Gender

[GrandizerII]

It's hard to understand experientially if you're not trans. But someone like Elliott would say that they have this very strong feeling that they're more aligned with the men within their societies than they are with the women, physiologically, psychologically, and societally. They experience themselves as men, and not just claim to be men. So why be disrespectful with regards to their own experiences and insist they can't be counted as men?

Because they aren't men. You can't even identify one single non-biological characteristic that makes one male. If I tell you I see pink elephants should you respect me and agree?

Says who? They might not have been born with penises or have Y chromosomes, but they might have physiological activities going on inside their bodies that are typically common in men than in women. Subjectively, they might have this strong nagging feeling that they're mentally male (per what society considers to be male) and that their outward bodies don't match very well with their internal experiences. They might look very manly, behave very manly. Why must we insist then that only the genitals one is born with or the chromosomes they possess should dictate one's gender?

If you tell me you see pink elephants, and I don't see them anywhere, then I wouldn't believe you. That doesn't mean I'd not respect you regardless. Anyway, this is a bad analogy, because gender is far more complex than color, and no one is saying we should agree with someone who claims to be a bear or elephant or non-human species, when clearly we (modern humans) are confined to this one extant human species for various reasons, like common ancestry.