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I don’t understand what’s the delusion? The vast majority of trans people are acutely aware of the reality of their biological sex, otherwise they would not be taking hormones and having surgery.
Being trans is about wanting to be the opposite sex, or at least being distressed by your own biological sex and sexual characteristics. What are they wrong about?
It’s like thinking overweight people who take GLP-1 antagonists are delusional about thinking they’re actually skinny. That seems… completely backwards? There’s anorexic people who take Ozempic but the delusion is thinking they’re being fat - the equivalent would be a cis woman taking estrogen because she has a delusion that she’s biologically male. A trans woman is 100% correct about not being biologically female, which is why she’d want medical interventions instead of doing nothing!
There’s an ontological debate over the definition of the words “woman” and “man” and the whole gender vs sex kerfuffle, and some activists’ definition of “woman” is circular to the point of uselessness, but that’s a separate issue and more of a debate around values, not facts.
The delusion is in insisting that wanting to be something is exactly the same thing as being that something, which is obviously ridiculous. Honestly you are starting to sound wilfully ignorant which makes me think you are trans-identified yourself, because consistently denying reality and pretending not to understand things that have been explained to you ad nauseam is a key characteristic of trans-identified people and their allies.
But I'll bite and explain once more. According to mainstream gender ideology:
To apply this analogy, it would be like thinking that overweight people become skinny merely by expressing the desire to become skinny. And moreover, not only are they now skinny (even though they are objectively still fat), they have retroactively always been skinny, and if you deny this, you are a bigot and you will get banned for misweighting a stunning and brave transskinny person.
The fact that nobody actually thinks like this when it comes to fat people shows how ridiculous gender ideology is.
And sure, there is a type of trans person who actually tries to transition. They will take cross sex hormones, change out their wardrobe, change their behavior, and so on. Those people have at least some valid claim to be treated as the opposite sex. But importantly, gender ideology doesn't require anyone to do anything like that (claiming someone needs to transitions to be “valid” as a transgender makes you truscum which is practically as bad as being a TERF) and even if you go through all that trouble, obviously it doesn't change who you were before your transition, although gender ideologues will insist that who you were in the past depends entirely on what you identify as today.
How have I denied reality? I guess we can argue over the proportions of people with extreme beliefs about gender. I’m not even saying I agree with the mainstream pro trans position, I don’t, but I feel like you’re painting a straw man here.
Anyone who believes trans people literally become the opposite sex by self declaration is delusional and an idiot. That might be a big proportion of people arguing online about it, I don’t know, but I’ve thankfully never met anyone who believed that IRL.
That is so stupid it has so be a straw man or a minority of hardcore activists that don’t represent most trans people (which I have never encountered). Trans activists are all about separating gender from sex, and saying you being a man or a woman is different from you being male or female. That’s why there’s the whole “what is a woman” debate, otherwise how would that work, would they believe you can spontaneously manifest a uterus by believing you have one?
This is the vast majority of trans people I know, at least for hormones and wardrobe, behaviour is somewhat hit or miss.
Guess I’m as bad as a TERF then. If you make no attempt to present as a woman before going to the woman’s bathroom or locker room, obviously you might make people uncomfortable and they wouldn’t be out of bounds in asking you to leave.
What we're all is trying to drill into you is that the absurd things we describe are not strawmen. They are official policy and actual law in many places.
Yes! This makes you as bad as a TERF! Your common sense here is - and I want to emphasize that this is not hyperbole or exaggeration - against the law in California. You cannot ask a man not to use the women's shower, as this constitutes discrimination against their self-declared gender. The relevant law is the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which includes "gender identity and gender expression" as protected categories.
Here is one attempt to fix this with legislation. The site Trans Legislation Tracker declares that this is an anti-trans bill. Their own hostile summary includes this: "The Legislature finds and declares [...] Gender identity is fluid, and there is no ability for a commercial enterprise to determine if an individual's claim of a gender identity is sincere or is a pretext to obtain access to the opposite sex's intimate spaces." Which is absolutely correct! Just the acknowledgement that bad actors exist is treated as anti-trans!
You need to get your head out of the sand. Trans-aligned politics is absolutely bonkers. The vast majority of us allegedly "anti-trans" folks aren't being bigots; we're just trying to restore a measure of normalcy.
The vast majority of anti-trans people are not enacting minimum standards to use toilets or do other sex-segregated activities: they're banning trans people completely, regardless of how well they pass, how much effort they've put in, or how sincere they are. That is the mainstream anti-trans view. Your view, if you have described it accurately, is fringe.
I don't propose banning trans people (whatever that means). I don't propose rounding trans people and herding them into camps. I propose making people use the public facilities and compete in the sporting events that concord with their sex. I'm not saying "trans people can't compete in sporting events ever"; I'm saying "if they wish to compete in sporting events, trans people must compete in the sporting events corresponding to their sex, just like everyone else".
Read the entire sentence. They're banning trans people completely from using toilets or doing other sex-segregated activities. Let's set aside sports and consider only toilets. In what way are cis women harmed by sharing toilets with passing trans women? Note that women's toilets don't have urinals, only stalls. Users will never see other people's genitals. If the trans woman passes, other users won't even know she is trans. On the other hand, sharing the toilet with a passing trans man might actually be unpleasant.
I did read the entire sentence and, again, no they're not. Trans people are not forbidden from using toilets. No conservative politician is demanding that trans people be denied access to toilets of any kind. No conservative politician is demanding that trans people be forced to shit on the street. Conservative politicians are demanding that trans people use the toilets concordant with their sex, just like everyone else. You might disagree with this policy, but lying about what it entails helps no one.
But the outcome of some of the competing issues might have that happen.
The Womens Institute might be a good example. Some groups didn't want to include trans-women. They wanted to limit it to biological women (which would include trans men). Not unreasonable in my view at least. Others disbanded over that change.
However some groups didn't want trans-men (because they look like/act like men). So the "anti-trans" women side does have a split here. They don't want biological men in womens spaces, but alot of them also don't want anyone who looks like a man either.
If that gets carried through, neither trans men (biologically female) or trans women (biologically male), get to attend.
While most conservative commentators do want trans people to use the bathroom their biological sex would suggest. That does mean some pretty masculine looking bearded trans men in womens bathrooms and locker rooms. And we've already seen that can be a problem..
This isn't just hypothetical, given the UK supreme court ruling (and draft EHRC guidance off the back of it) says you could ban a trans-man from a mens bathroom (because they are biologically female) AND from a womens bathroom because their presentation as male may make women uncomfortable, so this outcome is legally supported.
See the problem? There are competing strands of what people want or don't want within the broad "anti-trans" tent and the intersection of those might well mean in practice some trans people can't use either bathroom.
Note: I put anti-trans in quotes as a short hand, but I don't think many of these people are necessarily what I would call anti-trans in actuality. I have high regard for many Women's Institute groups and I think both of their positions on the exclusion of biological men and women who look like/act men can both make sense depending on your criteria.
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