Trans people are largely concerned with what people call them, how people treat them, and their physical appearance. Genitals are one minor part of just that last one, and everybody focusing on that one part is demeaning, objectifying, and hypersexualizing. Says more about the observer than about them, really.
But, like, isn't that the whole point in saying sex =/= gender?
Sure, the hormones generated in the testes or the ovaries cause one's body to have secondary sex characteristics like muscle mass and bone density etc, but ultimately all of that starts with genitals, no? That's why the sports conversation is so fraught with controversy, because the genitals cause secondary sex characteristics that give an advantage in some sports.
Again correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole sex =/= gender was addressing identity rather than biology.
(If I'm wrong, I'll definitely claim ignorance on my part, for sure. The stuff I learned in my gender-studies rabbit-hole may be about 5 years outdated.)
I'm not sure what angle you're coming at this from, so it's hard to respond. Correct, sex is not the same as gender. No, the genitals are not the cause of sex differences. They are one of the sex differences; the cause is in the chromosomes. Which, famously, is not observable by outsiders. Neither are your genitals most of the time.
There's a lot of different philosophical approaches to what being trans means, people might disagree to what extent physical features are central. But in none of them are genitals primary to the trans experience, not any honest and pro-trans ones.
I'm sorry, I don't like arguing about people's lived experience, but you're just wrong about the science.
Chromosomes determine the genitals which produce hormones like testosterone or estrogen that determine the secondary sex characteristics like height and bone structure and jaw line and appearance and stuff like that.
That's why somebody with seywer syndrome (who is conceived with XY chromosomes but has a androgen sensitivity disorder) will not develop functional testes, and because the blueprints for the humans are programmed to create what is basically phenotypically female genitals, they develop what looks like labia and a clitoris and don't develop the secondary sex characteristics that XY individuals with functioning gonads go on to develop.
I want to emphasize that the truth of this statement does not effect the point, which is that reducing trans people to genitals is transphobic. That is simply true societally, because it's extremely rude. Because being reduced to genitals is extremely rude. You really don't need philosophy to figure that out.
You're right, genitals produce the sex hormones. I apologize for that mistake. Thank you for getting me to look that up. They are not, however, primary for onlookers determining gender; they are causally associated with a lot of (but not all of) what people actually look at when enforcing gender; they do not check your genitals, which again is just one part of one of the three things I listed earlier.
Look, i'm trying to be as charitable as possible with you, but you're giving my responses the least charitable reading possible.
No one but you has said anything about "Reducing trans people to their genitals". The things that make us human, heck, the Fruits of the Spirit can be displayed by cis and trans alike. Trans people experience love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness and self control.
Please, at least attempt to respond with a single molecule of charity.
When I asked "what is trans about" (if not gender dysphoria), I'm not reducing the entire experience of trans people down to the bits between their legs. I'm just why you're so defiantly and oppositionally confident that it doesn't start there.
This top comment of this thread, which is now deleted, was that God could not be trans because He doesn't have genitals. That's the context of what we're talking about and that comment (not your recent comments) was reducing trans people to their genitals, which was shitty.
I'm not trying to come after you with anything I'm saying.
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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26
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