Ultimate maleness?

There seem to me to be three basic paradigms of trans:

1) Trans people have some essential crossgender element in them (this can be partial).

2) Gender is a cultural construct. Trans is an instinctive resistance to oppressive constructed gender binaries.

3) Trans is a misleading delusion, caused by psychological disturbance.

I think there is too much focus on the debate between 1) and 2). Both are fundamentally supportive of trans. 3) is the negative one. Of course those who believe in 3) can be sympathetic and respectful, but ultimately they believe the trans self-perceptions are wrong. The difference should be noted, though, between believing the cause to be psychological, and judging that cause to be a fault, a disorder.

The difference between 2) and 3) might well be a political judgement. When does refusal to accept life as it is qualify as deluded, disturbed? Where does rejecting one's bodily gender fit on a spectrum between opposing the government and opposing the earth going round the sun?

Is it not true that, for all your feelings, ultimately your gender is that of your bodily sex? What assumption is made here, about gender being more than bodily sex? If a male-bodied person is psychologically healthy, what kind of male character, male role, should they accept as appropriate for them on account of their gender?

I think none. According to both paradigm 1) and paradigm 2), these notions of inherent maleness oppress.

Liberal reconstructions of masculinity ultimately reinforce masculinity. They say: 'real men do cry', 'one can be soft and sensitive and still be manly', inferring that it is right for males to be masculine rather than feminine.

Beliefs in inherent maleness should be distinguished from a pessimistic, but not dishonourable, individual stance that, society being as it is, it is prudent to ignore troublesome trans feelings. 'I am trans but I choose not to focus or act on that' is an attitude I respect more than 'trans feelings are dangerous delusions'.

I do not think that the fact of bodily sex indicates a fundamentally gendered character with which trans people are out of touch.

Ultimately, beneath societal norms, there is intellectual uncertainty, there are personal feelings, and there are choices we have a right to make.