Arguments & Refutations

Okay, I said I wouldn’t argue, but old habits die hard I guess. I’m not unaware of the fact that there is an endless supply of inflammatory rhetoric around trans people being blasted at our faces 24/7 by those who have a vested interest in exploiting a vulnerable out-group to their own benefit. It’s not hard to imagine someone who has only heard the constant stream of misinformation coming from major news sources with not a single voice to the contrary, so I guess that’s what I’m trying to do here. However, when I got to like nineteen pages of this thing I decided I should boil it down to some bullet points and include links to the resources I read about it for you to read at your discretion.

Glossary of common terms

I’m admittedly in social circles where all these terms are well-known, so I don’t want to risk a miscommunication by obfuscating what I mean with acronyms and jargon. Here are some common definitions used when talking about this topic.

Sex (biological)
Biological sex is a label assigned by a medical professional at birth based on physical characteristics (genitalia) and other biological determinants. (American Society for Reproductive Medicine) [1]
Gender
The male sex or the female sex, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones, or one of a range of other identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female. (Oxford)
Cisgender
Often truncated to “cis”. Denoting or relating to a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex registered for them at birth; not transgender. (Oxford)
Transgender
Often truncated to “trans”. Denoting or relating to a person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth. (Oxford)

Claim 1: “Sex = Gender/Sex is immutable”

I can sense that there are people I have already lost with my first two definitions, so I’ll start there, because to have a productive discussion, we will have to agree, at least superficially, on these definitions.

Broadly, sex is a set of biological traits commonly associated with “male” and “female.” The oft-repeated cliche is that there are only two biological sexes in humans. This is factually incorrect. People are born every day that exhibit characteristics which do not fall cleanly into those two narrow categories. As many as 1-2 in every 100 people are born exhibiting sex characteristics that don’t cleanly follow a male and female dichotomy. These people exhibit variation in characteristics including genitalia, chromosomes, hormones, and physical features. If you want to know more, the healthline article link has a list of the different kinds of characteristics intersex people often have.

[2][3]

With that in mind, sex is better described as a “bimodal distribution.” This is a term in statistics which describes a curve with two distinct peaks. For example, here is a graph of average heights in men and women:

[4]

Notice the significant overlap between taller women and shorter men. One couldn’t say that, because a man is too short, he is then a woman. While the prevalence of intersex people is less common than shorter-than-average men (probably, I didn’t actually check), it can’t be said that, because they exhibit one kind of trait associated with “male”, that their traits which do not fall squarely into that category should not be taken into consideration.

As opposed to sex, gender has less to do with biology and more to do with social roles and internal sense of identity. These traits vary across cultures, over time, and from person to person. For this part I really recommend you watch the Youtube video, “Social Constructs (or, “What is a Woman, Really?)” from PhilosophyTube.[5]

If you’re having trouble relating to this, I have a thought exercise that might help. Imagine you are in a car accident and a blow to the head puts you in a coma. Tragic I know, but never fear: a revolutionary medical technique allows a doctor to transfer your consciousness into a machine, perhaps a robot. You wake up inside of a robot body. Are you a man or a woman?

Your answer probably aligns with the gender commonly associated with the sex characteristics you were born with. But if sex and gender are the same, now that you are in a robot, you are neither a man nor a woman, but something else. If it was you in this scenario, would that feel right to you? That amorphous, disembodied feeling of “being a man” or “being a woman” is part of your gender identity.[6]

Now imagine that same scenario, but instead of a robot, your consciousness is transferred into the body of someone of the opposite sex. Say you were assigned male at birth, but you wake up in the body of a woman. Now are you a man, or a woman? Will you right away want to wear women’s clothes, makeup, go into the womens’ bathroom, or do you feel that would make you uncomfortable? Don’t imagine dealing with it for a day, anyone can do that, imagine dealing with it for the rest of your life. Imagine the things you do to feel masculine, or to feel feminine, being suddenly activities that make people look at you funny, or tell you “that isn’t for you.” That feeling of discomfort is something that trans people grapple with much of their lives before they are able to transition. We refer to it as “gender dysphoria”, the feeling of discomfort when someone’s gender identity doesn’t align with the sex they were assigned at birth. This feeling is what trans people treat with gender affirming care.

