Originally a comment by J.A. on A set of contingencies that can be played with.

You mean that if I really, really, really, love my velveteen rabbit enough that someday it will really will become real?

That said, the story of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams is a classic and deservedly so, because it shows how human love and affection can be imparted to what is an inanimate object in a fictional tale, and it’s impossible to read that story to a child without there being a bit of a tear in one’s own eye. We humans are capable of feeling affection for animate beings like puppies and kittens and by extension their inanimate imitations.

Children though don’t then believe that veleveteen rabbits really do become real. They do however understand the fictional truth of the story of how the velveteen rabbit has a happy life with the boy until it is discarded and to be burnt (which is truly a horrible end) and then have the velveeteen rabbit saved by magic because of the love the boy had for it as a toy. That by magic it then becomes a real rabbit makes for a very happy ending.

Now getting back to my first sentence and why fantasizing about changing sex doesn’t actually change sex, to cut to the chase it’s about making a category error where wishes are held to be actual fishes. While one can certainly pretend to be something they’re not, or mimic it to the extent they appear to be something they’re not, they still aren’t the sex they’re not because reality isn’t a fiction and philosophers as well as scientists tend to be a bit tetchy about such things. Q.E.D.