Author: mxquestionmark

I'm a nonbinary analytic philosopher in the United States.

Q: If we allow trans women into bathrooms, locker rooms, rape shelters, and prisons reserved for women, aren’t we just opening the door to predatory men?

A: Claims like this are anti-trans propaganda: The “bathroom debate” in the media is a relatively recent political tactic, and these claims falsely assume that trans women haven’t already been using women’s bathrooms the whole time. 

Trans women are not men, and there is no evidence to support the claim that trans women are likely to be sexual predators. The idea that being trans is a sexual fetish or perversion is a harmful and completely inaccurate stereotype. Trans women just want to pee in peace. 

But if we allow trans women to use women’s bathrooms, wouldn’t predatory cis men take advantage of the situation by pretending to be trans women? 

Why would they need to? There’s no good reason to think predatory cis men would be discouraged by laws or rules prohibiting trans women from women’s bathrooms. (Many multi-stall public bathrooms don’t have locks, and there’s no magic force field that repels men.) 

Overall, there’s no evidence that allowing trans women into women’s bathrooms leads to an increase of sexual violence in those settings.

Just as importantly, keeping trans women out of women’s spaces puts them at risk.

In general, trans people (especially trans women of color) are particularly vulnerable to violence (including sexual violence, domestic violence, and assault and murder) and to poverty and homelessness. 

Bathrooms and locker rooms: Not allowing trans people to use the facilities where they feel most comfortable makes them vulnerable: They might risk outing themselves, which can lead to stigmatization and violence; or they might be forced to be subjected to unnecessary dysphoria, to risk medical problems (by avoiding using the bathroom), and/or not to participate in certain activities (for instance, a trans student who feels unsafe using the bathroom at their school might skip classes to avoid this conflict). 

Shelters: Shelters are an important resource for vulnerable people, and it’s important for vulnerable people to be able to access them safely. 

Of 27,715 respondents to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey,

  • 12 percent had been homeless in the past year, and of those, 26 percent avoided staying in homeless shelters because they feared they would be mistreated as a transgender person. 
  • Of those who had stayed in a shelter in the past year, 70 percent reported some form of mistreatment, such as being forced out, harassed, or attacked because of being transgender.

Jails and prisons: This is a complicated issue, but it’s pretty common knowledge that a lot of violence happens in prisons, perpetrated by both inmates and officers. Trans women are much more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of such violence, and this is exacerbated when they are incarcerated in men’s facilities, where their nonconformity is more apparent. 

Of the two percent of survey respondents who had been incarcerated in the past year,

  • 20 percent reported being sexually assaulted by facility staff or other inmates. This rate was five to six times higher than the rates reported by the U.S. incarcerated population overall. 

Further reading

Q: Is being trans some kind of new trend?

A: The short answer is no. Trans people have probably been around for as long as civilization has been around. 

We do have records about the lives of specific trans people historically. 

For instance:

