Sex Organs and Identity of Men and Women

In just about every talk I hear on transgenderism, talks that try to normalize the disorder, there is a preemptive argument that genitals don't determine who or what you are. I heard it recently here, and the way he phrased it, as "genitalifying", makes me want to say something about this very common argument. 

The most important point to be made is that this is a straw-man. We do not say that because you have a penis, you are a man, or because you have a vagina, you are a female. And I would press any critic to actually cite a philosopher who argues this. You probably won't find it in those terms. This is what you probably will find, and is what has been said for a very long time and is not criticized by those who want to normalize madness, which is, a male is that which has the power to reproduce actively, and a female is that which has the power to reproduce passively. 

This is a better definition because it helps classify what things are, not just in human beings, but in the animal kingdom. I am a male just like some dogs are male, some insects are male, some sea creatures male, even though we have different type of penises, or male reproductive sexual organs. We all have the power to reproduce actively. That is what makes not just male humans but male animals. I have never heard a popular level talk given that recognizes and deals with this definition of men and women. It's always reduced crudely to "Penis and vaginas doesn't make me a man or woman".

And that's only partially correct. Having a penis doesn't make you a man, being a man makes you have a penis. Because man is a hylemorphic dualism of form and matter, the matter, that is the penis, properly reflects my form, humanity. If you have a vagina, then your matter properly reflects your particular form of humanity, that of being a woman. But because we do not see forms abstractly, only their instantiation, a look at their reproductive organs tells us something about the abstract nature of the thing we are beholding. So, if someone like me were to say, "If you have a penis, you are a man" I speak only short handedly. If you want to critique that statement, please do recognize that you're are only attacking something said in shorthand, and whatever follows is not an adequate response. Perhaps a intermediate way of phrasing this definition is to say that man is that which can become a father, and a woman is that which can become a mother. 

Now, the metaphysics implies the falsity of the trans worldview. If you have a penis, your particular form is that of being a man. It is part of your nature that you are a man. If you want to say, "But I feel like a girl. My body is incorrect" you are incorrect. Matter does not mistakenly compose in such a way that it puts you into a different category that is proper. That is to say, matter doesn't come together in error so that the error produces a functioning vagina rather than a penis. If matter doesn't properly form a penis, it will be a penis, just deformed. So, for example, if my body were to mistakenly form my eye, I wouldn't sprout a fully functioning ear, but rather something more like an eye that cannot see. So, it is never true that you were put into the wrong body, and so there goes most of the trans worldview. 

For what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say on the matter, click here.