TRANS PEOPLE ARE WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE AND ACCEPTING THEM AT THEIR WORD IS A PART OF THEIR HEALTH CARE

Many say that gender is what sex you are in your head, your image of yourself, and biological sex is what you are physically.  In transgender people the two not only do not match but one is against the other causing almighty suffering.  This is called gender dysphoria.  Body dysphoria is not the same as gender dysphoria. Transgenderism cannot be compared to anorexia.

Because your body does not match who you know yourself to be medical treatment may be necessary.  For many it is absolutely lifesaving and essential.

As no two cases of gender dysphoria are the same, we need a broad discussion.  We need to affirm sufferers from dysphoria who do NOT fit the trans experience.  Choosing some sufferers to listen to and treat is mistaken for either you respect bodily autonomy or you do not.  And if you do not then you are a slow burning threat to trans existence.

You cannot transition on your own - society has to transition with you.  It is not the individual transitioning.  You are part of a community which has to grant you freedoms and respect as the gender you know yourself to be.  Naturally this is not going to be a smooth process.

The debate around transgenderism surrounds the common belief that gender is what you are identifiable as not what you identify as.  In other words, a man who passes for a man is a man.  A woman who passes for a woman is a woman.  Transgenderism says that it is not that obvious.

Some people feel that they have been given the wrong bodies. They hate the body they have and want to change over to the physical characteristics of the opposite sex. Men want to become the  women they feel they always were.  Women want to become the men they believe they have always been in their heads and hearts. The head and the heart are more important than the body. Who are we to judge when we do not live under their skins and feel what they feel?

We do not understand the mind or how it works so they could be right about the mind being a different gender from their body. If they are sure they want something as final and frightening as a full sex change then we have to believe that by going ahead they are doing the right thing and are sure. Yes they could be wrong but they can live with the decisions so we have to give our blessing. They have to examine themselves to see if the decisions are really theirs and that they are not under the spell of psychiatrists or clergy either.

The argument that your genes cannot be changed and they make you male or female so transgender treatment or surgery does not really change your sex is inconclusive and weak and bigoted.  "Male" genes may programme a man to manifest as a woman. Or "female" genes a woman as a man.  They are the opposite sex, not the sex they seem to be, in a different way as opposed to being a man or woman at birth in the physical sense.  Genes may programme a need for body changes.  That is why biological sex as understood by gender critical people is nonsense.  The transwoman or transman is a woman or man biologically as much as anybody is a woman or man who aligns with the gender assigned at birth.  We need to remember that many do not subscribe to the transgender narrative.  For example, we must respect say males who see the surgical intervention not as gender affirmation but as body reshaping - the body being reshaped to the female form it should have. Reshaping is a concept that needs to come to the fore and until it does those who call themselves transgender are discriminating against and committing the crime of erasure against who see their experience not as transgender but as cosmetic surgery into their true form.

A man/woman is really a mixture of male and female so in some people there is no reason why a man cannot really be a woman in his head and a woman a man.  The man may be a woman in his head in the sense of needing the body fixed to become female outwardly.  Or the woman may be a man in that sense.  There are other ways they may need to be a different gender that do not involve hormones and surgery.  There is no problem with somebody identifying as non-binary.

The embryo only starts the process of becoming male or female after about six to eight weeks.  A gene called SRY which usually appears on the Y chromosome issues testosterone.  Unless that happens the embyro will not become male.  Sex changes happen in nature.  Gender realignment in a sense is less drastic than sex changes!  In that process you become changed not into the opposite sex but become what you already were.

We conclude that the transgender experience is valid.  We must respect those who say they are not doing a gender transition or trying to change their sex.  Some who have the woman to transman experience say they know they are simply men.  Some who have the man to transwoman experience say they know they are simply women.  They will use man not transman.  They will use woman not transwoman.  That is why we refer to them as men/women who had the transgender experience.  It talks about their experience and does not label them.