Thread by @lakermayfield

Thanks for the question! As far as I can tell, a lot of what it means to be trans is not being discussed. And what is being discussed is mostly clownish, politicized, and unnecessarily divisive. I'll share what I think might be helpful. 🧵

https://twitter.com/telescopial_/status/1626091012719362052

For starters, I'll try to define what "being trans" means to me. In my view, a person is made up of two components: a body and a soul. The body has a sex, while the soul does not. The sex of the body is almost always male or female.

My understanding is that a very small percentage of people may be born with both male and female reproductive parts. But almost everyone has a body that is clearly male or clearly female. For the sake of simplicity, I will limit my discussion moving forward to these clear cases.

While the soul doesn't have a sex, it does have a personality and preferences. Sometimes the personality and preferences of a person are in harmony with the person's body. What I mean is that a person like this would feel at home in their body and not question it.

This is not to say that a person in harmony with their body wouldn't change a thing, but only that they can look at their body in the mirror and say, "Yeah. This is me."

I could be wrong, but as far as I can tell, most people are in harmony with their body in this sense. And as such, they don't feel a particular need to differentiate between the body and the soul. They might say, "I get that these are two different things, but it's all just me."

Part of my experience of "being trans" is that I don't recall ever feeling that my body is me. Instead, I've always felt that my body is an arbitrary avatar that I'm stuck with. And when I say "I'm" stuck with it, what I mean is that my soul is stuck with it. To me, I am my soul.

This alone, however, does not make me trans. What does make me trans is twofold:

1. My best guess at what kind of body might "feel like me."

2. How my personality and preferences correspond with society's different rules and rewards for males and females.

As for the first part, females have always just made sense to me. If I lived my entire life in the dark, suspended in gelatin or something, getting to observe the world through a video feed but having no idea what my body was like, I would be confident that my body was female.

So, I suspect the reason why my body has never "felt like me" is because my body is in fact male. Having a male body has never made sense to me. Even as a child before I was self-aware, it was hard to ever get comfortable because it felt like my penis and balls were in the way.

Add to this the second part. Namely, that my personality happens to be gentle and agreeable and I prefer cute and pretty things. These are qualities that societies generally reward in females, and at best tolerate in males. Often males are punished for exhibiting these qualities.

So, even if I were the only person in the world, I suspect that having a female body would "feel like me." But of course the world is full of people, and it turns out if my body were female, most people would reward me instead of punishing me for being the kind of soul that I am.

This leads me to define "being trans" as:

having a strong sense that your soul would feel at home if your body were the opposite sex.

Because, after all, home is a place where you feel comfortable and people treat you in a way that makes sense.

Now that I've defined what I'm talking about, I can start to discuss the differences between how society is approaching trans issues and how I think it would actually make sense to approach these issues.

First off, the language is a mess. For example, as a male who would prefer to be female, I should not be called a trans woman. I should be called a trans man, because that's the kind of man I am. Trans activists are using the exact opposite language from what would be helpful.

I'm a man because my body is male. My body will always be male, even if I take hormones and make surgical changes. Even though I don't like being a man, I'm stuck as one. While pretending to be a woman can be fun, saying that a man actually *is* a woman is harmfully delusional.

As an analogy, imagine a dwarf telling someone they don't like being short. Then imagine the other person saying, "Oh! That means you're tall!"

This is essentially the mindset that trans rights activists are pushing on society. It's a delusional solution to a very real problem.

And because the situation is heavily politicized, we have two main groups that are both seriously wrong:

On the left, we have people defending the delusional solution.

On the right, we have people denying that the problem is real.

I suppose it goes without saying that my suggestion is to recognize the problem and offer better solutions. As I've already mentioned, you can't really change someone's sex. All you can do is turn a male into an "altered male" and a female into an "altered female." But let's not.

Instead, we can address two major areas:

1. The ways in which a person can best take care of their natural body.

2. The ways in which we can change the unnecessary double standards that society has for males and females.

If a person is trans, I think the first thing they should do is eat healthy, exercise regularly, and get on a consistent sleep schedule.

If a person is not trans, they should do the same thing.

It's amazing how many problems this solves.

If you're a male who would prefer to be female, you'll likely feel best if you regularly remove the hair from your face and body. That's what I do, and it makes a big difference in my mood.

If you feel like it, you can paint your nails. You can wear a bit of makeup. Start small. See how it feels. If you're like me, you'll be happy if no one seems to care.

This is an area where trans activists strike me as toxic. The goal should be social integration, not dominance.

With that in mind, I highly recommend not caring about your pronouns. People have better things to think about than trying to remember the alternative pronouns that others prefer. If you insist on special pronouns and not being "misgendered," you're forfeiting your peace of mind.

One of the most important things for a trans person is that you're figuring out how to be the best version of what you are, and NOT pretending to be something other than what you are. For me, that means figuring out how to be the best version of a male who would rather be female.

