Are transgender people the gender they say they are?

[afleitch]

Yes.

I mean, if someone says they are gay, and there's no other way for you to know that someone is gay until they tell you (effectively, self-identify), who in their right mind would 'well actually' that?. As if they somehow know either different or better? You might still want to discriminate against me, or throw me to the ground in response, but what is gained in denying what I call myself?

[afleitch]

Yes.

I mean, if someone says they are gay, and there's no other way for you to know that someone is gay until they tell you (effectively, self-identify), who in their right mind would 'well actually' that?. As if they somehow know either different or better? You might still want to discriminate against me, or throw me to the ground in response, but what is gained in denying what I call myself?

It comes down to definition. Definition of a gay man is a man who is sexually attracted to other men. If a man calls himself this, he very well could be lying, but since it’s impossible to know definitively another’s sexual orientation, I might as well go along with it. Let’s say we define “man” as “someone who’s anatomy is natural male,” as it was done for thousands of years. If someone calls themself a man, but they do not have naturally male anatomy, then their not a man, simple as that. I can’t know for sure unless I know what their natural anatomy is, but unlike sexual orientation, there is a way to know this definitively.

'I can't know for sure unless I know what their natural anatomy is' makes my point. You don't know. Socially, you can only go by what people say they are, by how they present and by what 'stereotypes' (which all of us rely on to some extent) they fall in to. But we don't ask in a social setting to see people's private parts or for them to demonstrate chromosomes via a blood test (and even they aren't universal markers) before we socially categorise them as men or women. We've never done that. We've relied on gender expression in it's varying forms to do so throughout history.

So if a cisgendered woman says. 'Hi, I'm female. I'm a woman', you don't actually know if she 'naturally' is. Either you trust what she says, or you show the same distrust. And that isn't good for society; you end up with real life consequences of lesbians being challenged as women in public toilets based on their perceived lack of 'feminine' attributes. You end up with the trans panic of defining women and men by mere biology...which you can never actually do because you never have access to it!

[afleitch]

Yes.

I mean, if someone says they are gay, and there's no other way for you to know that someone is gay until they tell you (effectively, self-identify), who in their right mind would 'well actually' that?. As if they somehow know either different or better? You might still want to discriminate against me, or throw me to the ground in response, but what is gained in denying what I call myself?

It comes down to definition. Definition of a gay man is a man who is sexually attracted to other men. If a man calls himself this, he very well could be lying, but since it’s impossible to know definitively another’s sexual orientation, I might as well go along with it. Let’s say we define “man” as “someone who’s anatomy is natural male,” as it was done for thousands of years. If someone calls themself a man, but they do not have naturally male anatomy, then their not a man, simple as that. I can’t know for sure unless I know what their natural anatomy is, but unlike sexual orientation, there is a way to know this definitively.

'I can't know for sure unless I know what their natural anatomy is' makes my point. You don't know. Socially, you can only go by what people say they are, by how they present and by what 'stereotypes' (which all of us rely on to some extent) they fall in to. But we don't ask in a social setting to see people's private parts or for them to demonstrate chromosomes via a blood test (and even they aren't universal markers) before we socially categorise them as men or women. We've never done that. We've relied on gender expression in it's varying forms to do so throughout history.

So if a cisgendered woman says. 'Hi, I'm female. I'm a woman', you don't actually know if she 'naturally' is. Either you trust what she says, or you show the same distrust. And that isn't good for society; you end up with real life consequences of lesbians being challenged as women in public toilets based on their perceived lack of 'feminine' attributes. You end up with the trans panic of defining women and men by mere biology...which you can never actually do because you never have access to it!

The difference is that is it literally impossible to know what someone’s sexuality orientation is, but it’s very possible to know someone’s birth sex (doctors do it all the time!).

That's not my point. Naturally there are doctors, intimate partners, parents etc, but that's not your position. How do you know what someones birth sex is?

How in your day to day interactions with people do you determine someone's birth sex? Is that something you do with everyone? When is it relevant to you? How do you determine someone is man/woman, male/female other than by how they present to you and what they tell you?

The honest answer is you do accept what they tell you in order to help validate, or correct what you perceive by how they present to you. Birth sex isn't something you can individually determine with each person you meet therefore sociologically it's irrelevant to interactions with people.

If birth sex is important to you, you should doubt everyone who tells you what they are, until they prove what they have between their legs. But that's bordering on sociopathy, so you won't do that either.

So birth sex, on a practical level, doesn't actually matter to you, or me or anyone.

[afleitch]

I don't know this strange obsession with biological sex as if it's something that's 'historic' or 'obvious' or 'rational.'

I don't know my chromosomal sex as I've never had it tested. You won't know your own 99% of the time never mind anyone else. Yes it is highly probable it will align with gonadal/genital sex which in polite society no one should be asking to see before I go take a piss or wanting a doctors note before you start calling me 'he.'

You determine whether someone is man or woman, by how they present to you and how that stands against pre supposed assumptions. There's nothing strictly biological about that. Sometimes our assumptions are wrong. Sometimes what we view as 'male/masculine' or 'female/feminine' is challenged or is changeable.

It's what we do with everyone and society has worked just fine. To start deciding 'oh what's this gender thing? It's always been biological' is just dishonest. We don't categorise people on a daily basis by their genitals, or their chromosomes or their hormones.

[afleitch]

You determine whether someone is man or woman, by how they present to you and how that stands against pre supposed assumptions.

Perhaps this is how you make this determination, but this is not true for a majority of people.

How do you it? What biology of theirs do you need to check?