  • Osh-Tisch was a 17th-century Crow warrior who fought against European invaders and whose gender was baté, which is variously described as transfeminine, nonbinary, or two-spirit.
  • The Chevalier d’Eon was an 18th-Century French diplomat, spy, and Freemason who lived as a man for 49 years (during which they infiltrated the Russian court of Empress Elizabeth by cross-dressing), then lived as a woman for 33 years.
  • Posthumous DNA evidence suggests that General Casimir Pulaski, known as the “Father of the American Cavalry,” may have been trans and/or intersex.
  • The Public Universal Friend was a preacher who founded a Quaker Society, identified as “genderless,” and was referred to by followers as “the Friend” in place of gendered pronouns.
  • Dr. James Barry was a closeted trans man born around 1789 in Cork, Ireland. Barry was a military surgeon who lived as a man for his entire adult life until his death in 1865. 
  • Private Albert Cashier was an Irish-American trans man who served as a Union soldier during the Civil War. Though historians speculate that he originally presented as male in order to enlist, he lived as a man for his entire adult life.
  • Mary Jones was a black trans woman who worked as a sex worker in New York City in the early 19th century. She was sentenced to five years in Sing-Sing prison for ‘crossdressing’ after being vilified in the media for being trans. 
  • We’wha was an artist from the Zuni tribe who lived in New Mexico during the second half of the 19th century, and witnessed the European colonization of the West. Her life was governed by a completely different set of gender concepts from ours; the name for her gender role was lhamana, which is a kind of two-spirit. 
  • Lucy Hicks Anderson, born in 1866 in Waddy, Kentucky, was a black trans woman who lived as female from an early age. She sold prohibition liquor and ran a brothel. She was arrested and jailed for perjury for identifying as a woman on her marriage certificate. 
  • Jack Bee Garland was a trans man who worked as a reporter, cabin boy on a troop transport ship, interpreter and nurse for the US military, and later performed charitable work with the American Red Cross. He was discovered to be trans after his death.
  • Dr. Alan Hart was a closeted trans man who transitioned socially and medically in the late 1910s and lived as a man until his death in 1962. He was a radiologist and epidemiologist who (among other significant accomplishments) conducted groundbreaking research on X-ray screening for tuberculosis. 
  • In 1930, Lili Elbe was among the first trans women to undergo medical transition. 
  • Sir Lady Java was a trans activist, exotic dancer, singer, comedienne, and actress. When she performed in the late 1960s in Los Angeles, it was illegal to engage in the “impersonation by means of costume or dress a person of the opposite sex.” She sued the city over this discriminatory law and lost, but the law was later overturned.
  • Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were trans women of color who are often credited with being the first brick-throwers at the Stonewall Riots in 1969. They were activists who later founded an organization called STAR, which provided community support and shelter for trans people in New York City.
  • Tracey Norman was a black trans woman who modeled for Clairol in the 1970s while closeted, but could no longer find work as a model after she was forcibly outed as trans. 
  • Lou Sullivan was one of the first openly gay trans men. He was an American activist who lobbied for recognition of gay trans men, in addition to outreach work with trans men, writing and editing literature for and about gay and trans people, and other activist work. He died of AIDS-related complications in 1991.
  • Willmer “Little Ax” Broadnax, born in 1916, was a gospel singer and closeted trans man who lived as a man for his entire adult life until his death in 1992. 
  • Robert Eads was a trans man who was born in the 1940s and medically transitioned in the 1980s. He passed away in 1999 due to complications from ovarian cancer because doctors refused to treat a trans patient.
  • Leslie Feinberg was a gender nonconforming novelist. In 1993, zie published Stone Butch Blues, which “is widely considered…to be a groundbreaking work about the complexities of gender.”

These are just a few examples.

Public protests by trans and LGB people predate the 1969 Stonewall Riots and include a 1965 sit-in at a Philly coffee shop that refused to serve people who ‘looked homosexual’ or gender nonconforming, and the Compton Cafeteria Riots in 1966.

And there wasn’t always an LGBT community or movement: During much of the 20th century, trans people were systematically excluded and erased even by LGB people campaigning for their own rights.

Some cultures have traditionally accepted or at least acknowledged gender nonconformity.

For instance: 