Maybe, you say, well that doesn’t matter: my gender/sex is the one I was assigned at birth. Just because I woke up in a robot, or a woman’s body, doesn’t mean that I can change the sex I was assigned at birth. Well to this, first, I would say that under the right circumstances, that assignment is somewhat arbitrary. I urge you to read the article about intersex people and consider why or how a doctor would assign an intersex person “male” or “female.” Unfortunately, they often do, and perform non-essential surgeries on intersex children without consent (at a much higher frequency than transgender children receive gender-affirming care, more in section 3) which may lead to avoidable complications later in life. And second I would say there are a lot of things about “being a man” and “being a woman” which are built on top of biological sex, but which are not required parts of being a man or a woman.

2. “Trans-trenders/There weren’t trans people until (insert some recent year within living memory)”

There is sentiment among some that being transgender is some kind of trend or fad, or the consequence of some societal failure. Superficially, I can see how one draws this conclusion; the average person probably never interacted with a trans person in their life until recently, and those who did perhaps met only one or two. This can give someone the perception that transgender people are a recent phenomenon. There are a few angles to look at this from to discover why it is misguided:

A. There are several cultures who have and do recognize gender expressions beyond man and woman. Multiple American Indigenous cultures recognize a “two spirit” identity, and indigenous Hawaiian has a similar concept. There are cultures across southeast asia whose cultures had intersex, non-binary and transgender identities as a normal part of life. This is largely being suppressed as colonial cultures such as our own enforce their own ideas of male and female onto other cultures.[7]
B. Trans people were not always called transgender, and were not always recognized as such by those unfamiliar with queer culture/history. They were sometimes recognized as effeminate men or masculine women, a phenomenon that gave rise to modern Drag culture. There was even a Roman emperor who insisted upon dressing as and being addressed as a woman.
C. Trans people face an immense amount of social pressure to not transition or to hide their identity, even today. Historically this could be a death sentence, and even until very recently was a surefire way to be shunned by your community in all aspects of life. This pressure led most people to internalize a lot of that pressure and intentionally suppress their identity to fit in more seamlessly. The reason it may seem that recently there are a lot more trans people is that only recently has it been socially acceptable anywhere to be transgender. Now that there is a possibility of living a somewhat normal life as a transgender person, more people are inclined to live as themselves and not act their whole lives. There is an analogue in a famous graph of the instances of left-handedness in a population. In the early 20th century there was a strong stigma against being left handed. Those who preferred to write with their left hand were forcefully, often violently made to write with their right hand. As this practice fell in popularity, there appeared to be a gradual increase in the number of left-handed people. What actually happened wasn’t that some social phenomenon caused more and more people to become left handed, but the social pressure to be right handed decreased, and the population represents that.[8]
D. The sad reality is that trans people have a dramatically higher rate of suicide than cisgender people due to aforementioned social pressure and difficulty accessing resources and opportunities. I won’t post the statistics here but you can look it up. The bright side is that gender affirming care dramatically reduces the rate of suicide and ideation. In an NIH study done in 2020 surveying 288 transgender people, 73.3% had a record of suicidal ideation. After receiving gender affirming care, that number reduced to 43.4%. Among those who had made an attempt (35.8%), the sample set who had received gender-affirming care had an attempt rate of 9.4%. That is still alarmingly high for any population, but it is a healthy decrease. It could be decreased further by more consistent access to resources, more education, and less divisive rhetoric from those of certain political affiliations.[9]

This is all a very long winded way to say: trans people have always existed, they’ve been misdiagnosed, killed or forced into hiding, and now that there is a concerted cultural push to allow transgender people to exist, more transgender people appear to exist.

3. “Gender reassignment surgery on minors”

This one really ticks me off, because this simply does not happen. Harvard released a study exactly a year ago at time of writing that found that no gender-affirming surgical procedures were done to patients under 12 in 2019, and for the 15-17 demographic, the rate was 2 per 100,000. A majority of these were breast reductions. Out of all breast reduction surgeries for patients under 17, the study found that 97% of them were done on cisgender males (people assigned male at birth who are not transgender).[10] If you have heard certain pundits standing on their soap boxes saying that we need to stop these evil doctors “mutilating the genitals” of minors, they are doing it to get a rise out of you. This is not happening, and no gender-affirming surgery is done at nearly the rate at which genital surgery is performed on intersex children. Something I won't get too deep into, but I think is really worth pondering, is this question: if there are only two natural, biological sexes, why are so many surgeries done in the persuit of making someones' sexual traits fall in line with what is expected?[11]

More information on intersex people: [1] [2]

4. “Detransitioners/What if you regret it?”

