Misconception and reality

Trans is an adjective, not a category apart

Dr Helen Webberley on Heretics: the gender debate, with Andrew Gold, Heretics

What people think

Trans women are a separate category from women, a distinct group that sits alongside women rather than within them. The word "trans" marks someone out as something other than a woman first.

What is actually true

Trans is an adjective. That is the whole point, and it is not a complicated one. You can be a tall woman, a funny woman, a loud woman, a trans woman. The adjective tells you something about her; it does not move her out of the category. A trans woman is a woman, and the word "trans" sits in front of "woman" the same way any other descriptive word does. What I was trying to say there is that the grammar itself gives the game away: if "trans" were a category apart, we would not use it as an adjective at all.

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