Natalie: The situation of trans people can in fact be linked back to a universal philosophical theme. It reveals what identity really is: contingent and impermanent. People find that threatening. A person can lead their life as a man for decades and still become a woman and live a woman’s life at some point. However, it doesn’t really take a trans person to shed light on this. It has been one of the basic ideas of Buddhism for thousands of years. In the Western philosophers’ tradition, we can think of David Hume who says that the self is an illusion: it's just this bundle of impressions tied together. The idea that there would be anything such as the self is a mirage.
By Leyla Sophie Gleissner