Because I accept that my body is male, I can tell people that I've always felt I would rather be female. When I say that, the statement is grounded in reality and people can understand what I mean, even if they can't relate. With those who know me, I've found it's not a big deal.

On the other hand, if I were to tell people that I'm a woman, that would be a very big deal because it would mean that I was insane.

Getting back to the dwarf analogy, imagine if dwarves were going around with rainbow-colored hair, insisting frantically that they're 7 feet tall.

If that happened, the main result would be people getting annoyed as they start to wonder why dwarves are such aggressive lunatics.

Tragically, this is exactly what the current "trans rights" movement is doing to the public's perception of trans people. Because trans rights activists have rainbow-colored hair for no reason and are frantically insisting on claims that are observably untrue.

It's worth noting that there's nothing wrong with dying your hair in crazy colors. It can be fun. But when almost everyone in a particular group is doing it, it stops being an expression of individuality and becomes a signal of conformity. It's part of the trans activist uniform.

I find myself wondering what trans rights activists would be like if the movement were sane and constructive, as opposed to the wildly insane and toxic one we're actually getting. What would they look like? How would they behave and what would they want?

I admittedly don't know a lot of trans people, but the ones I do know are like me: They look normal. You wouldn't know we're trans unless we tell you. We also behave in a normal way. This is because, trans or not, it's common courtesy to respect your surroundings.

Every social situation exists within one or more cultures. And it's important to respect someone's culture, even if you disagree with it. What's arguably the craziest thing about trans activists is that they disrespect other people's cultures while demanding you respect theirs.

Clearly, they should not do that. No well-adjusted person would. But if you want well-adjusted leadership, you probably need reluctant leaders. Instead, the faces of the trans movement we're seeing are narcissists and sociopaths desperate for attention and social dominance.

Furthermore, I suspect that many of these people are not even trans. The colored hair, the facial piercings, the selfie videos, the aggressive attitudes, the lack of respect for other people's boundaries and cultures, all have nothing to do with being trans.

Yet those things are at the heart of the movement.

At its heart, the "trans" movement has nothing to do with being trans!

If I had to guess, I'd say that the idea of being trans must be attractive to many sociopaths and narcissists simply because it's an effective way to rock the boat and dominate your surroundings, while also feeling so special that the rules for everyone else don't apply to you.

If trans rights activism were actually about being trans, the whole idea would be to gradually eliminate some of the unnecessary sex-based double standards that do more harm than good. In other words, the goal would be to make the same rules apply to everyone.

It occurs to me that if the trans movement were sane, feminists would in many ways be its natural allies. Because the basic goal of a sane feminist or trans person is to create a culture in which males and females are treated equally, with the same rules, options, and rewards.

Equal treatment, however, does not mean pretending that males and females are the same. In a society with equal treatment, a man could wear a skirt in public and nobody would care. But that man could not use a women's restroom or locker room. This is because men are not women.

For what it's worth, I think public places should have one-person unisex bathrooms, and as many as necessary to accommodate the traffic of the space. It has always seemed crazy to me to have a line outside the men's room while there's an empty ladies' room a few feet away.

I think most people would agree that wanting private unisex restrooms and changing rooms is reasonable, whereas wanting men to use women's restrooms and changing rooms is unreasonable.

By being unreasonable, the current trans movement is making trans people seem like villains.

Of course, the biggest way the trans movement is acting like villains is by confusing and corrupting children. If children naturally have questions, that of course is fine. But otherwise, there's no reason for kids to even know that being trans is a thing. Just let them be kids!

I suppose this raises a question: If schools were truly progressive, as opposed to insane and evil masquerading as progressive, what would that look like?

In a nutshell, it would involve having the same standards for boys and girls while also recognizing what boys and girls are.

One thing I hated when I was a kid was when teachers gave two different assignments: one for girls and one for boys. I always wanted to do the girls' assignment because it seemed more fun.

That said, it's fine to have two different assignments as long as each kid gets to pick.

Imagine an assignment is to wear a pilgrim costume and give a presentation on what it's like to be a pilgrim. A little boy raises his hand and asks if he can give a presentation as a pilgrim girl.

When I was a kid, the answer would be, "No. Boys can only pretend to be boys."

A progressive and much better answer would be something like, "Sure. Feel free to get into character and be as creative as you want."

But in many schools today the answer is, "Oh my gosh, YES! This means you're LITERALLY a girl! Let's get you started on hormones RIGHT AWAY!"

It's striking to me how quickly we've gone from one bad answer to an opposite and infinitely worse answer.

It should be easy to just say that boys are boys and girls are girls, and regardless of which one you are, you can do what you want and like what you like.

