My last post was about a Rebecca Solnit quote that has been rattling around in my head for months:
“One of the rights that the powerful often assume is the power to dictate reality.”
The more I think about it, the more I see another uncomfortable question hiding inside it.
And this one takes me somewhere I suspect a lot of people would rather I didn’t go.
What happens when someone enters a category historically defined by the exclusion and oppression of another group—and then assumes the authority to tell that group what its own category means?
Let’s talk about women.
Specifically, trans women.
Before anyone reaches for the outrage button, let me make something very clear: I am not questioning whether every trans person is sincere about their identity. I’m not suggesting every trans woman has the same life experience, social circumstances, privilege, or relationship with power. Some trans people experience profound discrimination and vulnerability, and I’m not interested in pretending otherwise.
That’s not my argument.
My argument is about power.
And Solnit’s quote gives us a fascinating lens through which to examine it.
What happens to power when you change categories?
A person who was born male and raised in a society that, rightly or wrongly, often affords males greater physical, social, and institutional authority does not necessarily shed every bit of that history, conditioning, confidence, or socialization simply by changing their identity.
Why would they?
We don’t generally believe that social conditioning disappears overnight.
And yet, in some of the loudest contemporary arguments about sex and gender, I see something that feels strangely familiar.
A male person enters a female social category—and then, in some cases, tells women what womanhood means.
Tells women what their boundaries should be.
Tells women what language they should use.
Tells women which spaces they should be comfortable sharing.
Tells women that their discomfort is prejudice.
Tells women that their understanding of their own sex is outdated, bigoted, or simply wrong.
And I can’t help thinking:
Isn’t that exactly the kind of power Solnit was talking about?
The irony isn’t lost on me.
For centuries, women were told what we were by men.
Men defined our roles.
Men defined our sexuality.
Men defined our legal rights.
Men defined our reproductive choices.
Men defined what was appropriate for women to wear, say, think and do.
Men told us what our bodies meant.
Men told us what we were allowed to be.
And now we’re having a cultural argument in which some women are being told that their understanding of womanhood itself is wrong.
By whom?
Increasingly, by people who were not born female.
That’s a pretty extraordinary historical reversal.
And I think we’re allowed to examine it.
Here’s the question that makes this uncomfortable.
If one of the privileges of the powerful is the assumed authority to define reality for others, what happens when that authority crosses the boundary between sexes?
Does identifying as a woman automatically erase the socialization that occurred while being raised male?
Does it erase physical differences?
Does it erase the experience of having moved through the world with a male body?
Does it erase whatever confidence, social conditioning, or authority may have developed along the way?
Of course not.
But neither does being trans automatically mean someone retains every aspect of male privilege forever.
Both things can be true.
A trans woman can experience genuine discrimination and have experienced aspects of male socialization.
A trans woman can be vulnerable and still possess forms of authority or confidence associated with having been raised male.
Human beings are complicated.
That’s precisely why I don’t buy simplistic arguments on either side.
But here’s where I really want to push the question.
What happens when someone’s identity becomes an argument for overriding someone else’s boundaries?
Because women have spent centuries being told that our boundaries are negotiable.
Our bodies are negotiable.
Our privacy is negotiable.
Our discomfort is negotiable.
Our safety is negotiable.
And we’re still expected to be accommodating.
Be compassionate.
Be understanding.
Don’t offend anyone.
Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.
Don’t ask difficult questions.
Don’t notice the obvious.
Don’t say the wrong thing.
And above all:
Don’t make the other person feel bad about themselves.
But here’s something I’ve learned:
Being compassionate toward someone does not require surrendering your own boundaries.
And respecting someone’s dignity does not require pretending that sex doesn’t exist.
So let’s conduct a little thought experiment.
Imagine the sexes were reversed.
Imagine women had historically possessed greater physical strength, institutional authority, political power and social dominance.
Imagine women had spent centuries telling men what their bodies meant.
Imagine a man said:
“I don’t want to change clothes in front of someone female.”
Would we immediately tell him he was hateful?
