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So you come out as an attack helicopter, now what?
A common meme floating around the internet attacking trans rights compares coming out as a woman to coming out as an Apache attack helicopter to show the absurdity of trans identities. Another one they throw out there is the woman who believes she is a cat, and a final one is the age old trope of the man who claims he is Napoleon. All of these seek to troll trans folk, showing that perceiving oneself as anything other than assigned sex at birth is mental illness on the same level as dissociative personality disorders. Dismissing these trolls is straight forward, as they are actively trolling. Yet, there is a kernel of philosophical truth to their point, namely that all the labels we ascribe to ourselves are based on self-understanding.
If you perceive yourself as an attack helicopter who is anyone else to tell you you are not. The power to frame mental illness within society has long meant that anyone who claims to be Napoleon or Jesus would be treated as mentally ill, yet unless that person is causing communal harm there is no inherent reason why that person should not be treated as Napoleon. But, you may say, how does this relate back to trans identities, especially since trans people have been increasingly de-pathologized over the last ten years. I argue that the subjective understanding of self means that identity is inherently internal, that no-one…