Throughout history, societies have unnecessarily limited people's options based on sex. When I was a teenager, for example, my dad wouldn't let me leave the house wearing a pink hat. Thankfully, since then, it seems most people have become less narrow in their thinking.

If the trans movement were sane and actually about making life better for trans people, it would be focused on this type of harmless and incremental change:

Now boys can wear pink! 💗🥂🎉

You'll notice there's nothing absurd about a male or female wearing a particular color. No matter who you are, every color should be available to you.

What is absurd, however, is to say that a male can become a female simply by wishing it or presenting himself in a certain way.

As far as I know, we're the first society in history that has promulgated the idea that being male or female is a function of how a person feels, and that their DNA has nothing to say on the matter.

This absurd idea rejects our scientific shared reality at the most basic level.

The first time a friend referred to me as a trans woman, I was confused. And while I admit it was flattering, it was too silly for me to take seriously.

As I heard more people call men "trans women," and say that "trans women are women," I actually liked it because it was funny.

On International Women's Day, I posted a workout photo of myself looking particularly masculine. I ironically suggested the day was about me, with the hashtag #transwomenarewomen.

To this day, I think that's a funny joke. But I realized that people weren't taking it as a joke.

Until this moment, I had assumed the inherent absurdity of saying men are women was apparent to everyone. I guess I was projecting my own sanity and playfulness onto the situation.

In reality, some people were mad about this! And more surprisingly, others actually believed it!

When I heard someone like Daniel Radcliffe say that "trans women are women," I guess I took it to mean something like, "Pretending is fun. It's okay to pretend."

I was like, "Yes! I'm finally a woman!" But this was accompanied by, "We all know I'm not actually a woman, right?"

Absurdity is great for humor. And I love humor. But in order for it to work, people have to recognize that the absurd thing is in fact absurd.

To say that men become women and vice versa is SO absurd! And if everyone recognized the absurdity, it would actually be really fun!

I would love a society where a man could wear a gown to a party and be like, "I'm a woman tonight!" And if you asked him if he knows he's not really a woman, he would say, "Of course I know that. I'm not INSANE."

But our society ruins the joke. Because too many of us ARE insane.

And it's not just that a lot of people are insane, it's that a lot of POWERFUL people are insane. I've heard President Biden say unironically that trans women are women! I've seen men in his administration unironically call themselves women! The nuts have taken over the nuthouse.

How is it even possible for people to be so earnest about something so absurd?

The more I think about it, the more I start to wonder if they're trolling us.

The only reason I don't think they're trolling us is because they're involving children. They're systematically confusing kids and manipulating them into getting some really important body parts surgically removed. Whatever's happening is much heavier and darker than trolling.

Speaking of what they're doing to kids, the all-ages drag shows are completely inappropriate and have nothing to do with being trans. As I've said in other posts, males who are trans identify with females. We don't identify with drag queens. The drag scene is not a trans scene.

Come to think of it, there's no such thing as a "trans scene." The closest thing is when I hang out with female friends and effortlessly fit in as one of them. As a male who is truly trans, I don't naturally get along with other trans people. I naturally get along with females.

Indeed, for a male, I don't think it would be possible to be trans if you didn't have a natural empathy for females.

To me, this is a major area where the "trans" movement gives itself away: It actively ignores the safety and concerns of females! No trans person would do that!

As a man who is trans, I enjoy the platonic camaraderie of women the same way a woman would. But because I'm sane, I know I'm not a woman. So I would never use a women's restroom or locker room. It would be inappropriate! Women and girls deserve a comfortable and safe space!

Now contrast what I said with the "trans women" (men) who are trying to force themselves into female-only spaces: These people are so self-absorbed, they show no concern for the well-being of the females around them! This lack of female empathy suggests they are not really trans.

Instead, I suspect that many males who call themselves "trans" are actually acting out a fetish for crossdressing and role play. This would explain why they show no interest in integrating socially with females. Instead, they throw around their weight at the expense of females.

Let's use women's sports as an example. I would LOVE to play on a women's basketball team. This is largely because I would enjoy bonding with my teammates and feeling like "one of the girls." But it clearly wouldn't work unless every single one of them wanted me to be there.

So let's say I find a women-only basketball league that for some reason invites me to join. Just for fun, let's say it's the WNBA. Let's imagine that against all odds, everyone in the world is on board with me being the only man who gets to play in the WNBA. The way it should be!

Even in this ridiculously ideal hypothetical situation, I would *still* use a different locker room. Because a man does not belong in a women's locker room.

And it goes without saying that I would not be eligible to hold any records or win any awards. Because the sport is WOMEN'S basketball. Even if they were inclusive enough to let me play, those records and awards are for WOMEN.

So even in my ridiculous imaginary scenario, a man using women's locker rooms and breaking records and winning awards in women's sports is too ridiculous.

Yet these things are happening in reality!

As a trans person, I feel qualified to say with authority that this is insane.