  • ‘Two-spirit’ is an umbrella term for nonbinary genders which are associated with some Indigenous North American cultures. Some of these cultures also have more specific terminology for trans identities and/or non-normative gender roles in their native languages. 
  • ‘Māhū’ is a traditional Hawai’ian word used along the lines of ‘transgender’ or ‘third gender.’ 
  • ‘Hijra’ is a Hindustani word for a particular nonbinary gender role, variously translated along the lines of ‘transgender,’ ‘third gender,’ or ‘intersex.’ 
  • ‘Muxe’ is a third gender category in Zapotec cultures of Oaxaca, Mexico. The word is used along the lines of ‘trans’ or ‘nonbinary.’ 
  • ‘Fa’afafine’ is a Samoan third gender category; they embody both masculine and feminine cultural roles. 
  • Traditional Jewish culture and religion sometimes recognizes a number of gender/sex categories, including ‘Androgynos’ (along the lines of ‘intersex’) and ‘Tumtum’ (someone “whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscured”).
  • Various cultures have terms for a third gender category that’s not exactly equivalent to ‘trans woman,’ ‘drag queen,’ ‘effeminate man,’ or ‘gay man,’ but may overlap with any of the above; including ‘Kathoey’ in Thailand, ‘Waria’ in Indonesia, and ‘Femminiello’ in traditional Neapolitan culture. 

The existence of such concepts does not necessarily mean that gender nonconforming people of these cultures do not face discrimination or stigmatization.

The Nazis destroyed a library of scientific and medical research about trans people. 

There was a significant movement for LGBT liberation in Europe in the 1920s, which was quashed by the Third Reich. The Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexuality Research) was a progressive organization in Berlin which included a physical library of research and records regarding trans and LGB people. In 1933, the Institute was tragically destroyed by a mob of Nazi book-burners. In other words, the Nazis successfully suppressed not only LGBT individuals, but also empirical information about trans and LGB people which might have prevented decades of misunderstanding and stigmatization. 

Gender nonconformity is/was taboo, and often punishable by law. 

In cultures where gender nonconformity is suppressed, people can’t be openly nonconforming, so of course you don’t hear about them as often. It isn’t just Nazis: Many societies, including some U.S. states, still punish gender nonconformity via (for starters) laws against homosexuality, medical transition, and crossdressing; laws that restrict legal identification (legal name and gender marker); defining being trans as a mental illness or disorder; and not actively prohibiting discrimination or violence toward gender nonconforming people. 

As a result of such policies and practices, many people who might have considered themselves trans today were forced to remain closeted and/or were described as crossdressers or homosexuals. For instance, there’s a long history of women crossdressing or otherwise presenting as men in order to participate in activities from which women were forbidden. Famous examples include the following: 

While some of these ‘crossdressing women’ were undoubtedly women who simply wanted the same opportunities and advantages allowed to men in their societies, it’s quite possible that some of them were actually trans. In most cases, it’s probably impossible to tell for sure, since the terms and concepts we use to describe trans experiences today had not yet been developed. 

Further reading

Q: You can’t measure gender identity, so why think it’s real?

A: What is gender identity? An individual’s gender identity is how they think of their own relationship to gender, including their assigned sex at birth; their body; their gender expression or presentation (like wearing a dress or makeup, having short hair, or using soap that smells like sandalwood); and gender roles and expectations in their culture, community, or society (like the stereotype that men are rational and women are emotional). It’s part of their self-conception, like thinking of yourself as a Christian, a citizen, or a philosopher: Someone else might not know that you identify in these ways by looking at you, and they might define these concepts differently than you do. It’s built into the definition of gender identity that it is self-identified. The term ‘gender identity’ is sometimes attributed to psychologist John Money in his 1969 book Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment.

Lots of psychological phenomena are real even though they’re vague and difficult to quantify: emotions, desire, faith, degrees of certainty or confidence, mental illnesses and disorders, love and attraction, ethical values. Like gender identity, these phenomena can’t be measured directly in practice, so in order to measure them indirectly, we rely heavily on how individuals report their own experiences. What I tell you gives you generally reliable information about what I’m thinking and feeling. By listening to individuals’ self-reports, we learn something about their internal mental lives, which helps us to predict the effects that certain psychological phenomena (like their self-conception, emotions, or confidence) might have on their behaviors and interactions with others. 

In psychology, researchers and clinicians use coding to pick out common elements of patients’ observed behaviors and self-reports, then develop scales to measure and assess the relevant phenomena (e.g. gender dysphoria) at the individual and general levels. As in the natural sciences, social scientists and medical professionals are always trying to improve the accuracy of the methods used to measure the phenomena they’re interested in. 

