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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   27073 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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Let's have some more CW over trans issues, because we can never have enough of those, right?

Now, I've been gently chided by other commenters on here about my attitude regarding transgender activism. It's only a few edge cases and nothing to do with the reality of trans people's lives, I get told.

So here's a story I stumbled across that is happening in my own country. I'm hoping really hard that this is just a legal stratagem and not a guy who is now a gal claiming "I am too the biological mother of this child" for realsies:

A British trans woman, who used her frozen sperm to have a baby with her wife, has been granted permission to bring a High Court challenge against a refusal by the State to grant Irish citizenship to the child on the basis that she is not the biological mother.

The woman – who has Irish citizenship while her wife does not – submits that if she has to claim to be the “father” of the child as part of the application, it would be an “offensive, discriminatory and unjust attack” on her person, gender identity and legal status.

...The woman is seeking a declaration from the High Court that she is legally and genetically a parent of the child.

She is also seeking an order compelling the State to register the child on the Foreign Births Register and for the child to be granted citizenship under Section 7 (1) of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956.

Persons born outside of Ireland who have an Irish national grandparent born in Ireland may obtain Irish citizenship through registration with the Foreign Births Register, which is maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In submissions to the High Court the woman, who was born male, states that she is a UK resident but with Irish citizenship through her own lineage.

The submissions state that the woman had stored sperm with a UK fertility clinic, intending it to be used at a future date. She changed her name and transitioned from a man to a woman under UK law, receiving a UK gender recognition certificate.

The woman married her female partner and frozen sperm was then used to have a baby with her wife by an IVF procedure at a UK clinic.

The woman says she fears any UK withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights would mean her family could lose its protections and status in that country.

It is submitted by the woman that her child was refused entry into the foreign births registry – thereby denying Irish citizenship – as the woman was not the biological mother of the child and because her wife, who gave birth to the child, was not an Irish citizen.

The woman submitted that the Department of Foreign Affairs informed her that “under Irish law, as applied to date, the mother of the child is the woman who gives birth to the child and therefore the child would derive their citizenship through that mother”.

It is claimed by the woman the department’s position is that, because she is not the biological mother of the child, she therefore does not meet the requirement of an Irish citizen parent and the application cannot proceed.

The woman further submits that she could have claimed to be the “father” of the child and “could have possibly obtained citizenship by descent that way”.

“I feel it would invalidate me as a trans woman, invalidate my legal status as a woman and invalidate my same-sex marriage,” she said.

The woman submits that if she had to claim to be the “father” of the child, it would be an “offensive, discriminatory and unjust attack” on her person, gender identity, legal status and on same-sex marriage.

I'm trying to be sympathetic here, but my well of the milk of human kindness seems to have run dry. If this person applies as the father of the child, the child can be granted Irish citizenship and this will recognise the parent as "legally and genetically a parent of the child". Otherwise, they are asking our High Court for a ruling that (a) the child has two mothers and no father (b) being trans means you are biologically a woman (c) even if she didn't bear and give birth to the child she is still a mother not a father (d) in future such cases, the mother of the child is "whoever wants to call themselves the mother" and not "biological mother".

Remind me again about how, silly normies, gender is not the same as sex and we're not making any claims that biological sex is the same thing as preferred gender, so just shut up and give in on our totally reasonable requests? I don't care if this person calls themself daddy, mommy, or XibablaMakiNooNoo as parent of the child, what I do care about is precedent that "trans gender you identify as is now the same as your biological sex, now if you're a trans woman you're a mother even if you're the father because calling you the father would be offensive, even though you are a father not a mother" for future cases. If the precedent is set, it won't be limited to "parent of child wishing to be identified as legal mother not legal father".

EDIT: I think my main objection here is the twisted logic on show: "You can't call me a 'father', I'm a woman! women are not fathers!" Yeah, but people with functioning male reproductive systems that are capable of getting cis women pregnant can be women. Uh-huh.

I already expressed my thoughts on why this case in particular is not actually about transgenderism downthread, and the decision doesn't contradict her being a woman.

EDIT: I think my main objection here is the twisted logic on show: "You can't call me a 'father', I'm a woman! women are not fathers!" Yeah, but people with functioning male reproductive systems that are capable of getting cis women pregnant can be women. Uh-huh.

I don't see anything twisted in this logic at all.

I'll start with my steelman for transgender ideology, so you know where I'm coming from. I am aware that the stance in practice varies between activists, and they often contradict one another, but I suspect the framing I give below would still make most anti-trans people unhappy, so it is not about "twisted logic", but rather a values difference.