This is another imaginary problem, or is at the very least being exaggerated to misinform people. In a study by the National Institute of Health, out of 7928 patients surveyed, 77 of them - less than one percent - expressed some form of regret surrounding the surgery. For comparison about 20% of people who get knee replacement surgery express regret. The reason for this discrepancy is largely because it is extremely difficult to get access to gender-affirming surgery; when one needs a knee replacement, there are few people standing in the way of their access to that. But depending on the state you live in, to receive gender-affirming surgical procedures, you may need recommendations from doctors, psychiatrists and therapists, as well as a certain amount of time spent on HRT or other forms of gender-affirming care, and possibly other barriers including personal bias before any doctor will consider recommending, or even allowing, this kind of procedure.[12]

As for detransitioning and regrets surrounding HRT, a comprehensive study by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that around 8% of transgender respondents at some point in their life de-transitioned, meaning they returned to living as the gender they were assigned at birth. Of that 8%, almost all cited external pressure from loved ones, religious institutions, difficulty getting work, or lack of consistent access to gender-affirming care as their reason for detransitioning. Of this small percentage, most continued their transition at a later point in life when their circumstances were different.[13]

5. “Women’s sports”

I’ll start this by saying what really matters: this is a wedge issue. It is a non-issue being peddled by people who want nothing but your attention and your rage, both of which they stand to gain quite a bit of money and power from, and they use it to get their foot in the door, rhetorically speaking, to your beliefs.

First of all, out of 510,000 athletes in the NCAA, fewer than ten were transgender. That’s less than 0.002%. Looking the demographics of Olympian athletes, that number falls to less than 0.001%. Ask yourself, why would legislators and activists be so up in arms about a demographic that makes up less than 0.002% of the athletes they claim to be so worried about? And then ask, well, if they are worried about womens’ sports, why is more money not allocated to womens’ sports? Do you think any of the legislators who are pushing this rhetoric even watch womens’ sports?

Second, the line that is being peddled, that “biological men” have an inherent advantage in sports, is inaccurate. A 2021 study did not find evidence that the biological advantages transgender women (whose hormone levels were within female range) were assumed to have were substantial enough to warrant their exclusion from sports entirely. A more recent study done in 2024 found that transgender women were actually at a disadvantage in some categories on average.[14][15]

Third: let us assume, falsely, but for the sake of argument, that the small number of transgender women competing in womens’ sports is having a noticeable impact on their performance. For what other biological category do we exclude people from participating in sports? In Volleyball, height is the most important factor affecting a player’s potential. This is true in basketball as well to a lesser extent. But do we segregate volleyball and basketball into “Over 6 feet” and “Under 6 feet” categories? No, we divide it by sex. In volleyball, if the sport were to be integrated, women would probably not dominate the wing-spiker position, as that is a position which requires a lot of acute strength. But liberos are famously short and nimble. Setters don’t often require as much muscle density as the wing spiker. And there are women wing spikers who would perform well in mens’ sports. This is not to say that the higher muscle and bone density of an adult man does not give him a leg-up on many women in sports, but I believe that the discrepancy is pretty over-stated. We have decided upon a line which must not be crossed, for what reason? The answer to that is the subject of entire bodies of feminist literature that I am not smart enough to synthesize or summarize, but it’s a good question. I am not saying that women do not deserve a protected sports category, but oftentimes it appears that the reasoning for this decision is not so much protection as it is segregation. Like, honestly, why is golf sex segregated? That is not even a real sport. That is a glorified board game. I’m getting off track now.

