Why trans identity and age identity are not the same thing
Dr Helen Webberley on Robby Starbuck: transition and children, Robby Starbuck
Saying you're transgender is just like saying you're a different age, or a different species, or anything else you feel like claiming. If we accept one, we have to accept all of them. It's all the same kind of thing.
The comparison gets made to sound clever, but it collapses the moment you look at it. Being transgender is not a mental illness: that is the settled position of every major medical and psychiatric body in the world. A person who identifies with a different gender to the one they were assigned at birth is describing something real about themselves, something that has been documented across cultures and across recorded history. A fictional 46-year-old who claims to be six is not describing anything comparable. One is a recognised aspect of human identity. The other is a rhetorical device designed to make the first one sound absurd. The reason the comparison keeps getting made is precisely because it cannot be answered on its own terms: it is not an argument, it is a distraction. Trans people deserve better than to have their existence treated as a punchline in someone else's debate.
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