Without any kind of gender theory:

  • Humans can be separated into the categories "male/men" and "female/women" (male/men, woman/female and sex/gender are synonyms)
  • These categories are hard to verbalise. There are a bunch of single criteria (XX vs XY, penis vs vagina, ovaries vs not ovaries, etc) that almost totally overlap, and deal with most cases. And they all make up the definition: a woman is still a woman after a hysterectomy (because she satisfies all the other things)
  • But the existence of these categories, and the way we assign people into them, is common-sense to everyone (outside of extremely rare medical cases)

Let's call this the "old" system ("cis(hetero)normativity", I suppose)

Now let's make binary transgender ideology (just 2 genders for now):

  • I define a new sort of identity marker (next to stuff like race, sex, age, etc) called "gender identity" (or "gender" for short)
  • This is a redefinition of the old concept of gender. We will still keep the word "sex" to refer to the old-fashioned thing above.
  • I also redefine "man", "woman", "boy" and "girl" to now refer to gender identity, instead of sex
  • Same for any other gendered (pro)nouns (fireman, mother, lesbian, etc) - we can only refer to sex by male/female (and references to sex should be avoided where possible)
  • Being a man/woman means sincerely wanting to be (EDIT: mostly) male/female (this, but unironically)

To address the typical complaints/questions about gender ideology:

  • This is not tethered to claims about objective reality: nothing about trans women having "female brains", the effect eostrogen has on sports performance, etc - this is a purely moral framework
  • There are no weird logical contortions about how sex is a spectrum. Sex is real, but it just shouldn't talked about for moral reasons.
  • In this framework, it does not count as a "lie" to use trans people's pronouns. It is merely an acceptance of a redefinition of language, and agreement to look at things a different way (people might still be uncomfortable with this, but it wouldn't be an objective lie, like saying "the sky is red")
  • The definition of man/womanhood is not-circular (it goes back to referencing the already established notion of sex)
  • There is the issue of practically judging "sincerity" of desire. But I think most anti-trans people are unhappy even in cases where there is clearly a sincere desire (e.g. this one!)
  • And as for the general "Is a [bunch of masculine features] person really a woman? Seriously?" type "questions": yes. That is what this framework includes under the category of "woman" - you can of course morally oppose the framework on this basis. But it doesn't prove the framework itself is illogical.

With this framework, let's address your complaint.

"You can't call me a 'father', I'm a woman! women are not fathers!"

Correct, she is not a father. She is a woman, and fathers are men. Calling her a father is in direct violation of transgender ideology ("transphobic", if we wish to pathologise it)

Yeah, but people with functioning male reproductive systems that are capable of getting cis women pregnant can be women

Individuals with "functioning male reproductive systems that are capable of getting cis women pregnant" are males, and are typically men. But they do not have to be men, and in this case, the individual is not a man, she is a woman.

Now of course, this framing I gave above doesn't get respected by TRAs in real life. Indeed, the woman in this very case makes a mistake:

“I feel it would invalidate me as a trans woman, invalidate my legal status as a woman and invalidate my same-sex marriage,” she said.

She is supposed to say same-gender marriage! (Or gay/lesbian, which sounds less awkward than "same-gender")

Remind me again about how, silly normies, gender is not the same as sex and we're not making any claims that biological sex is the same thing as preferred gender, so just shut up and give in on our totally reasonable requests?

You are right to call this out. My most charitable explanation is that she just misspoke when she said "same-sex" (other than that, she didn't say anything contradictory) - though it does seem that as of late, TRAs has started conflating the 2 concepts (more egregiously are the terms MtF and FtM, which refer to sex!)

I think the issue is just what you've said: this isn't actually how TRAs, or almost any transgender people actually view the situation, and anti-trans positions certainly don't like it. So what you've crafted is a steelman that means little, because no one's going to accept it. I agree it makes a sort of logical sense, in that you're not advocating for empirical facts of the world. But you are advocating for avoiding discussion of empirical categories that do exist, which in truth-seeking is simply a lie by omission: "Sex is real, but it just shouldn't talked about for moral reasons."

Actually, that part of your steelman is significantly more radical than at least some of the actual transgender people I've met! A lot of the less activist-minded trans people are often entirely comfortable with the reality of their sex, and agree that it's relevant for medical and documentary purposes. What they often want is simply people to use their pronouns out of politeness and treat them with general respect. They're often quite honest about the limitations of their transition and self-effacing, even. The fact that you're describing common self-identifications like MtF and FtM as "egregious" isn't a weakness in the trans movement -- it's a weakness in your steelman of it.

