A Philosopher Discusses Gender

‘Transgressive’ by Rachel Anne Williams

I stumbled across a fabulous trans philosophy book by Rachel Anne Williams. It’s a long collection of short essays, and it’s called Transgressive: A Trans Woman on Gender, Feminism, and Politics.

In the book, Williams covers topics like these.

What Does It Mean to Be Trans?

• We don’t need to know how our brains or chromosomes are sexed.
• We can be agnostic about our own “gender identities.”
• In a pragmatic sense, you’re trans if you want to take some action toward gender transition. Williams — just trying to explain the word, not to gatekeep the community or the language — proposes that “trans” means the desire to “self-consciously move away from one’s birth assignment” and to do something (anything) to move toward one’s gender. “To be trans means to transition.” It’s not always a major anatomical change. It could be a legal document or a gesture as apparently small as a haircut, which, “for a trans boy…might mean the world.”
• There could be various factors in trans identity: some innate, some non-innate. (Anyway, “the whole idea of traits being ‘innate’ is deeply problematic.”) This this “does not mean we can just consciously choose to be trans.” Nor can we…