a strict binary, "trans people are either trans or not". I would recommend Kathleen Stock on this topic, it really benefits from a rigorous philosophical approach. What does "really trans" mean here? If the only answer you'll allow as satisfying this is "trans is just an adjective like in 'tall women' or 'thin women'", skip the rest and simply note my agreement with your point.
Every sane person will admit that sex is real, and not dependent on self-declaration or identity. But I'm sympathetic to the argument that given enough medical intervention (think bottom surgery, hormones etc.), it is possible to functionally change sex. So even in terms of prisons, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to distinguish between a post-op trans woman and biological females.
The question is, what about trans women with a penis? Stock's point, with which I agree, is that saying they are simply "women" is a kind of useful societal fiction. If it doesn't hurt anyone, and greatly improves someones life, there is a moral imperative to treat them as they want to be treated; that doesn't mean you agree in principle that the presence of a penis or vagina is inherently irrelevant for the category "women". Which gives you a straightforward case for legal protection from discrimination etc. And of course, gender dysphoria is real and further bolsters that case, since it raises the harm of not adhering to their preferences.
However, in that view treating someone as their identified gender is still fundamentally a courtesy. A required courtesy in most cases, but a courtesy nonetheless. This doesn't mean denying that they are "really trans", which I would merely take to mean they really, truly, honestly identify as their chosen gender. But it does give you some leeway to abandon that fiction when the benefits no longer outweigh the harms, as for the "penised individual who raped a woman". Sure, that person will still feel better when treated as a woman, but other women (and especially the victim, who might have some understandably conflicted feelings about the perpetrator) might feel worse at the forced inclusion of a raping penis amongst them, if only linguistically included. It also simply makes activism against sexual assault easier and more forceful if you don't need to hedge your words at all times; the threat of rape for women (trans and cis alike) almost exclusively comes from "people with a penis", and replacing that construction with "men" makes for better and clearer campaigns. Insisting that a person with a penis who doesn't identify as a man is a woman seems to have a negative benefit/cost tradeoff in some edge cases, which I imagine is what sets off people like JKR in those cases, since it values the concerns of some people with a penis higher than those of some people with a vagina.
Can this view be described as believing trans women aren't really trans? It's not "trans women are women", but I would say it's "trans women are trans women". Which should in most cases be taken to just mean "women", but not as a dogma that supercedes all other considerations. And in my opinion that is a perfectly consistent view that simultaneously acknowledges that people can be "really trans", at least in my interpretation of that word.
Trans isn't fake (insofar as it is a demonstrable historical phenomenon), but it is massively and systemically pushed because it serves a number of interests for the ruling class. Every trans person represents hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pills, surgeries, and procedures for their pharmaceutical interests; their commercial interests are equally well-served by someone who is constantly affirming their gender identity to themselves. It's deliberately aimed at the youth in order to depress birthrates (allowing insecure people to trade their fertility for very valuable social capital), and that's why the rate of young people identifying as trans in recent years has increased at such an increasing rate. Most importantly are both the transhumanist connotations, and the control over discourse that it facilitates: the more ambiguous terms like "woman" become, the easier it becomes to play along the ideological fault lines to prevent the peasants from realizing how badly they're getting bent over. One of the few places that psychiatric evaluation has in the developing mind are addressing these concerns: allowing a judgement-free zone for young people to become who they truly are.
Trans is a privilege. Trans is the privilege of having the rest of your society deny what they understand to be reality (men are born with penises, women with vaginas) in order to allow you to feel more comfortable within your own skin. This is a courtesy extended by a decadent society of high-empathy, respectful individuals who largely acknowledge that the mental health challenges associated with gender dysphoria are not something that should be pointlessly and frivolously antagonized, but they ultimately understand that they are lying to you in order to make you feel more comfortable. Your right to deny the reality of your birth is abruptly terminated when you decide to violate the laws of the society that tolerates your delusional world-view. This is not complicated: you go to the gender commensurate with the genitals you had when you were born. People like Christian Chandler make a mockery of the justice system, of femininity, and of the trans rights struggle. Ad-seg exists in male prisons if you truly think that your gender is going to make you a target, but if you think that you'll be a target if you're sent to prison... Maybe factor that into the mental calculus you do prior to commission of a crime.
EULOGIA
Interesting piece - and one I fully agree with personally.
You say that a "clearly defined choice has to be made". I believe this is the core of the problem. The transgender movement cannot define itself, it cannot seem to define "trans" and it cannot even define a "woman" or a "man" (Ground Magazine did a great job on this: https://ground-magazine.com/08-07-2020-at-1205/). Without clear definitions, female prisoners are at the mercy of biologically male sex offenders, which is a crime in itself!
Now, if saying that makes people transphobic, then we'll never get to have an actual debate on this matter and that's the problem. We must find a solution for trans women (and trans men) that doesn't infringe on other people's rights, and we need to do so fast. Legal self ID is on its way (it has already been approved in Scotland) and I'm afraid that this will only make matters worse: https://twoplustwo.substack.com/p/i-identify-therefore-i-am-the-illusion