Frankly, I think the "use pronouns out of politeness, sex remains necessary for medical purposes" is where the moderate left position is going and has been for a while. That seems to be a much better bridge to the right, and therefore a useful steelman, than what you're outlining. Your logician's take on the phenomenon is logically consistent, but cold, stripping out any source of moral urgency from the gender self-id case and therefore losing out to more impassioned versions (on both sides) of the trans phenomenon. "There's no objectively correct answer, it may make a small portion of the population less sad, and some people like it because it's aesthetic," is not a good argument for a political position!

Where I think the trans movement went wrong is when gender dysphoria (as an experience, not a diagnosis) was stripped out of the essential core of interpreting gender transition. Gender dysphoria is a serious form of suffering. I've known people who dealt with it. I've heard some stories. And the idea that someone might have such a tremendous mental incongruity with their sex that they can't recognize themselves in the mirror and feel about their genitals the way people who get limbs blown off sometimes feel about their missing limbs -- that's horrifying. And it activates a lot of compassion, especially in people who aren't primed by activists to find the overall concept disturbing. It's the sort of thing where knowing a transgender person is much more real and compelling than any amount of activism, or any logical argument.

The strongest, by far of the arguments that trans activists marshal for their view is that the only known way to treat this experience of suffering is gender transition. I'm not 100% convinced this is true, or that there are no other options available, but it's at least a plausible claim -- and an empirical one. I have no problem with the option being offered to adults, maybe even teenagers with parental consent -- go on, give it a shot, I don't support that we build a huge legal regime to stop you. But that view has some caveats. At the very least, I think therapy to help gender dysphoriacs be more comfortable with their sex must be legally available. I also know people who struggled with gender dysphoria, and general gender identity crises, but overcame them with social support. If the goal is to actually make people "less sad," as you put it, then we have to ask the empirical question: What will do that?

That also prompts the question of what the second-order effects are of the absolute self-id gender identity theory framing are, including on people who experience struggles with their gender identity: if we make this a prominent part of our culture or offer people the option loudly, do we actually generate more gender confusion and dysphoria among the vulnerable than might actually exist in a vacuum?

In the real world, I see conservatives grappling with that question far more than trans activists, who admit no downsides to gender transition (though there are many), and don't even admit the existence of a tradeoff between making peace with your sex or transitioning. That's another one of the big areas where both your theory and the activists' framing is wildly off-base from the on-the-ground experience of transgender people, who from personal experience I know grapple with and make judgments on that tradeoff all the time. I remember one of our posters here talked about struggling with gender identity, and feeling like people they interacted with online were, to paraphrase from memory, "part of a cult that just wanted to increase the number of trans people at all costs." I also know we have transgender posters here who take a more generally transmedicalist viewpoint; I've found them pleasant and easy to relate to, despite the disagreements we might have.

So I guess what I'm saying is this: you're bringing a QED to a knife fight. There's blood involved. Surgeries. Severe mental distress. Suicide. You can craft the most logical argument for whatever steelman you want, but it's not going to build a bridge here -- certainly not by telling people they can't acknowledge a fact of the world, even philosophically, for moral reasons. The only thing that builds a bridge is raw and real human experience. Or in other words, empirical things.

I remember one of our posters here talked about struggling with gender identity, and feeling like people they interacted with online were, to paraphrase from memory, "part of a cult that just wanted to increase the number of trans people at all costs."

I suspect you were thinking of this - the actual line being "It felt like I was talking to an AI designed to maximize the number of trans people". Written by a Motte member, and quoted here three times that I know of, but not actually written on theMotte.

Now let's make binary transgender ideology (just 2 genders for now):

  • I define a new sort of identity marker (next to stuff like race, sex, age, etc) called "gender identity" (or "gender" for short)
  • This is a redefinition of the old concept of gender. We will still keep the word "sex" to refer to the old-fashioned thing above.
  • I also redefine "man", "woman", "boy" and "girl" to now refer to gender identity, instead of sex
  • Same for any other gendered (pro)nouns (fireman, mother, lesbian, etc) - we can only refer to sex by male/female (and references to sex should be avoided where possible)
  • Being a man/woman means sincerely wanting to be male/female (this, but unironically)

Taken at face value, this seems bad on its merits, because why? There aren't any substantial actual claims in there, just a demand for changing language, so what benefit does this redefinition offer? This isn't even a steelman, because it involves no object level position. It's just a proposal for changing words without a justification.

Redefining terms is bad, because it leads to confusion. So where is the justification for paying that price, over creating new terms?

Aside from allowing for rhetorical shell games, of course?

