What It Really Means to Believe ‘Biological Sex Is Real’

It’s not what you think

Katelyn Burns
GEN

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Broadly Gender Spectrum Collection, photo by Zackery Drucker

Anti-trans activists, influencers, and journalists often seek to make their views more palatable to “normies” who may not be up to date on the grinding, seething minutiae of the online gender discourse by framing their views as much more innocent than they really are.

A prime example of this is the claim that transphobes, meaning those who seek to roll back trans rights or otherwise harm trans people through official policy, will often claim that they merely “believe that biological sex is real,” and are thus persecuted for that view. But this is overly simplistic and hides the sinister undertone that their beliefs carry.

Nobody really believes that “biological sex” isn’t real. I’ve been accused of being one of the most “radical” trans activists on the interwebs, despite being a journalist and not an activist, and even I don’t believe that biological sex isn’t real. I can see it in my own body. I see it in my wide shoulders, in my narrow hips, in my impossibly tall height. I’m all too aware of my biological roots — why do you think I sought a medical transition in the first place?

Transition wipes out a whole host of sexed traits, like body hair, and my initial lack of breasts. It changed the way fat was distributed across my body…

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