Can We Talk About the Transgender Umbrella?
Open Discussion for Premium Members
In our recent conversation with Colin Wright (https://www.widerlenspod.com/p/episode-155) we talked about the impact the “transgender umbrella” concept has had on young people identifying as trans. As you can see from the above graphic, the modern transgender umbrella basically includes everyone who is not a feminine woman or a masculine man.
And this is not an isolated image or way of thinking. Google “transgender umbrella” and you’ll find many iterations of a similar graphic.
Additionally, this sweeping definition is cited by most major organizations, schools and professional bodies. As Colin pointed out in his Substack piece about the transgender umbrella:
The definition of “transgender” currently used and embraced by our largest and most prestigious scientific, medical, and human rights organizations is literally synonymous with common gender nonconformity.
By this definition, nearly everyone would be trans. Who do you know that doesn’t defy sex-stereotypes in one form or another, be it behavior or dress? If the husband does most of the cooking, is he trans? If the wife makes more money, is she trans? If a teenage girl wears hoodies and sweatpants, rather than crop tops and skirts, is she trans? If a teenage boy hates sports, is he trans? Because according to the new definition of “trans”, the answer to all of the above questions is a resounding: YES.
Colin goes on in his piece to explain why changing the definition of “transgender” to include common gender nonconformity can shed light on why there is a higher prevalence of girls identifying as trans or non-binary today. (This is something Sasha asked about in our episode.) After citing various studies about gender variance in boys vs girls, he sums up the explanation this way:
Because girls are more likely to exhibit gender nonconformity than boys (i.e. girls are more likely to exhibit stereotypically masculine traits than boys are to exhibit feminine traits), and because the definition of transgenderism is now synonymous with common gender nonconformity, it should come as absolutely no surprise that the rates of children claiming to be transgender is exploding, and that the majority of these children are girls.
Have you seen the transgender umbrella graphic, or a similar one, in your school, workplace, or daily life? What impact do you think this is having on the trans explosion?
Please discuss in the comments below.
My daughter is just a girl who has a diverse mix of interests. I wouldn’t even call it gender nonconformity, others might. When she at the cusp of turning 14 she told me that she didn’t feel like a girl. My husband and I did not allow her or the school to change name/pronouns. She visibly relaxed when we told her this. 18 months on she is still very much an ally to her trans and non binary friends but she knows that she’s a girl and appears to be comfortable with that. She attends a girls school and one of the reasons we chose it was so that she would be free to choose whichever subjects she liked and not feel as though she was picking a boys subject or subjects steered towards girls. I was just like her. As a kid I spent half of my free time climbing trees, searching for owl pellets and animal bones, cycling around the village and visiting the farms to stroke the cows and the other half doing ballet lessons. I eventually went on to ballet school and became a dancer but I could just as happily have become an archaeologist or forensic anthropologist (I’m tempted, even now, to study towards that). Why are things, nowadays, held so tightly to masculine or feminine boxes? And why do kids have to pick their box and squeeze into it? I see biological sex as the thing that grounds you, not in a restrictive way but in a way that sets you free.
As a parent of a female college student on T and as an adolescent NP, I see both as correct. The discomfort with the physical and social changes of adolescence is a “push” towards looking for an explanation/solution. Social media provides lots of explanations to try on: autism, adhd, anxiety, gender dysphoria. (Teens are self diagnosing with all these things based on TikTok videos). The breadth of the transgender umbrella makes it easy to settle on that explanation, and it comes with a promised solution. Kind of a “pull” into identifying as trans.