Hi Elle. I also appreciate that you take the time to respond thoughtfully.

Yes, we clearly need different terms now for “sex” and “gender”: sex is reproductive biology; but gender? Why do we want to create categories? Labels? Why can’t someone just be them?

On sex, I agree with you. Still the term is clinically useful, as long as we are mindful that people can have variations. In statistical terms, “male” and “female” are clusters: there is a very prominent mean among the various traits (statistical dimensions) of what constitute “male” or “female”. But some people can fall far from either mean, such as the chromosomal phenomena you mentioned. And if someone loses a reproductive organ, they are still close to “male” or “female” in the other traits (dimensions): their hormones, the vestiges of their organs, their chromosomes, etc. — and yes, their brain structures.

On gender, again I agree with you! I think the labels “man” and “woman” are unnecessary. Why put a label on someone? We are who we are?

And that is the core of my argument: that trans people feel compelled to claim a particular gender. Why not just be them?

I contend that most people do not feel that necessity.

You wrote, “I like to be called Elle, and I like to be referred to as a woman…the struggle of being a transgender woman and I am prepared to not be perceived as a woman by those people.”

I added emphasis to your words “like” and “struggle”. There is emotion there — there is angst in “struggle”. I contend that lots of people (most? — I don’t know) who feel like they have internal traits of the other gender — e.g., a man who prefers “warm light colors” — do not feel that angst. They just feel “I should have been born a woman”, and that is the end of it. There is no struggle, no disharmony.

I think those who care about you will listen to your struggle, and have compassion. I have a compulsion: I pick my fingers. I know that is on a different scale than your struggle, but the root cause might not be that different. What if it were similar? What if you could feel “I feel like a woman, but my biology is male” and be okay with that? The fact that you suffer is a sign of something more — just as I suffer in a small way when I resist picking my fingers. (By the analogy, I do not mean to trivialize your situation.)

I think the chance of being accepted as “trans” is higher if the trans community would stop claiming that a trans woman “is a woman”, and instead claim that a trans woman is a human male (is close to the statistical cluster of male traits, particularly the visible ones) who feels stress about it (we all feel stress of some kind), and whose stress is alleviated by claiming a non-male gender. In simple terms (for the average person), a trans woman is then simply “a man who identifies as a woman”.

Non-trans people reject the seemingly aggressive assertion of trans women that they are women: hence the bathroom issues, etc. In the other cultures you mention, they did not do that: e.g., you explained that the American “Indians” used the term “two-spirit”.

It is all so complicated! We need to simplify it for people: the idea that a trans woman is just “a man who feels like a woman” is simple and easier for people to swallow than a trans woman is actually a woman — despite the fact that they have male stature and strength, reproductive organs, hormones, voice, a large face, etc.

I wish you also a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Safe, and Accepted New Year — as you are! — because you are you the way you are, and you are fine the way you are!