The one thing we do not debate
A Stonewall spokesperson said: “It is not true that Stonewall looks to shut down debate. Meaningful, constructive debate and discussion around complex policy ideas are at the heart of what we do as a charity. The one thing we do not debate is whether trans people exist. They do, and what we need to discuss is how to make a world where all LGBTQ+ are free to be themselves.”
Even if it’s true that Stonewall doesn’t look to shut down debate, it sure as hell does muddy it. That spokesperson spokement is some very wet sloppy mud.
Nobody is saying “trans people don’t exist.” That’s not the issue at all. We all know there are plenty of people – who exist – who say they are trans. Of course we know that, we see them saying it every day. The issue is what that means, and whether or not it’s true, and what implications it has for everyone else.
We don’t dispute or “debate” that some people say they are trans. We dispute the claim that saying you are sex X or Y means you are that sex. We dispute the idea that declaration supersedes physical reality. We dispute the magic-like belief that words=a change of sex.
We also dispute the claim that it’s possible to change sex. We may agree that people can perform or “live as” the sex opposite their own, but we don’t agree that that makes them the sex opposite their own in every sense, and that not believing that claim is the height of evil and violence.
But of course Stonewall doesn’t want to put it that way, because then the fantasy becomes all too obvious. It has to pretend that we’re skeptical of existence as opposed to attributes. It’s all a big tedious lie.
As for “a world where all LGBTQ+ are free to be themselves” – the whole point is that they want to be not-themselves – they want to be other people’s selves. They want to pretend to be the sex of other people and to force everyone to endorse their fiction. That’s not a reasonable demand. We get to debate the fuck out of it.
If the definition of trans is “anyone that says that he or she is trans” (like the Stonewall definition of “woman”, “man”, and the other genders that they claim exist), then sure, trans people exist.
Otherwise? Nope.
But I think that Stonewall wouldn’t be OK with that definition of “trans”.
Consider the following. I have an “AMAB” body (as they would say), and I consider myself a man. Nonetheless, let’s say, I say that I am trans. I am a trans man, despite my AMAB body. Maybe I’m even a trans man trapped in an AMAB body. Therefore, I deserve special extra rights, in accordance with my trans status
Stonewall would probably say: Stop trying to appropriate trans status! You have to be really trans to get trans rights, namely, you have to be the sex that you are not.
And by that definition, yes, I dispute that trans people exist.
Trans people exist = Psychics exist; Astrologers exist; Christians exist.
No matter how butt-hurt psychics, astrologers, and Christians get over having their identity, experience, and internal conviction disputed and debated by Skeptics, they almost never equate lack of agreement with dehumanization and negation. As an atheist, I’m also perfectly capable of recognizing that believers who insist that there are no atheists aren’t actually denying my existence.
I dare say even plenty of gays and lesbians aren’t particularly upset by people saying that they could change their orientation “if they tried,” because it doesn’t really matter if they could. You want sex with who you want sex with. Heterosexuals who enjoy only same-sex relationships are only a problem to vocabulary and those who think it’s sinful.
Also not up for debate: what “exist” means.
People with anorexia exist. That doesn’t mean that people with anorexia are too fat and need to lose weight. And not believing that a person with anorexia needs to lose more weight is not in any way believing they are not human.
Same for people with dysphoria, really.
When Stonewall and similar say “trans people exist”, what they mean is “trans people exist on their terms.”
Once again to get to the “TERFs are denying the existence of trans people (and even advocating genocide!)” trope you have to start from a position of unquestioning acceptance of a million unstated, and very shaky, premises, and proceed by a long series of impossibly sloppy inferences:
As I have previously commented, it’s as if you were asking European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s what the fuzz was all about, and the worst they could manage to come up with was something like:
For some reason arguments like that didn’t even appear on the list of concerns of any Jew I have ever heard of. I wonder why…
Bjarte, thanks for a thought-provoking tangent. I think you’re right on there; the comparison is excellent.
I live next door to a Yeshiva. I don’t believe G-d exists. I do, however, believe that Jews exist.
It would be odd for me to think they don’t, as they traipse up my sidewalk daily in their black pants and white shirts, and I’ve had to speak to them about cutting across my lawn to get to prayer. My disbelief in their self-identified basis for existence doesn’t mean I advocate for their genocide, though I am considering advocating for resident-only parking on our street.
Oddly enough, though I’ve spoken to the rabbi while grilling traif in my yard, he’s never accused me of wanting to exterminate him.
If instead of a Yeshiva it were a special transgender high school, would it be so different for me not to believe in the magical source of their identity?