Refining my argument about the central contradiction in the Matrix, reflected in the trans reading:

In the film, virtuality is evil, but at the same time underlies all of its exciting wish-fulfillment.

For most people, leaving the virtual world of liberal anomie means a life of blue collar drudgery in Zion.

Neo and his compatriots get to fuck around and be superheroes only because they get to jack back into the Matrix.

The trans reading suggests that the wrong gender being thrust upon the trans person is represented by the false life in the Matrix (“Mr. Anderson” as “deadname” etc).

But what body would such a trans person have upon taking the red pill?

Their birth sex, of course; the alternative would be a too materially biological interpretation of the condition.

So the wrong gender is an imposition of the matrix, but also reflected in material reality.

What body would they have in the matrix?

We are told people’s appearance in the matrix is a reflection of their “residual self-image”. For a time, it might be the same body that was previously imposed upon them, but the reality-bending powers those who awaken to reality develop in the matrix suggest this would change.

They would also presumably transition in the real world, but there they must contend with material limitations, while the potential for remaking their self-image in the matrix is far more plastic.

The virtual version would thus be a more complete transition than the material.

Turning it around: transition itself is a virtual recreation of the opposite biological sex. The denial of this is an attempt to erase this connection, to deny that the (virtual) notion of “gender” has any association with the material notion of sex.

In other words, gender is to be conceived of as a simulacrum— a copy with no original. Something purely virtual.