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I've written an article in which I discuss a somewhat common idea regarding the idea of trans people "existing" [1]. Some trans rights activists (TRAs) refer to denying the statement "transwomen are women" as denying the existence of trans people. Another manifestation of this is when people argue that denying that transwomen are women is threatening to transwomen's existence. The same applies to transmen of course. I argue that these arguments rely on ambiguity in language about "existence." Denying the existence of transwomen seems very silly because that is an unusual way to describe rejecting that a transwoman actually is a woman. Phrasing this as a threat to existence evokes thoughts of genocide. I think this is another case of language being used in an unusual way that is misleading, although perhaps not intentionally. This description of "anti-trans" attitudes should be avoided as it is not accurate and morally charged in a misleading way.
[1] https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/do-transgender-people-exist
Unironically just read every LessWrong article about Definitions. In a sane world, we'd just create new words to distinguish between transwomen and women and call it a day.
Conservatives would not be happy with calling transwomen 'ladyboys' but treating them the exact way, socially, as women. (Notably, ... if you are treating something the exact same way as a woman, then calling it "woman" isn't that much of a stretch). It'd be nice if they'd argue that, though
And why should they?
Because - this is why they should not - they can't reproduce, and because the 'social role' and 'biological / innate traits' and looking like a women exist for the purpose of reproduction, and are traits solely evolved for it. When breasts serve either to provide milk to children, or female genitalia exists for reproduction, faking that entirely misses the purpose, which is a good one, of making more and better people. That isn't conservative though, conservatives say stuff like 'marriage is for real men and real women' (what is a real woman why should we care) and 'god told us to' (god = "goodness, spirit, the world", etc, so ... god actually loves trans people! you can just interpret that)
But if you don't address that, you ... don't have any basis for your argument, and they end up being incoherent. "woman: adult human female" is a 'terf' slogan, but it's totally meaningless - any claims a trans has about 'woman' apply to 'female', and 'woman' and 'female' mean the same thing!
Except conservatives like Matt Walsh do say this.
Presumably there's implicit conditions on what makes a "real" man or woman that...preclude anyone adopting it via cosmetic surgery.
No, it doesn't. To the conservative it does - which is why he's reaffirming it. But the trans activist often specifically makes the claim that sex and gender are so distinct that one can be a woman without being female. This was, in fact, the thin end of the wedge until recently where, buoyed by success and annoyed by the existence of "biological women" as a distinguisher, people have insisted that "sex is also not binary".
But them now needing to say "sex is also not binary" makes it clear that that wasn't the original sell
I'm sorry, I don't really see how you show the conservative position to be hollow. I notice there's a lot of discomfort about conservatives somehow being allowed to park themselves on "Common Sense Hill" but that doesn't mean they're not sitting on said hill.
I searched trans on his twitter and didn't find much like that. The Trans Militants Must Be Stopped! Trans activists have doxxed me, threatened to kill me, defamed me, and tried to silence me. Because of this reaction I've taken time to reflect and reconsider and I've now decided to triple down and be even more radical in my opposition to their agenda. Thanks for the motivation! Arrested For Making Trans People Feel Sad. There isn't much ... actual criticism of trans directly. Are you referring to something specific? If it's his documentary ... i'm not spending 2.5 hours watching a movie, and my friend who did says he never really directly addressed those points. any quotes you want?
Also, taking that idea seriously would draw importance away from the disney-therapy concept of a relationship as a "beautiful special inscrutable thing that two people (male and female) love each other so much in" and towards .. having (maybe even more than two!) children.
... yeah, an implicit condition. What is the implicit condition? Why isn't it explicit? If it's unsaid, no argument is being made.
The term 'trans activist' is like nails on a chalkboard. It does not matter what, precisely, the randomly-generated, changing-every-year post-hoc justifications for trans stuff is. Yeah, it's incoherent and tangential! But the conservative arguments are also incoherent and tangential. (this doesn't mean either side is wrong, you can support a somewhat-correct position with stupid arguments.) The motte (what trans people actually do) / the bailey (here is a particularly ridiculous thing someone said in the gender studies department).
It doesn't make them right, either. Saying the word 'common sense' and appeal to circular definitions doesn't mean anything, convey anything, etc.
I've watched some of his videos and he explicitly says you can't change sex. If you want an example: I believe in his Dr Phil episode he basically states that sex is so essential that we recognize it in skeletons (which obviously implies you can't change it).
Here he denies that self-perception can accurately represent someone's gender (so, essentially, trans people are deluded).
Here he makes the skeleton point.
TBH he doesn't even need to say it explicitly. What else is implied by treating transitioned people as the sex they were born as and literally calling them deluded?
Implicit conditions can be so obvious as to not need to be outright stated (for example: "a baby has the same right to life as the rest of us" - has a pretty obvious implicit condition).
But I have given one example above. I think the issue here is less that Matt Walsh doesn't imply or say it with every single move he makes in his anti-trans ideology crusade (it is the basis for all he says) - it's more that you haven't seen it. which is fair but not a grand mystery.
I don't feel you've shown this yet. All you've shown is that you aren't aware of Matt Walsh's implicit and explicit arguments. Which, again, is totally fine (he's not Plato, his opinions aren't particularly novel either) but it hardly rises to the level of "the conservative arguments" as such being able to be easily written off as incoherent.
Also: it seems inconsistent to be so opposed to generalizing the trans activist position when you show no compunction throwing over the conservative position - with Matt Walsh being the avatar- as well.
Well, the gender ideology stuff is what's being used to push trans acceptance , so we're trapped with it.
I mean, to be fair: we haven't actually started to debunk/un-debunk anything yet, let alone the conservative position as such. All we've talked about is what Walsh may not have said, not even debunking his own position (standing in for the conservative position as such apparently).
... no, this isn't an argument on his part. I agree that Walsh opposes transgender stuff in general. I disagree that he attempts to articulate any basis for doing so. He's just saying ... "you are wrong. you cant make me agree with you. you are clearly a man and not a woman". Nothing more is happening there! If you tell a trans person that, or someone who is trans-accepting that ... that won't convince anyone! And he makes the conservative/libertarian argument of "you are trying to make me agree with you which isn't ok i have rights", - again, not articulating any actual objections to the specific things trans people are doing or asking. Which isn't useful!
The skeleton thing is really dumb! Aside from i'm sure there are a few outlier women with weird skeletons, it still isn't a reason to oppose people who are bio-men acting like women if they want to, or opposing letting them do that. It's just referencing some 'common sense' things you can't articulate, and don't understand well, and this means they lose! Even though in direction, they're right, trans bad, not woman, etc - they have no idea what that means, so they can't do anything with it.
... why? Plenty of ancient cultures would consider a baby in some far off land to not have the same 'right to life' (not that they even thought of a right to life!) as a fellow tribesperson. Seriously, how is that 'obvious'? It might be true, but that truth was understood after thousands of years of western philosophy. ("right" to life? what is a "right"?) That isn't obvious. Analogously with the trans stuff - this is all quite complicated, and just saying 'it's obvious i dont have to discuss it' means you ... lose to people who do try to discuss it!
right, because I am opposed to trans in general. Criticizing bad allies is as valuable, if not more, than criticizing enemies!
... what does this mean? What does 'gender ideology' mean that 'trans acceptance' doesn't? They're actually pretty different, tbh. "Trans acceptance" - "this person was a man but really wants to dress as a girl and it will make him feel really bad if he doesn't he's just being his authentic happy self :((". Gender ideology is the "there is no difference between the sexes it is all socialized social constructs patriarchy oppression". They really are not the same! Obviously they are related many different large-scale senses but there are very important local differences.
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