transphobes spread the lie that trans people believe sex (as in genitals etc, not the act) isn’t real because it helps them paint our community as delusional & inherently anti-science. the reality is that people in our community have different & nuanced ideas about sex. (thread)

we sometimes say “gender and sex aren’t the same thing” to explain the basics of being trans. cis people turned this into “well you might *identify as* your gender, but your body is still male/female” implying that they’re the real deal while we merely *identify as* something.

cis people also identify as their gender but that’s nothing transphobes like to admit. they *just are* men or women because of their male or female sex, we can merely *identify as* men, women, nonbinary people. we’re not allowed to be real, we have to be delusional.

what I (1 trans individual, not the entire community) would say is that it fundamentally doesn’t make sense to say that I’m “a man in a female body”—it’s a contradiction, my body is mine and since I’m a man it’s a male body.

some trans people disagree with me. they say “I’m a trans woman/man/nonbinary but my sex is male/female” and like, fine, you do you. their choice. but lots of trans people feel pressured to do so because society is cisnormative & it’s often safer to conform to cis expectations.

there’s also money to be made for people who belong to minority groups but just say what people of the majority like to hear. some build entire careers out of this, whether they truly believe what they say or not.

what I and many other trans people propose is finding words for the concept of sex that don’t inherently misgender trans people and don’t imply that sex is binary. intersex people exist too & they’re as natural as any perisex person.

saying that we can’t change what these concepts are called is an attempt to preserve cisnormativity, to say “okay fiiine, maybe trans women are women or whatever, but they’re still male tho. and menstruating & giving birth and all of that is still 100% a female thing”

they’re trying to hang on to the idea that trans people are abnormal, that we’re the deviation from the norm. when we rightfully recognise that the language for sex is often used to delegitimise & misgender us, it doesn’t mean we believe sex isn’t real.

this unwillingness to change language has real world consequences, such as medical discrimination. one example, trans men are likely to be denied reproductive healthcare because many of us pass as our gender, are seen as male, but “menstruating etc is 100% a female thing”

we could just use words without the gendered baggage, because we all know that male & female are words used for sex AND gender. many people who disagree with changing the language do so because they disagree that trans people could truly be who we say we are.

we can change language to fit the people & concepts it describes. we don’t have to cling to old categorisations just because “that’s how we’ve always done it”—but this conversation has too much nuance for transphobes, so they pretend trans people just don’t believe sex is real.

I want to end this thread by saying 1. these are just my own thoughts, not in any way what the entire trans community believes and 2. I might change my mind. I can learn new facts, gain a better understanding. I don’t believe I’m infallible or that my opinions are perfect.