So in a recent post with an extensive discussion of Baalthamel, when refering to his actions after his resurrection in a female body, under the name Aran'gar, I used the pronoun "it" in place of gendered ones when refering specifically to Aran'gar. This upset people. For once, this was not my intent, simply because the issue over which they took umbrage was not even on my radar in that regard.

My views on the transgender issue should not be hard to figure out and are not particularly germane to this discussion, because I don't think Aran'gar is particularly german to the discussion of transgender phenomena.

Aran'gar was introduced in a book released in 1995. Thirteen years later, both of the leading left wing candidates for president, Obama and Clinton, were explicitly opposed to same sex marriage. If transgender issues were even on the radar in 1995, they were unlikely to influence RJ's conception of the character.

Here's what I think Aran'gar is - an abomination, like anything and everything the Shadow does. If you're trans or a pro-trans activist, don't claim Aran'gar for your cause. You don't want it. If the phenomenon in the books is a commentary on transexuality, it's not anything you want to hear.

In the world of Wheel of Time, male and female matter. They are forces and their interaction is a major thematic concept. The essential nature of the masculine and feminine are influenced by and/or inform the metaphysics of the world. This is, I believe, one reason why homosexuality was so inconsequential in the story - it did not contribute very much to Jordan's view of gender interaction. Relationships between men and women were what mattered most to the story he was telling.

It stands to reason then, that these would be fixed and black and white aspects of a character or personality. It is theorized that a person might switch genders from life to life (and that might explain transgender people in that world - someone who's normally male being born female or vice versa - rather than whatever explanation is currently in fashion in the real world), but from what we know of actual cases of reincarnation, namely Rand and the Heroes of the Horn, there is no evidence of that. Birgitte never remembers being half of a gay couple with Cain, nor being male and he female. In WoT, a good argument can be made that gender is a function of the soul and intellect, not merely hormones acting on mental functions and societal experiences, conditioning and expectations informing reactions. (for whatever it's worth, I do NOT actually believe that gender is a characteristic that transcends the physical, as in Tolkien or Jordan, but since metaphysics has no practical application IRL, that question is largely immaterial)

What Aran'gar is told about the new body and what Aran'gar actually notices in the changes in perspective, are an argument AGAINST Aran'gar being transgender or whatever you want to call it, for the simple fact that Aran'gar's example of the adjustment is a delusion. Unless thinking hard about it, he believes that he was always female, and notes the dissonance when specific memories (presumably involving masculine anatomy or functions or accomodations to the same) explicitly contradict that perception. The change is causing Aran'gar to believe a lie!

That is right in the Shadow's wheelhouse, and further, fits in with the idea that it cannot create or do good, all it does is corrupt and degrade. Even if one could persuade the Dark One to use the same process to relieve the distress of an individual suffering sexual dysphoria, it would probably only create a new set of problems, not because such patients are delusional, but because the Dark One can't/won't really solve problems. I have no doubt that Ishamael Healing Lews Therin's madness was nothing of the sort, only imparting an alternative clarity and imposing a different sort of mental affliction to the point that suicide by volcano creation seems like a reasonable response to grief and guilt.

Another theme in WoT, of lesser importance than gender essentialism, is the concept of accomodation and rationalization. There are many instances of people forced into a circumstance or course of action and embracing it to the point that they rationalize the situation and convince themselves they prefer it or that no other is imaginable. It's not always a bad outcome, but there is a reason why the main characters are all from a region primarily characterized by stubbornness. Their job is to resist the easy or apparently only way, because the deck is heavily stacked in favor of the Shadow. While there are times and places to go with the flow (channeling saidar springs to mind), the important thing is to do so while maintaining control. The problem is accomodating to situation where you lack control. This is most explicitly articulated by Hadnan Kadere when he is justifying in his stream of consciousness, his murder of Isendre. And that, I believe is what is going on with Aran'gar. To the extent that he is "identifying as female" or that his "preferred pronouns" are female, it is a result of an infliction imposed on him. Shaidar Haran's prediction of the changes in mind that come suggest someone knows damn well the effects. Even if the Dark One does not care about one body or another, someone has to, and picked out the bodies for him to stuff their souls into, with the knowledge of what would happen to Baalthamel's mind. I mean, he's an historian, whose personal history is being falsified! That's way too many coincidences.

To the extent that someone might want to compare what we see in the books to transgender issues, I can only think that's incredibly insulting to sufferers of sexual dysphoria. That Aran'gar can be counted among their number, for a change imposed, with almost certainly malicious intent, by the same parties who use rape as punishment is a completely contemptible idea. Mental illness is not a magical curse. The frog who seeks a kiss from a princess is not a "trans-order survivor" and is not suffering dysphoria and its just ridiculous to suggest as much in any manner other than tongue in cheek. Aran'gar is a lot more closely related to such fairy tale phenomena than an actual mental condition.