6. “Pretenders in women’s bathrooms/other comparisons to predatory behavior”

This study is the best resource I found for this section, I recommend you read it as it contains very topical information regarding the current administration’s recent actions: [16]

This claim is another one that is dissuaded by a few seconds of critical thinking. First of all, harming somebody in a restroom, or anywhere, is already illegal. Do you think that the thing stopping men with ill intent from entering womens’ bathrooms to assault them is a sign? That they’re not wearing a dress? You might say oh, if it is obvious a man is going into a bathroom, somebody will stop them. But you run into a problem with this: you are now putting it upon men, often strangers, to police who they deem feminine enough to enter a woman’s restroom. And they’re going to get it wrong. A cisgender woman working at a Walmart in Florida was threatened by a man for entering the woman’s bathroom, and for some inexplicable reason she was fired. Legislation and social enforcement that targets trans women entering restrooms hurts all women.

If you’re worried about people assaulting women, you should perhaps be more focused on legislation that introduces better systems of accountability for cisgender men. A transgender woman who assaults someone may end up on the news because that is in line with a narrative, and is noteworthy for being unusual, but consider all the assaults perpetrated by cisgender men that are not reported on or even prosecuted because that is simply the status quo. Transgender people are actually more likely to be the victims of domestic violence than cis women.

If somebody has fallen for the rhetoric about transgender women or drag queens exhibiting predatory behavior, this also is a smokescreen to mask the actual perpetrators of child abuse. Children are most likely to be harmed or assaulted by members of their immediate family, overwhelmingly the cisgender men in their lives. Over half of child abuse is done at the hands of the victim’s father. “Transgender stranger” does not even make it into the data because immediate relatives overwhelmingly make up this demographic. If you want to protect children, the type of legislation you should be advocating for isn’t that which restricts the rights of transgender people, but that introduces systems of accountability for parents, something deeply lacking in the U.S..[17][18][19]

7. “What is a woman?”

This is kind of tangential, but the discussion around gender identity brings into question the oft-repeated “what is a woman?” thought-terminating cliche. As a thought experiment, let’s walk down this path by examining some common lines which are drawn, where people point and say “this side is a woman, that side is a man”.

a. XX Chromosomes
I’ve mentioned intersex people multiple times prior. Some people who are assigned female at birth have XY chromosomes, some have XXY chromosomes. Already, if you choose this feature to demarcate who is a woman and who is not, you are excluding a large number of women who have been women from birth.
b. Birthgiving capability
If this is the line you draw, you are excluding girls who have not had puberty, menopausal women, women who have had their uterus removed for one of many reasons, women who, due to health complications, have been advised not to attempt childbirth, women who have lost child-bearing abilities due to complications in childbirth - you get the picture. Not a good metric.
c. Appearance
A common line is “we can always tell.” There are two problems with this. First: no you can’t. Look up actress Hunter Schaefer or musician Ethel Cain. Second: if you choose this metric, you are going to exclude a large number of women who, to you, appear masculine, be it because of facial features, dress, or what have you, but may not have been anything other than a woman their whole lives. This is becoming a problem when cisgender people who think they know better police women who look too masculine for their taste from entering womens’ bathrooms and spaces. If the metric you’re using is “who I think is a woman,” you are taking away agency over identity from all women, not just transgender women.

These are all the ones I can think of and this is becoming a dang essay so I’m just gonna call it there. If you think of any more, do not pose them to me; research using actual academic and medical resources, not news outlets and entertainers. Sorry if this reads a bit jaded, but it is more important than ever to be informed about stuff like this.

Bibliography

I'm aware that it's kind of silly to have an actual bibliography in this kind of thing but it is useful for linking a lot of sources, which I have done. So. If you're interested here it is.

1. American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Just the facts - biological sex

2. Planned Parenthood, What is intersex?

3. Healthline, Exploring the Spectrum of Intersex Variations

4. Geeksforgeeks, Bimodal Distributions

5. Philosophytube, Social Constructs (or, “What is a Woman, Really?)

6. Mari Mikkola, Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender

7. ACLU Ohio, Transgender People Have Always Existed

8. Julia Serano, Transgender Agendas, Social Contagion, Peer Pressure, and Prevalence

9. Maucevic, Adler, Suicide-Related Outcomes Following Gender-Affirming Treatment: A Review

10. Maya Brownstein, Gender-affirming surgeries rarely performed on transgender youth

11. Valentine Hallard, Intersex Bodies, Surgery, and the Pursuit of “Normality”

12. Bustos et. al.,Regret after Gender-affirmation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence