Following and building upon the thought of the previous article, there is a persistent confusion regarding transgenderism that is, oddly, invisible to many advocates of transgenderism. The confusion is that transgenderism in any way makes sense, that it is not simply the product of deeply held confusion.
In an attempt at making this simple: If a person has a penis, and having a penis doesn’t make this person a man, then having a vagina can’t make him a woman, and having a vagina is not what makes a woman a woman. Having a penis doesn't make a man any less a woman, and having a vagina doesn't make a woman any less a man.
That's the confusion. One need not read any further. According to transgenderism, no man or woman could ever even be identified as existing, either in the past, the present, or the future. All the properties of gender identification have been removed, and since none could ever be found, the ideas of man and woman are rendered empty sets.
In other words, if a biological male says his male biology doesn't determine his gender, then appropriating the female sex parts (or identifying with those who have them) won't and can’t help because the intrinsic connection is denied, according to their position, between sex and gender.
If femaleness doesn't come from female biology, then saying one is a woman can no longer mean anything. The word is totally emptied of content.
On the other hand, if one affirms the gender binary, then not even a sex change can address the problem. Clearly, sex change only changes the outer appearance, not the DNA. The sex organ is rendered no more than a tattoo, and just as a tattoo of a dragon on one's arm doesn't make one's arm a dragon, neither does surgically affixing/removing something to/from one's body make their whole person that something.
If having a penis doesn't make someone a man, then acquiring a vagina can't make him a woman, because the sex organ has been treated as non-determining. If the sex organ is determining, then the genetically produced organ that one is born with has already determined the case, and change is in principle impossible.
But if the sex organ is non-determining, then no amount of changing it will make the man into a woman.
What is more, if vaginas don’t make a woman a woman, then dresses don’t make a woman, either, nor does lipstick, sexy lingerie, nor does a lisp, nor any kind of vocal affectation, nor does anything. The notion of being a woman according to transgender ideology so empties the term of content that the very idea of a woman cannot even in principle point to anything. There is therefore according to this ideology zero justification for claiming that one “really is” some gender, some “other” gender, or any gender.
Further, it is the transgender person's own position which works against him in this case. It is the transgender who operates with the gender binary, who upholds and confirms the gender binary he seeks to deny. He needs the gender binary in order to make his claim, but this in the end shows how completely self-contradictory his position is.
The transgender man says he “really” is a woman. That's the gender binary at work. He is affirming that there is some reality called “woman.”
Now, at the same time, they're saying their sex doesn't determine their gender, but if their sex doesn't determine their gender, then not only are they reinforcing the gender binary, they are showing that changing to having female organs could in principle never make them females.
Once the cake is eaten, it can no longer be had, and so they cannot both have their cake and eat it, too.
They could not know that females are their real gender because females are only known through their biological sex identity. That's why it doesn't make sense. If the female organs don't determine their identity, then females cannot in principle ever even be identified in the world. But if they can be identified in the world, then gender is simply an extension of sex, and since sex is fixed from birth, gender “identity” is fixed from birth.
A woman with a vagina could say she “really is” a man, but how can we know she is a man without pointing to genitalia? How can she identify a man in the world except by pointing to his genitalia? Now, if pointing to her female genitalia proves nothing, then pointing to a man’s genitalia proves nothing. Saying one really is a man means nothing in this case because one only points out a man through reference to biology.
If gender identity has nothing to do with biological sex, then it bears no connection with maleness, femaleness, redness, greenness, or anything in the real world, only the world of opinion and imagination.
Though this suffers from the tedium of repetition, it seems that people are still genuinely confused about this, and hopefully this will at least give voice to a clarity whether the clarity is heeded or not.
-------------------
Update May 17, 2016
The argument that gender is merely a social construct that has no relation to biology so utterly trivializes the notions of male and female that they cease being meaningful referents.
Therefore, not the imposition onto the transgenderists of an alien belief system, it bears being emphasized that the beliefs and actions of the transgenderists are of themselves self-contradictory and ultimately self-defeating.
If a man believes that his genetic sex is non-determinative, then he has already made it impossible, according to the consequences of his own beliefs, to match his outside appearance with his inside feelings so as to appropriate the other gender. Why? Because he has already affirmed that his genetic sex does not determine his gender, therefore a vagina cannot make him a woman. Being a woman, according to his own belief, does not require a vagina. But if it does require biological femininity, then the fact that he is not biologically female seals the deal against him. Affirming the very thing he denies, that is why he is self-contradictory, and as such nothing is being ideologically imposed upon him except the consequence of his own ideas.
