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Trans flag hung in protest in Yosemite National Park: 'Trans people are natural'
(www.thepinknews.com)
this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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I'm going to be that guy, and no, this isn’t a gotcha. I’m a trans ally. I support the existence, rights, and dignity of trans people. But I’m allergic to lazy thinking; even from my own side.
“Trans people are natural.” Cool sentiment. Terrible framing.
First off, “natural” is a word people use when they’ve run out of real arguments. It’s vague, emotionally loaded, and epistemologically useless.
Plenty of things are “natural”: cancer, infanticide, parasites, sexual coercion. Doesn’t make them desirable. Doesn’t make them moral. If you want to make a moral case for something, do it without the crutch of nature.
Second, let’s talk about optics. When you say “trans people are natural,” you’re not helping. You’re feeding into the exact framework used against queer and trans people for decades; the idea that something has to be “natural” to be valid.
Why are we reinforcing that standard? Why are we bending over backwards to find a species of fish that flips sexes and pretending that proves anything about human gender identity?
Transgender identity is not “natural” in the biological sense. There’s no mammalian precedent for someone born male socially transitioning to live as female with a nuanced internal experience of gender. That’s not how “natural” animal behavior works. But so what? Who gives a shit?
Being trans is a human phenomenon; emergent from consciousness, culture, language, and self-reflection. You know, all the “unnatural” stuff that makes humans interesting. The wheel isn’t natural. The internet isn’t natural. Civil rights aren’t natural.
Trans people don’t need to be validated by nature. They need to be validated by ethics. By compassion. By rational moral reasoning.
So let’s stop appealing to nature. It’s weak, it’s misleading, and it sets the movement back by anchoring it to bad philosophy.
I'm a trans transhumanist and agree. Though actually iirc there is evidence of animals experiencing some of this stuff even if they often lack the sociocognitotechnological structures to act upon it.
But my opinion is that "nature" (as much as that is even coherent as a concept which is questionable imo, youd really want to be going into specific systems) itself is fundamentally coercive.
I consider "nature" itself to be transphobic in structure (even if it is not sentient or has intent, once you can criticise systems for their construction why not criticise systems that are not human created such as biophysical systems nya). That is, the very construction of major parts of my biology - along also with social systems which have a major component - deprive me of autonomy and self determination. For me, as a trans enby who wants and has obtained hrt, then, I have used technological means to seize my agency ^.^. I'm not just talking abojt trans stuff here but yeah :p
Imo we must tear down this idea that "nature" is something just or good at all or any sort of model for how things should be. Thats not to aay engage in ecological destruction which is a different issue (I won't go into that now but "don't accept nature as it exists and be willing to radically alter or overthrow its tyranny" is not the same as "burn down all the forests/release CO2 and mindlessly destroy all the complex and interesting ecosystems that exist and that we also currently need for agriculture, just for short term profits, often even when better options exist").
On the other hand, I do appreciate the gesture of support and solidarity for what it is. Even if philosophically I consider it incorrect.
What part of my argument do you find philosophically incorrect?
I was agreeing with you and stating that the original group doing the "natural" thing were philosophically incorrect but I still appreciate the gesture of their support :p