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Some people have argued that to affirm a trans person is lying. I sympathize with someone who says, "if I call a trans person by his preferred pronoun, it feels like I am lying." If this is all that is meant, then I suppose the rest of this post isn't relevant. To me, the stronger claim is, "if society calls a trans person by his preferred pronoun, society is lying." I never bought that claim, because I never encountered a contradictory set of definitions for sex and gender.
But recently I realized the term passing is actually transphobic according to the definitions laid out.
This is pretty clearly a woman. I can tell because of the hair and clothes. I infer she goes by "she." If I had to publicly address her, I'd do so with she.
People typically speak of passing as a woman. Since I can infer she is a woman, it follows that she passes as a woman. But as far as I can tell, nobody would describe her as passing, because she looks transgender (i.e. male). Based on how "pass" is used, it seems to really mean pass as cisgender. To see passing in this sense, as a good thing, is deceptive. It also seems transphobic. Surely a less transphobic worldview would suggest she passes as a woman because I can correctly infer her pronouns, and that her womanness is just as beautiful as a ciswomans.
Inb4 replies castigating me for just now realizing this: nobody had ever crystalized to me that passing meant to misrepresent a trans person as cisgender because most discourse talks about "passing as a woman"
Am I missing something? Can anyone else steelperson all this?
I'd say that's someone who is pretty clearly pretending to be a woman. It comes down to this- what's your definition of woman? If your definition, like the pro-trans people, is that a woman is anyone who says they're a woman, then this person would qualify as a woman but it makes the word meaningless. If your definition is that a woman is an adult human female, then this is clearly not a woman. If you definition is that a woman is anyone who is trying to present as an adult human female (as I infer) then this is a woman.( From this point on, I'm going to use the specific definition instead of the word to make the argument clearer.)
But then passing makes no sense the way you use the word. You are saying that she passes because you can tell that she's a woman (trying to look like an adult human female). But her objective, if she is a woman by your definition, is to look like an adult human female (not like someone who's trying to look like an adult human female) which she's failing at- hence pro trans people would not think of her as passing.
Steelman of the pro-trans argument: Woman is defined as someone who would prefer to be an adult human female, regardless of what they actually are. They're passing as a woman if they can pretend to be an adult human female so well that they're indistinguishable from a regular adult human female to the casual observer.
Steelman of the anti-trans argument: Woman is an adult human female. This man is pretending to be an adult human female while not actually being one. The pro-trans people are asking everyone else to pretend that his pretense is successful, to participate in his delusion, and that is unacceptable.
Except even this doesn't work for current mainstream trans activism since "passing" is seen as an undue burden to demand - this is the entire basis for self-ID (if the standard is passing or surgery most transpeople would fail) and the shift to the dualism of the gender identity view where everyone has an inbuilt non-contestable understanding of their
soulgender.As a steelman it would be politically intolerable to actual trans activists. Which is Why the Trans Inclusion Problem cannot be Solved
There's simply no definition that includes both women (in the traditional sense) and every transperson who wants to identify as a woman.
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