Correct, she is not a father. She is a woman, and fathers are men.

The document isn't using the new definition under which this is true. If you honestly just want to change definitions, you can argue "the term 'father' should be replaced with 'male parent' (or similar) to reflect that 'father' now means something different". You can't argue the meaning/content of the document should change alongside a definition change of kne word it was using.

Your "steelman" framework doesn't give an argument here. It only appears to give one because it equivocates between the two meanings of "father".

There aren't any substantial actual claims in there, just a demand for changing language

Precisely - I'm trying to give a formulation that doesn't require lies or logical inconsistency.

so what benefit does this redefinition offer?

It makes people with gender dysphoria less sad. And also some might just prefer a language / culture like this for aesthetic reasons.

I'm not saying this is an obviously worthwhile price to pay, in fact there isn't an objectively correct answer for this sort of subjective moral question. There are just people's differing preferences

Precisely - I'm trying to give a formulation that doesn't require lies or logical inconsistency.

At the cost of not having any substance beyond semantics. Your difficulties offering a steelman that is both consistent and meaningful might be indicative of the validity of the philosophy.

It makes people with gender dysphoria less sad.

But does it really? If your redefinition succeeds - as the transparent redefinition it's advertised at - all that happens is that "father" now means "parent who wishes to be a man", and the birth certificate will change its terminology in response to the redefinition, using a new term with quite possibly the same implications, which won't satisfy the person from the OP. Because it's not about the word, it's about the meaning behind it.

Meanwhile, forcibly changing the language will make other people unhappy.

At the cost of not having any substance beyond semantics.

It's not really possible to make a definition based on biology, since one of the core tenets of modern transgenderism is inclusivity of anyone with dysphoria. Trying to base it on things like eostrogen levels, "female brains", etc will end up excluding people who still have dysphoria.

The only factor that can be considered is desire.

Your difficulties offering a steelman that is both consistent and meaningful might be indicative of the validity of the philosophy.

It depends what you mean by "valid"? I think this philosophy clearly captures a desire, and way to manifest this desire into reality (whilst still constrained by reality)

If your redefinition succeeds - as the transparent redefinition it's advertised at - all that happens is that "father" now means "parent who wishes to be a man"

At the very least, this will make it impossible to refer to someone's sex (which is helpful if someone dislikes their sex) - and in cases of low information, people might just be forced to assume a man is actually a male - it is true that most people whose gender identity is "man" are actually XY-having males.

And also some people might just have trouble adjusting to the new defintiions, and start confusing map for territory and thinking of "men" as males. Or at least retain associations of the word "man" to the old concept of "man".

Meanwhile, forcibly changing the language will make other people unhappy.

Yes, it's a tradeoff.

It's not really possible to make a definition based on biology, since one of the core tenets of modern transgenderism is inclusivity of anyone with dysphoria.

That's my point: If it's not possible to build a meaningful steelman that satisfies the tenets of transgenderism, transgenderism is indefensible.

It depends what you mean by "valid"? I think this philosophy clearly captures a desire, and way to manifest this desire into reality (whilst still constrained by reality)

That's not a philosophy, that's a tactic. A meaningful philosophy would contain some object level claims with a truth value, not just a manipulation of rhetoric to achieve a goal.

At the very least, this will make it impossible to refer to someone's sex (which is helpful if someone dislikes their sex)

So it's about stopping people from talking about inconvenient reality

and in cases of low information, people might just be forced to assume a man is actually a male

advancing falsehoods by hiding relevant information

And also some people might just have trouble adjusting to the new defintiions, and start confusing map for territory and thinking of "men" as males. Or at least retain associations of the word "man" to the old concept of "man".

and deliberately confusing people through rhetorical tricks. I suspected from the beginning it was a rhetorical shell game, but it's starting to look more like an Orwellian propaganda framework.

The concept of sex would have to be a cognitohazard threating to wipe out humanity for me to even consider this. And even then it couldn't be meaningfully said to be "true". Some people will be less sad" (but others more sad) is not a sufficient justification.

I don't agree with this myself, but I suppose another steelman position would say that prior to transgenderism, terms like "women" and "men", "fathers" and "mothers" etc were not highly resolved, just like most natural language terms. We had not had cause to decide whether they refer to outward signs of feminity/masculinity, internal states such as genetics and gamete size, or psychological ones such as the sense one is a man. All these things were usually clustered together. Once edge cases appear, though, it's in our gift to further specify how we'll use the words in future.

