“Detransitioners were never trans to begin with”

Argument Submitted by: D.B., PhD

“Detransitioners were never trans to begin with because real transpeople don’t detransition.”

This is an example of the No True Scotsman fallacy. This occurs when someone modifies a generalization to protect it from counterexample by improperly excluding the counterexample from the modified generalization.

Suppose Person A claims that a transwoman was always a woman to begin with, even when his sex was ‘assigned’ male at birth. That person is assuming that gender is a fixed essence distinct from sex. If Person B tries to deny that gender is a fixed essence distinct from sex by pointing out that detransitioners exist, then Person A commits the No True Scotsman fallacy by redefining “transpeople” to exclude those who detransition. This is accomplished by the rhetorical addition “real.”

The name of this fallacy derives from an example put together by philosopher Bradley Dowden which goes as follows:

Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge.”

Person B: “But I know a Scotsman who puts sugar in his porridge.”

Person A: “Then he’s not a true Scotsman.”

The generalization about Scotsmen has been modified by the addition of the word “true” to protect from the counterexample. We might rewrite the original quotation to match the Scotsman example more closely:

Person A: “No transwoman was ever a man. Transwomen were always women.”

Person B: “But I know a transwoman who detransitioned back to a man.”

Person A: “Then he wasn’t really a transwoman.”

One response might be to note that if someone is really made a woman based on self-identification, then the most consistent belief to hold would be that a de-transitioner became a woman and then became a man. In other words, it would at least be consistent (though preposterous) to claim that when a person identifies as a woman, that person is a woman only for so long as s/he identifies as one, which means s/he could endlessly shift gender through the course of a lifetime (and, therefore, keep many persons busy updating Wikipedia—possibly even on an hourly basis.)

Ask your interlocutor if (s)he is willing to believe that a detransitioner became a woman and then un-became a woman. If your interlocutor insists that sex is distinct from gender and a person can have only one true gender but that it may take someone years to discover what that gender is, then you may ask if it’s possible to be a gender without ever knowing that one is that gender. If it’s possible to be a gender without knowing what gender one is, is it also, therefore, possible to believe that one is a gender that one is not? Could we have a biological male who believes he is a man but who is really a woman? Is it possible to be a biological male who believes he is a woman but who is really a man? If personal feelings and sex do not define gender, then what does? And if personal feelings decide gender, then why would detransition not amount to a change in gender? See also 6. Incommensurability for a discussion of varieties of opinion on the relation between sex and gender among proponents of gender identity theory.