It’s obvious, isn’t it?

 There isn’t much humour in the whole trans debate, but I sometimes allow myself the luxury of a smile when I hear that a trans woman isn’t a woman, because it’s obvious. 

I suppose if you believe the only defining factor is the presence or absence of a Y chromosome you might want to believe that. But it’s hard to sustain that assertion as it relates to Miss Spain 2018, a beautiful trans woman named Angela Maria Ponce Camacho. It’s probably fair to say that the only masculine thing about her is one chromosome out of the full set of 46. Everything else is exquisitely feminine. Sometimes it’s so obvious a trans woman isn’t a woman that you need a DNA test to tell. 

A simple internet search will reveal dozens of lovely and feminine women who were born male. For someone my age who was brought up when the  idea of transitioning was simply unheard of it takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s undeniably the case. 

The same is true the other way around. There’s a rock musician called Lucas Silveira who is openly trans, but you wouldn’t know it. He has a stubbly beard and is heavily tattooed. I don’t know what style of music he plays, but I feel it aught to be heavy metal. If he walked into a ladies loo full of trans exclusionary radical feminists I really would have a laugh. 

The point is that these are people who would be accepted as being of their adopted gender without question if they chose to keep the fact that they have transitioned to themselves. Furthermore it would be self evidently absurd to put Angela Ponce in a men’s hospital ward and Lucas Silveira in with the girls (though a few music fans might swoon). 

I have said before that it many ways the debate about which loos trans people should use is a dead letter. They will probably use the loo of their adopted gender and no one will ever know.