Would we tell him that his discomfort was rooted in prejudice?
Would we tell him that his understanding of male privacy was merely a social construct?
Would we tell him that his boundaries were invalid because another person’s identity mattered more?
Would we call him insecure?
Fragile?
Bigoted?
Or would we suddenly understand the concept of sex-based boundaries?
That’s the thought experiment I want people to sit with.
Because something interesting happens when the sexes are reversed.
Suddenly, a lot of people discover principles they weren’t previously willing to extend to women.
And here’s an even harder question.
If you believe women should surrender sex-based privacy because gender identity determines access to female spaces…
Would you be equally comfortable surrendering your own privacy?
Not theoretically.
Not philosophically.
Personally.
Would you be comfortable changing clothes beside someone whose biological sex you knew was female but whose gender identity was male?
Would you be comfortable showering beside that person?
Would you be comfortable with your teenage children doing the same?
And if your answer is no, ask yourself why.
Don’t immediately call yourself a bigot.
Don’t immediately call yourself enlightened.
Just examine the feeling.
Maybe you’re discovering something very old and very human:
Sex matters.
Especially when bodies are vulnerable and privacy is involved.
And then there’s language.
I’m fascinated by the idea that acknowledging someone’s identity can sometimes require another person to surrender their own description of reality.
I can respect you.
I can be kind to you.
I can defend your right to live peacefully.
I can oppose discrimination against you.
I can even understand why you experience yourself the way you do.
But does that mean I have to surrender my understanding of biological sex?
Does your identity give you the authority to dictate mine?
Does your discomfort with my words automatically outweigh my discomfort with being required to use them?
And if the answer is yes…
Who gets to decide?
Because that is where we circle right back to Solnit.
Who gets to dictate reality?
That’s the question.
And I don’t think the answer should be:
Whoever is most offended.
I don’t think it should be:
Whoever has the most socially acceptable identity.
And I certainly don’t think it should be:
Whoever can successfully make the other person feel guilty for disagreeing.
Because that’s still power.
It’s simply a different kind of power.
If we are serious about dismantling oppressive power structures, we should be willing to examine all power—including power that arrives wrapped in the language of compassion, identity and liberation.
Otherwise, we’re not dismantling the hierarchy.
We’re just changing who gets to stand at the top of it.
And women should be allowed to notice that.
I don’t want power over anyone.
That’s the distinction I wish more people understood.
I don’t want to dictate someone’s private life.
I don’t want to humiliate anyone.
I don’t want anyone persecuted because they are transgender.
I don’t want anyone denied basic human dignity.
But I also don’t want anyone dictating my reality.
I don’t want someone else deciding what my sex means.
I don’t want someone else deciding which boundaries I’m allowed to have.
I don’t want someone else deciding that my discomfort is automatically illegitimate.
And I don’t want to be told that my refusal to agree is evidence that I hate someone.
Disagreement is not dehumanization.
Boundaries are not hatred.
Questions are not violence.
And women are not obligated to disappear inside someone else’s definition of womanhood in order to prove that we’re compassionate people.
Maybe the most radical thing we can do is apply the same principle to everyone:
No one gets to dictate reality for everyone else.
Not men.
Not women.
Not trans people.
Not cis people.
Not doctors.
Not bosses.
Not politicians.
Not activists.
Not institutions.
Nobody.
You don’t have to agree with me.
You don’t even have to like what I have to say.
But you don’t get to tell me what I am allowed to experience.
You don’t get to tell me which boundaries I’m allowed to have.
And you don’t get to demand that I surrender my understanding of reality simply because my understanding makes you uncomfortable.
Because I’ve spent enough of my life being told to be quiet.
To be agreeable.
To be polite.
To accommodate.
To question myself.
I’m not doing it anymore.
I don’t need to control your reality.
I simply refuse to surrender mine.
And maybe that’s the real lesson hidden inside Solnit’s quote.
The opposite of being powerful isn’t being powerless.
Sometimes it’s simply refusing to hand someone else the pen.
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