Transgender Incoherence

Dan Hitchens, writing at First Things, raises an interesting point about the logic of the transgender folks. He begins the relevant section of his article by noting an irony in the postmodern mindset which on the one hand insists that one's conviction concerning his gender identity is "the truth" and on the other hand denies that truth, at least objective truth (which is actually the only kind of truth there can be), really exists.

He goes on to observe that regarding transgenderism,"There are two narratives, wholly incompatible and mutually destructive, which have somehow been fused into a single, all-conquering cause."

The first narrative holds that both maleness and femaleness exist and that some people have the misfortune of being one of these while inhabiting the body of the other:

Jan Morris, in the opening lines of the only trans memoir written by an acknowledged master of English prose, puts it like this: “I was three or perhaps four years old when I realized I had been born into the wrong body, and should really be a girl. I remember the moment well, and it is the earliest memory of my life.”

This kind of story is compelling at an emotional level: It speaks to the universal feeling of dislocation, of alienation, of longing for completeness, and at the same time resonates with the hope of the oppressed for justice, with the sorrows of every human being denied true flourishing by prejudice and fear.

Call it the “wrong body” narrative.

The second narrative, Hitchens claims, contradicts the first. This narrative...

asks whether maleness and femaleness are, in fact, real. It queries whether the kaleidoscopic diversity of human self-experience really can be squeezed into so restrictive a binary; it contends that language is always conditioned by the power structures of the day, that it rarely grasps life as it is actually lived; and it concludes that ultimately—to quote the very same memoir by Jan Morris—“there is neither man nor woman.”

This is the skeptical trans narrative which, of course, demolishes the “wrong body” one. If the ultimate reality has no place for gender, then Morris’s original epiphany was false: To “realize” that one has been “born into the wrong body” must be, not realization, but illusion.

The first narrative holds that there are both males and females ("wrong body" narrative) while the second narrative ("skeptical" narrative) denies this.

Literary scholar Jacqueline Rose wonders whether “a time will come when the distinction between woman and man will finally disappear, a metaphysical relic of a bygone age.”

It has a kind of logic to it, Hitchens admits, but it also shatters the idea that (as the much-repeated slogan has it) “trans women are women.” How can they be, if nobody is a woman?

Hitchens asserts that the "wrong body" narrative is ultimately unsustainable. The oft heard assertion that "I feel like a woman" is actually meaningless if there's no such thing as a "woman." How does one know if he feels like a woman if no one can even say what a woman is?

The transgender enthusiasm can survive only so long as logic is not allowed to play a role in the discussion. If and when our cultural elites ever demand logical coherence the movement will doubtless implode.