Fixing an Unfortunate Implication: Non-Cis People in The Wheel of Time

[PoeticallyPsyco]

You realize that there is no evidence for either the advanced medicine or the magic required to take a person who was born anatomically X and make them anatomically Y in the setting, right? Certainly not post-Age of Legends, anyways...

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And, no, the act of an entity which for all practical purposes is a deity does not count as evidence that anything else in the setting can do that - particularly given that the 'transformation' is literally reincarnation.

So if you're looking for a reason why trans people in the sense of people who were born anatomically X but have become anatomically Y don't exist within the setting, the obvious answer is that the capability to perform that transformation doesn't exist within the setting, at the very least not in any time vaguely close to the 'present day' except in the crude form of castration.

Also, I would suggest that the true solution to this 'problem' is to change how you think, because your description of the 'problem' is basically a "boys have penises and girls have vaginas so trans cannot exist" argument. Failing that, the best 'solution' would be to acknowledge the "male souls / female souls" thing to be how the people of the setting think things work and just leave it at that, much like how many Star Wars fans regard Qui-Gon Jinn's statement on the relationship between midi-chlorians to be a mixture of fact (high midi-chlorian counts corelate with strength in the Force) and belief (midi-chlorians are the interlocutors for the will of the Force). Altering the setting's metaphysics will only create problems, especially when your rationale for altering the metaphysics basically boils down to you reading it as boys having penises and girls having vaginas means that trans cannot exist.

Um... I don't mean to be rude, but you've completely misunderstood my description of the problem. My point was not that being unable to genetically rewrite people so their bodies match their preferred gender is somehow a problem with the setting. My point was that the worldbuilding as it stands implies non-cis people do not exist save by the Dark One's direct intervention, which is at best not very inclusive.

...Am I misusing a word or something? I'm trying to figure out where I could have erred to cause this misunderstanding, and drawing a complete blank.

There's not really any problem. Your proposed solution is as it actually is; Channeling is determined by sex, not gender. The book was written in the 90s by an old man with very of-his-time knowledge and views on things. When the series says gender, it means sex, because that was generally how people thought of it at the time.

It's not really controversial to say that biological sex involves distinct, physical differences between people both on the macro and micro levels.

Aran'gar disproves that, though... or rather, is the only evidence one way or the other, and is not in favor of that interpretation. As the only trans person we see in the setting, he is a man in a female body, and has access to Sai'din.

Like I said, at least half of fixing the problem is as simple as making Aran'gar either channel Sai'dar now or be shown/told to be an exception to the rule. Then voila; the textual evidence (or I guess visual evidence for a show? Scriptual evidence?) is now in favor of channeling being determined by sex instead of gender, which like you said is perfectly consistent with every bit of evidence except for Aran'gar.