Schrödinger's Gender

Why trans-identifying people claim you are denying their existence - and how they're not (totally) wrong

Get it? Of course, you do.

By now, we have all heard the claims that failing to validate the preferred gender of trans-identifying people constitutes “denying their existence.” On its face, it seems like a ridiculous and hyperbolic claim, not least of all because it’s typically levied by a flesh-and-blood human who clearly does exist and is prone to all manner of ridiculous hyperbolic claims.

But what if they’re right and failing to validate them does impact their existence?

Does that make “trans” validation an ethical imperative?

(Spoiler: Nah. Stay with me, guys. ;)

Material reality is measurable & observable. For example, patently ridiculous, ideologically-motivated claims of arbitrary “sex assignment” aside, we can all, with near-perfect agreement, identify the sex of a baby at birth (disorders of sexual development excepted). And that’s because we can recognize and distinguish between discrete, binary sex characteristics using our physical senses. The reality of a baby’s sex doesn’t require external validation because it exists irrespective of such. Calling a girl baby a boy will not bestow upon her testicles or cause her ovaries to disappear.

However, when something exists solely in one’s imagination, the only way to root that imagined entity in the material world is to convince others to acknowledge it and act accordingly. If others claim to perceive it, too, it now exists outside one’s imagination.

But how?

To spare you the unnecessarily (at least in this case) complex, metaphysical minutiae of it all, here’s a quick example:

I can imagine having unlimited wealth, but that doesn’t change my bank balance. However,  if people started playing along with my fantasy and acknowledged, accepted, and transacted with, say, funny money that I printed on my crappy inkjet, that fantasy would have some tangible basis in reality.

Why?

Because when other people allow me to make purchases, accumulate goods, and pay bills with my inkjet cash, my funny money becomes real because their cooperation (validation) allows for a measurable and observable impact on the external world. (Remember, this argument is not whether what I’m presenting is legal tender — it’s not — but whether it exists as currency.)

Transgender “existence” works the same way. When the fantasy of being the opposite gender lives only in one’s head, its existence remains relegated to the imagination. But when a man convinces other people to agree that he is a woman — and he gets his legal documents changed to identify him as a woman, and he suddenly has access to women-only spaces and rights and opportunities — that “womanhood” no longer exists only in his mind. The “validation” allows for a measurable and observable impact on the external world.

In other words, on some level, it exists.

To that end, acquiring observable (facsimiles of) physical traits associated with the opposite sex is an important component of eliciting that existence-granting validation. Adopting well-established sex-based stereotypes, e.g., clothing, hairstyles, and mannerisms, along with their baked-in sex-specific associations, is fundamental to this process. (Ironically, it also illustrates one of the most glaring internal inconsistencies of trans-ideology: the stated rejection of, yet requisite dependence on, sex stereotypes to define gender. But I digress.)

So what happens when observers refuse to affirm the transgender fantasy? That’s right — their existence is effectively denied. The fantasy loses its footing in reality and ceases to exist in any meaningful way. Of course, the trans-identifying person doesn’t cease to exist as a living entity, but their fantasy reverts to existing only in their mind as soon as the people around them stop pretending it’s legitimate.

And that last sentence articulates the fundamental disconnect between trans people saying, "You're denying my existence!” to non-affirming observers and non-affirming observers replying, “You still exist, dude — you’re literally standing right there.”

And my trillionaire (because why the hell not?) fantasy offers some additional insight into the trans-identifying psyche at this moment in history characterized by growing pushback, following a period of maximum collective trans-fantasy indulgence. If I had acclimated to effortlessly transacting with my unlimited inkjet dollars, I imagine I would be incredulous when I suddenly encountered people who refused to accept them. They would be literally (yes, literally) denying the existence of my unlimited wealth and stripping me of my preferred identity as the wealthiest person on planet earth — justifiably so, of course.

I might respond to the seemingly sudden rejection with, “But it looks just like money! Why won’t you take it?” I assume their answer would be, “Well, A. It doesn’t, and B. It's not real money,” to which I might reply, “How dare you? All those other people accepted it!” following which I might expect something like, “Well, I won’t and here’s why…”

You can run with it from there.

Here’s the bottom line: Whether refusal to validate trans-identifying people denies their existence or not doesn’t matter. Free societies don’t compel speech. No one in this country is obligated to lie about their sensory perceptions (at least not in most locales – and not yet). Consent matters. Acknowledging material reality is not “hate,” and regardless, “hate speech” is protected. And as growing numbers of people realize the legitimate harms being inflicted in service of validating these individuals’ fantasies, I imagine they’ll be increasingly unwilling to “affirm” them into existence. 

And as a final good-enough analogue on the harm aspect,  if increasing numbers of people started flooding our economy with inkjet Benjamins and society acquiesced to transacting with them, it would destabilize not only our economic system, but society at large. Refusing my funny money would be an ethical choice, even though doing so would revert me to my previously impoverished state.

Similarly, pretending that men can be women & granting them at-will, honor-system access to the spaces, rights, protections, & opportunities of women destabilizes sex-based systems to the detriment of not only women but society at large. Refusing to “validate” men as women (or vice versa) is an ethical choice, even if it amounts to “denying the existence” — ergo refusing to co-sign the fantasies — of trans-identifying individuals.

In other words, trans-identifying women do, in fact, exist — as trans-identifying women, a.k.a. men.

And the only meaningful way that men can “exist” as women is by compelling observers to deny reality.

And if acknowledging material reality indeed amounts to “denying the existence” of someone’s imagined self, so be it.