A friend asked a thoughtful and penetrating question: “How does a ‘trans woman’ know what it feels like to be a woman, so that he can verify that he is a woman based on his feelings?” It is a simple question, yet it exposes the soft underbelly of gender ideology, which claims subjective feeling is enough to determine objective reality.
To engage this question, we must consider three critical avenues: (1) the psychological and spiritual dynamics of gender dysphoria and human self-perception, (2) the claims and contradictions of modern gender ideology, and (3) the authoritative biblical framework by which Christians interpret personhood, reality, and identity. Finally, we will contrast these with secular philosophical reflections to address the deeper issue of human self-knowledge.
The Nature of Gender Dysphoria and Human Self-Deception
Gender dysphoria is a psychological condition wherein a person experiences persistent discomfort or distress because of a perceived mismatch between their biological sex and their internal sense of gender. This distress is real, and it can be agonizing. But from a counseling perspective, the existence of a distressing internal feeling does not mean that the feeling tells the truth about reality. An anorexic who is dangerously thin may sincerely feel fat; a person with Body Integrity Identity Disorder may feel that one of their limbs does not belong to them. In both cases, feelings can deceive.
Body dysphoria often appears with other comorbid psychological conditions. These include depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, trauma histories, and personality disorders. A study published in The Journal of Adolescent Health (2015) found that over 60% of adolescents diagnosed with gender dysphoria had one or more coexisting mental health conditions. In some cases, the dysphoria may not be the root issue, but a symptom of deeper emotional or psychological pain.
From a counseling standpoint, the task is not to affirm the dysphoria but to explore what it might be signaling. Is there trauma? Is there shame? Is there alienation from one’s own body due to abuse, social pressure, or neurodivergence? Often, those struggling with gender identity are desperately seeking peace—but mistaking transformation of the body as the cure for unrest in the soul.
Humans have an extraordinary capacity for self-deception, a theme echoed in both secular psychology and Christian doctrine. We do not always see ourselves clearly. We are shaped by our experiences, biases, wounds, and desires. We are capable of believing deeply in something that is false. The entire advertising industry, cults, and ideologies across history rely on this fact. The human mind can be profoundly irrational—especially when it is disconnected from a transcendent reference point of truth.
Christian Perspective: Identity, Revelation, and the Noetic Effects of the Fall
From a Christian lens, the question of gender identity is not a mystery left to self-discovery—it is something revealed by God. Genesis 1:27 declares that “God created man in His own image… male and female He created them.” Sex is not assigned by doctors; it is assigned by God. To reject this is not just to reject biology, but to reject God’s design.
The claim that “I feel like a woman” becomes incoherent when a male makes it, because he has no access to female experience. A man cannot know what it feels like to be a woman unless he already is one. This is circular reasoning. It assumes what it sets out to prove.
Worse, it treats “lived experience” as an infallible revelation, which replaces divine revelation. The postmodern Left often treats personal feelings as sacred, untouchable truth. But from a biblical worldview, lived experience is not infallible. Jeremiah 17:9 warns us: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” If our own hearts are deceitful, then “looking within” for truth is a deeply unreliable method.
This is the noetic effect of the Fall—a theological term that means sin affects not only our behavior but our thinking and perceiving. Our minds are broken. We can lie to ourselves, and even worse, believe the lie.
That’s why Proverbs 3:5–6 cautions: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.” Self-understanding, apart from God’s Word and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is dangerous ground. We cannot rightly understand ourselves apart from the Creator who made us and speaks to us through Scripture.
The Witness of Detransitioners: Experience Is Not Revelation
If personal experience were a reliable guide to truth, we would not have the growing movement of detransitioners—individuals who once identified as transgender, underwent hormonal or surgical transitions, and later realized they were wrong.
Figures such as Chloe Cole, Walt Heyer, Laura Becker, Helena Kerschner, and Cat Cattinson have spoken publicly about their regret, and about how transitioning did not resolve their psychological distress but deepened it. Many describe feelings of being manipulated, misdiagnosed, or swept up in a cultural trend. Others describe the deep pain of realizing their dysphoria was rooted in trauma, autism, or internalized shame—not in being “born in the wrong body.”
