The Woke Soul: Physicality and Psychology

What makes a person trans? According to the Woke, it's neither mental illness nor experience. It's something internal and innate speaking a deep truth. But what is that "something?"

The American Spirit Essays #23

(continued from Trans Trampled)

(This essay is adapted from my July 2022 article in Human Events)

Not Mental Illness

The Trans Movement, as we have seen, is not a movement for equal or civil rights.  Nor, for that matter, is it a movement advocating on behalf of people suffering from a mental illness or a medical condition.

Unlike the concept of a rights-based organization—a mischaracterization that many members of the Trans Movement embrace—the notion that transes may be suffering from an abnormal mental or physical condition is held exclusively by opponents of the Trans Movement. To the Woke, even suggesting such a possibility qualifies as hate speech.  In fact, it’s such a transgression that it is always wrong.  Within the Trans Movement, not only are some or most people who declare a gender misaligned with their biology correct, all such people are correct.  No mentally ill person, whatever their other problems may be, would make such a claim (though it's likely possible that some person might be both mentally ill and trans).

Yet denial, no matter how vociferous and sincere, is insufficient to make a characterization inaccurate. After all, gender dysphoria is a condition in which a person’s psychological and emotional states send messages at odds with genetics and biology. Such a misalignment must be so painful and disruptive that it’s almost impossible for non-sufferers to comprehend. Fortunately, we live in a world of scientific marvels in which surgery, lifelong medication, and counseling can combine to let the afflicted lead fulfilling, productive lives.

By what logic, however, are transes the first and only mentally and physically healthy people whose brains cannot perceive objective reality, and whose bodies require radical surgery and a lengthy, complicated medical regimen?

The answers cannot rest upon a mere redefinition of terms. No one—inside or outside the Trans Movement—disputes certain factual observations. Nearly all humans are born with sex chromosomes that are either XX or XY. Nearly all of those born XX develop reproductive physiology and endocrinology consistent with being a healthy female. Nearly all of those born XY develop reproductive physiology and endocrinology consistent with being a healthy male. While the Trans Movement does include concern for the tiny number of exceptions, its primary focus remains on those whose genetics and biology conform to one of these two basic patterns—yet whose internal states express as something other than 100% female (for those born XX) or 100% male (for those born XY).

There can be only two possible answers as to how an internal mechanism (i.e., a human brain) reading genetically and biologically consistent XX signals could conclude that it is something other than 100% female: Either that brain is mistaken or it is also reading additional signals sending divergent messages. If the brain is making a mistake (i.e., misreading consistent signals), it should seem to qualify as a mental illness—a logical possibility that the Woke reject out of hand. The only remaining conclusion is thus that something must be sending the brain a conflicting message. The healthy trans brain thus processes multiple messages to arrive at a gender identity that is subtler, more perceptive, and more accurate than the blunt polarity of the 100% male / 100% female gender binary.