Further reading

Q: Why are trans people so angry?

A: Trans people are angry, sad, and afraid because we’re subject to (for starters) erasure, gaslighting, microaggressions, misgendering, familial estrangement, harassment, relationship abuse, corrective rape, coercive conversion therapy, assault, murder, sex trafficking, dysphoria, mental illness, suicide, workplace discrimination, poverty and homelessness, police brutality, civic disenfranchisement, performative allyship, barriers to health care, and on top of all that, TERFs on Twitter telling us we’re lying for attention. Wouldn’t you be angry?

Note: The trans community is diverse and intersectional. Trans people are exponentially more at risk of being the targets of violence and aggression if they’re POC, undocumented, disabled, autistic, and/or LGBQ. Statistically, trans women of color are the most at risk. 

Further reading

Q: Is “cis” a slur?

A: What is a slur? I’ll list some plausible criteria, all of which a term has to meet in order to count as a slur:

  1. Slurs apply to people based on their identity (or perceived identity) as part or a particular social group (e.g. a gender, orientation, race, or ethnicity).
  2. Slurs apply specifically to groups that are systematically marginalized.
  3. Slurs are derogatory: Their use carries negative connotations about the subject.
  4. Slurs have neutral counterparts which convey the same information without being derogatory.
  5. It’s wrong to use slurs.

Now that we have a working definition of a slur, let’s consider whether “cis” (or “cisgender”) meets those criteria.  

First off, cis people aren’t systematically marginalized in our society; they have social and political privilege. “Cis” is already a neutral term, and there is no concise neutral alternative that would convey the same meaning. It’s also descriptive and not derogatory. Use of the term developed as a linguistic way of normalizing trans identities. It’s derived from the Latin prefix “cis-” meaning “on the same side.” It is the grammatical opposite of “transgender,” which is derived from the Latin prefix “trans-” meaning “across.” In short, a trans person is someone whose gender does not match the gender they were designated at birth, whereas a cis person’s gender does match the gender they were designated at birth.

It’s not wrong to use the word “cis” because the word has a clear, neutral, and academic purpose; it fills a conceptual gap in our language. Given (4), slurs have no purpose other than to (at best) demean and marginalize the subject.

But what about people who say things like “die cis scum”? Isn’t that derogatory? Sure, but think about it: “Cis” is the only part of that sentence that’s not derogatory. Substitute any neutral descriptive word for a social identity– trans, white, liberal, capitalist, Marxist, Canadian, etc.– and you’ll see that putting the word in a sentence whose overall meaning is derogatory does not automatically make the word itself derogatory.

Further reading

Q: Is “TERF” a slur?

A: What is a slur? I’ll list some plausible criteria, all of which a term has to meet in order to count as a slur:

  1. Slurs apply to people based on their identity (or perceived identity) as part or a particular social group (e.g. a gender, orientation, race, or ethnicity).
  2. Slurs apply specifically to groups that are systematically marginalized.
  3. Slurs are derogatory: Their use carries negative connotations about the subject.
  4. Slurs have neutral counterparts which convey the same information without being derogatory.
  5. It’s wrong to use slurs.

Now that we have a working definition of a slur, let’s consider whether “TERF” meets those criteria.  

First off, “TERF” is not a subjective identity term like “trans,” “gay,” or “woman.” Trans people and allies generally use the word “TERF” to refer to people who identify as radical feminists (radfems) and openly consider trans identities to be invalid.

TERFs would probably argue that “TERF” is a slur against women– meaning, on their account, cis women. This is simply inaccurate: The term doesn’t apply only to cis women, since, for instance, some cis men are trans-antagonistic feminists; and it doesn’t apply to all cis women. It was introduced to draw a distinction among radfems, with cis women on both sides of the line. Furthermore, while we can all agree that (cis) women are systematically marginalized because (cis) men have social and political privilege over them, cis women nonetheless have similar privilege over trans women.