The LGBT community, which once welcomed these individuals as part of its fold, often now turns on them viciously. Detransitioners are ridiculed, harassed, de-platformed, and accused of spreading hate—despite simply telling their stories. This severing of camaraderie is one of the most telling and tragic signs of ideological intolerance. The movement that insists on acceptance for all refuses it to those who no longer affirm the orthodoxy. It is a particularly significant form of denial, because it silences those who have firsthand knowledge of both sides of the transgender journey.
The very existence of detransitioners shatters the myth of lived experience as absolute authority. If feelings can change—so can identities rooted in them. Feelings are not facts. And surgically altering the body based on a moment of felt truth often leads to lifelong regret.
A Philosophical Perspective: Can You Know What You Cannot Know?
From a philosopher’s lens, the question touches on the epistemological limits of self-knowledge. What does it mean to know what it feels like to be a woman? There is no empirical test for “feeling like a woman.” One cannot measure femininity in milligrams or volts. One can observe gender roles, personalities, preferences—but these are cultural and vary by era and society.
For a man to say he “feels like a woman” is to abstract the concept of “woman” down to a set of stereotypes—long hair, makeup, softness, emotion. This is not insight; it is reductionism. It collapses the rich and mysterious reality of female embodiment and personhood into a caricature.
Moreover, if gender is purely subjective, then it is unfalsifiable. Any claim of identity becomes immune to challenge. Yet this leads to absurdity. If I claim to be Napoleon because I feel like him, society rightly questions my claim. But if I claim to be a woman for the same reason, I am told it is bigotry to question it.
This is a logical incoherence in gender ideology: It simultaneously claims that gender is an inner reality that only the individual can know, but also demands universal social recognition and conformity based on that unverifiable claim. It is self-referential and therefore immune to evidence, criticism, or correction.
Final Reflections: Identity in Christ, Not Feelings
To respond to the original question—how does a trans woman know what it feels like to be a woman?—the answer is: he cannot. He is attempting to validate an inner experience by referring to an external reality he has never lived. It is a leap of assumption, not a step of knowledge.
From a Christian and counselor’s viewpoint, the response must be one of compassion and truth. We must recognize the deep pain that gender dysphoria can cause while refusing to affirm delusions that lead people away from God’s design and deeper into harm. True healing is not found in the scalpel or hormone, but in the gospel of Christ, who restores broken hearts and confused minds.
The Christian must hold fast to the biblical authority over human identity. Unlike the Left, we do not enthrone feelings as sacred. We enthrone Christ, who alone defines who we are. And in Christ, our identity is not in gender or sex, but in being sons and daughters of the living God.
We must also continue to speak truth into a culture drunk on the delusion of “authenticity.” Our message must be: You are not what you feel. You are what God has made you to be. And He does not make mistakes.
Conclusion
- Gender dysphoria is a real but psychologically complex condition, often accompanied by other mental health issues.
- Feelings of “being a woman” in a man’s body are unverifiable, self-referential, and shaped by cultural stereotypes.
- The Christian worldview insists on the authority of God’s Word over inner feelings, recognizing the deceitfulness of the human heart (Jer. 17:9).
- Detransitioners such as Chloe Cole, Walt Heyer, and others demonstrate the fallibility of “lived experience” and face vicious rejection by the very community that once embraced them.
- Philosophically, gender identity claims that rely on internal, unverifiable experience are incoherent and logically unstable.
- Christians are called to love those with gender confusion by speaking the truth in love and pointing them toward their true identity in Christ.
Let us then not lean on our own understanding—but trust the God who made us, body and soul, male and female, in His image. Study our Bibles regularly so that we view ourselves and the world according to God’s Word enlightened by the Holy Spirit within us, the only dependable sources of revelation.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
rob@basedchristianity.org
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I recommend these Youtube channels for good content on Christian matters: Founders Ministries, Ligonier Ministries, Grace to You, G3 Ministries, and Truth for Life. RC Sproul, Voddie Baucham, Alistair Begg, Kevin DeYoung, Albert Mohler, Tom Ascol and John MacArthur are well-known, trustworthy pastors and teachers with content across multiple forums.
Francis Schaeffer, Tom Ascol, Allie Beth Stuckey and Nancy Pearcey have some valuable materials related to cultural matters, as well.