# If a wizard changed someone from male to female, would that make them trans? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 18, 2021, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149 "2021-03-18T04:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/21 "2021-03-18T12:44:46Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Do non-transitioned people call themselves “trans” ? If you mean, do pre-op transsexuals call themselves transmen and transwomen, yes. If you mean, do they call themselves transmen and transwomen before they come out, maybe? If that’s how they see themselves, I would say yes. If they are just uncomfortable in their own body and don’t know why yet, probably not. Back to the OP, a more interesting question might be, if a transwoman changed to be biologically female, is she still a transwoman? My answer is, who cares? Once you bring magic in, all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/22 "2021-03-18T12:46:32Z")
Mate. Calm. It’s magic. They are not trans because magic. Same way they are physically female because magic. There’s no point getting worked up because I won’t conform to reality in a hypothetical that doesn’t involve reality. As @RitterSport just said, all bets are off. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/23 "2021-03-18T12:58:40Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > If you mean, do pre-op transsexuals call themselves transmen and transwomen, yes. If you mean, do they call themselves transmen and transwomen before they come out, maybe? If that’s how they see themselves, I would say yes. If they are just uncomfortable in their own body and don’t know why yet, probably not. I don’t think ‘transsexual’ is a said thing anymore. But I specifically wasn’t talking about someone contemplating an operation or other irreversible change; just - what’s someone who decides they can’t be at peace with their gender unless they transition it, before they actually take that step? > [@RitterSport](#): > > Back to the OP, a more interesting question might be, if a transwoman changed to be biologically female, is she still a transwoman? My answer is, who cares? Once you bring magic in, all bets are off. I disagree that the existence of magic changes any of this. The reassignment technologies now available would have been indistinct from magic to an observer from the 19th century. There’s a really good chance that future tech in this area would seem magical to us today, and then this question wouldn’t be academic anymore. In that case, as in the OP, the nugget of the question is “does identity as a man or woman depend on the facts of your birth, or your current external physical traits?” Although those factors influence each other somewhat, I think the person’s actions and intent should be the authoritative answer. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/24 "2021-03-18T13:50:26Z")
It all depends on what, precisely, the wizard changes. Let’s say you start off cisgender and male. Wizard changes your _body_. Your sense of self — whether it derives from hypothetical brain differences or hypothetical social learning & interaction — doesn’t magically shift along with it. So you inhabit a female body but the you inhabiting it is still a guy. I’d say that makes you trans. You’re a trans man. People seeing you will assign you “female” (until / unless you deliberately do things to present as male so that people will assign you “male”). Someone else might dissent, saying you were assigned male at birth and you still identify as a guy, regardless of what yon wizard did to you, so it depends a bit on how we define our terms. Transition is mostly thought of as a deliberate volitional process and not something that external forces do to you, but to my way of thinking focusing on assignment at birth is a nonperfect political construction. If the Millford Community Hospital had literally made a clerical error, wherein doctors, nursing staff, parents, and temple clergy all view your baby parts and agree you’re a fine young boy, but the admin assistants typing up the birth certificate enter “F” by accident, that’s not really what trans activists mean when they say you’re trans if your current gender ID varies from the value you were assigned at birth. Back to the wizard. If the wizard changes whatever it is that makes you a man or a woman (socialization, neurology, invisible girl or boy cooties, or whatever) along with your physical bod, you are now female and you’re also a woman. Assuming gender identity isn’t an empty chimera, you feel different, you’re immediately positioned differently in the world, who you are has shifted. And you’re a cis woman. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/25 "2021-03-18T14:19:19Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > who you are has shifted Who you _were_ is dead. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/26 "2021-03-18T14:32:12Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Magical transformation into a female? > Dibs on the name “Ozma”. She was assigned female at birth, and magically transformed into a boy when very young. We see her uncursed and returned to being a girl in the story. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/27 "2021-03-18T14:45:20Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > As in, someone who sees themselves as a straight male, but a wizard curses them to suddenly become biologically female, but they themselves see them as still male, does that make them transgender? It wasn’t a wizard, it was a pissed-off minor god. > **[Turnabout](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/296449.Turnabout)** > > Sally Willows envied her adman husband his glamorous wo… \*worth reading for classic lines such as “Suckle that young, and make it snappy.” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/28 "2021-03-18T14:55:27Z")
Reading the OP simply, to me it sounds like, yes, that scenario does fit an understanding of what I may call “transgender.” I’m sure there are nuances I’m missing, but having a different gender self-identity than biological sex is at least an aspect, if not the definition, of “transgender,” isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/29 "2021-03-18T15:50:22Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > She was assigned female at birth, and magically transformed into a boy when very young. We see her uncursed and returned to being a girl in the story Yeah, I know…but I still call dibs. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/30 "2021-03-18T16:36:43Z")
A non-magical possibility is a brain transplant into a new body. Although this seems like science fiction today, in the future it might be possible like organ transplants are today. In that case, I would not consider that person transgender. I would suspect we’d have a different word for it. Transgender seems like it would maintain our current definition for those people who have the same body and brain they were born with. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/31 "2021-03-18T21:04:00Z")
Yeah this is the answer I’m looking for, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2021, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/32 "2021-03-18T21:31:56Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > There was a movie to this effect, though it was a dead dude with God and Satan talking about who should get him. Was it _Switch_ with Ellen Barkin? IIRC, “he” had a baby, and the baby loved “him.” I don’t think the character really transitioned. It was very jokey and superficial. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2021, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/33 "2021-03-19T03:01:27Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Mate. Calm. It’s magic. They are not trans because magic. Same way they are physically female because magic. There’s no point getting worked up because I won’t conform to reality in a hypothetical that doesn’t involve reality. > > As @RitterSport just said, all bets are off. He’s not. He responding to how you are playing coy and not directly answering the questions asked. You are choosing to post in a frustrating manner and then blaming him for being frustrated with you. You could have just said from teh start. “No, I don’t think they’re trans, because the real world goes out the window in such a fantastic setting.” But, no, it took 3 posts before you actually stated your position. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2021, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149/34 "2021-03-19T05:17:44Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > If before they were a biological man who identified as a woman, they were transgender. > If after they are a biological woman who identifies as a man, they are transgender > It’s not complex It is because this is a magical story. I’m actually writing something sort of similar - accidental body-swapping between two time periods. I don’t think my male character in a woman’s body (and vice versa) is trans, because it’s an accident. They didn’t suspect for years that they might be a woman/man, they just woke up (sort of) and discovered different body parts - and the different time period is more of an issue, really. It would be very different to actually being transgender and I think it would be offensive to claim it was. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-wizard-changed-someone-from-male-to-female-would-that-make-them-trans/938149.md?page=1)