Is “TERF” a derogatory term? People who use “TERF” to describe others generally think it’s a bad thing to be, but it’s not wrong to derogate things that are in fact bad. Many TERFs are actively hostile toward trans people and perpetuate views that lead to misunderstanding, injustice, and violence toward trans people. In other words, if trans people are hateful or contemptuous of TERFs, it’s for the same reason TERFs are contemptuous of men: Who wouldn’t be contemptuous of people who constantly hurt them, suppress their voices, and deny them agency?

We can add that it isn’t wrong to use the word “TERF” for the same reason it isn’t wrong to use “transphobe,” “homophobe,” “racist,” etc.: Even if these are derogatory, they’re punching up, and their purpose is to name an injustice in order to draw attention to and ultimately eradicate it. They give systematically marginalized people a way to explain and communicate their experiences. Given (4), slurs have no purpose other than to (at best) demean and marginalize the subject.

Further reading

Q: Can’t I say “normal” instead of saying “cis”?

A: Cis people aren’t merely “normal” because this language is stigmatizing and insulting to trans people, implying that we’re abnormal. The normal/abnormal distinction in reference to people has strong connotations: that being normal is desirable, while being abnormal is vicious and reprehensible. By implicitly perpetuating the view that being trans is somehow morally wrong and/or dangerous, this language contributes to misunderstanding, injustice, and violence toward trans people. Socially, it’s often a slippery slope from calling a group of people “abnormal” to calling them things like “freaks,” “perverts,” and “monsters.” (Saying cis people are normal is also insulting to cis people: Who says you have to be boring and ordinary just because you’re not trans?)

The cis/trans (etc.) distinction, on the other hand, is unbiased and scientifically legitimate. The terminal goal in using language that doesn’t privilege anyone is to eliminate cis people’s social and political privilege, and thus to put trans and cis people on equal footing.

So the word “cis” has a clear, neutral, and academic purpose; it fills a conceptual gap in our language. In other words, “cis” in the context of gender is analogous to “heterosexual” in the context of sexual orientation: It means something specific, and it’s not pejorative toward either those who do fall into the domain it picks out or those who don’t.

In our society, everyone is assumed to be cis unless and until they indicate otherwise, and this social fact is built into the concept “cis.” Accordingly, unlike words that refer to specific gender identities (like “man,” “woman,” “agender,” “genderqueer,” etc.), “cis” isn’t a term with which you have to identify in order for it to be accurately applied to you.

Q: Are trans people just making up silly words for their gender identities?

A: All words are made up, but they’re made up for a reason. Language is constantly changing and evolving in association with culture: Grammatical rules change, the meanings of existing words change (e.g. gay, queer, Democrat, Republican), and new words are made up in order to articulate concepts that exist and have reason to be articulated. It’s not the concepts that are made up. There are lots of gender identity labels because there are lots of gender identities. Trans and nonbinary people aren’t making up identities, just filling in a gap in our language.

Many of the concepts that describe the experiences of trans people are not part of the collective understanding of our society or milieu. As a result, when we try to describe our experiences, we are often written off as unintelligible, irrational, or outright insane. When we acquire the language to accurately articulate our own experiences as pertain to gender, and to communicate them to others, it gives us agency over those experiences.

This is why you’re seeing a lot of new words for gender identities. But if these identities have existed for a long time, then why are the words just now becoming part of our language? Apart from the general cultural taboo, part of the reason we don’t hear about very many trans people historically is that other concepts were used to describe trans identities: At best, transmasculine people were called lesbians or tomboys; transfemmes were called homosexuals or crossdressers; or they were just “different.” (Of course, cis lesbians, gender nonconforming cis women, gay cis men, and crossdressing cis men still exist– We just have more categories now.)

Why should you care about using, or engaging with, this language?

Further reading