Under this reading, sure, it is a language change or precisification to stipulate that we have always really been talking about e.g. psychological identity, but it would equally be one to say we have always been talking about gamete type. Examination of the previous usage of terms may not give a 100% clear answer.

(I guess this is basically Kripke/Putnam/Wittgenstein applied to gender, so no doubt there is a philosopher somewhere who has publicly adopted this position.)

Clearly we need a sex-based classification system for parenthood, in addition to the gender-based "father" and "mother". I'm sure having her fill out a declaration that she sired the child would go over well with everybody /s.

My most charitable explanation is that she just misspoke when she said "same-sex"

Pardon me if my instinctive reaction to that is "my arse". Lady Real Lady here definitely damn well means same-sex because she is Real Woman and a biological woman at that, hence why she should be permitted to apply as the mother not the father.

I have seen people arguing that because now they are taking HRT they are in fact biologically women and thus indeed the sex, not just the gender, they identify as. Anyone who pushes this far for a court case is not about "I want to apply for citizenship for my kid", they are pushing an agenda towards "I want a legally enforceable piece of paper that says I am too a real woman and if you deny that then I can sue the arse off you for hurting my fee-fees".

I have seen people arguing that because now they are taking HRT they are in fact biologically women and thus indeed the sex, not just the gender, they identify as

To be clear, I don't believe this, and any similar claims about biological reality.

...they are pushing an agenda towards "I want a legally enforceable piece of paper that says I am too a real woman and if you deny that then I can sue the arse off you for hurting my fee-fees".

I mean... yeah? That's not even being denied here, she is just arguing this is a good thing (and I was explaining the logically consistent framework behind this demand)

Personally, my objection to gender ideology is not the social aspect. I ultimately don't care if a man wants to wear a skirt. But I see the discrepancy between the arguments they make and the actions they take. For as much as they say they are simply separating gender from sex, their actions are consistent with wanting to eliminate the concept of sex in humans.

  • "Biological" man/woman? This is offensive terminology.

  • Saying bathrooms/changing room usage is determined by sex? Bigot.

  • Sports separated by sex? "Leave it to the committee" when the committee allows trans women to compete, but get mad if they change it. Simultaneously attempt to argue that letting trans individuals compete with women is no big deal.

  • Attracted to the opposite sex? Genital preference.

  • Surgically altering your body to imitate the sexed characteristics of the opposite sex? Gender Affirmation Surgery.

  • Choosing your sex in video games? Body Type A or B.

  • In the progressive lexicon, there is no single word for the male and female sex in humans. There are acronyms like AFAB, or references to bodily functions (menstruators, chestfeeding, etc.).

Any decision based on sex must be made on gender. Any references to sex that cannot be replaced with gender must be hinted at rather than stated. Sure there's the "charitable" reading of the TRAs confusing their own terminology, but it seems to happen a lot. The most straightforward conclusion I can draw is that the rhetorical separation between sex and gender only exists because they worked backwards from the conclusion that they wanted to be treated like the desired sex in every way possible, and invented an argument that they convinced themselves of in order to square the circle.

With regards to this specific case, I could at least buy the argument if Irish law treated adoptive and birth mother the same. But if this line is true:

“under Irish law, as applied to date, the mother of the child is the woman who gives birth to the child and therefore the child would derive their citizenship through that mother”

then it seems unambiguous that Ireland is not using "mother" as "feminine caregiver," it is using it as "person who carried the baby." The "sex is not gender" argument doesn't fly here because the real source of the conflict is that the state is specifying sex and the plaintiff wants gender to be the standard. The point TRAs don't mention is that when Gender got divorced from Sex, Sex was the breadwinner who named all the words for man/woman, but Gender got literally everything in the divorce. If TRAs had invented new terms for masculine/feminine gender roles, then there'd be no issue because it was clear Irish Law was specifying sex. The actual motivation for the lawsuit is over whether the law is allowed to use mother/father to refer to sex or whether Gender has stolen the word "mother" for all purposes.

The most straightforward conclusion I can draw is that the rhetorical separation between sex and gender only exists because they worked backwards from the conclusion that they wanted to be treated like the desired sex in every way possible, and invented an argument that they convinced themselves of in order to square the circle.

Gender theory itself isn't an argument, but just a way to view the world. And it definitely arose from wanting to be the opposite sex, as you described. But "I want to be a man/woman" is a totally coherent concept.

The "sex is not gender" argument doesn't fly here because the real source of the conflict is that the state is specifying sex and the plaintiff wants gender to be the standard ... The actual motivation for the lawsuit is over whether the law is allowed to use mother/father to refer to sex or whether Gender has stolen the word "mother" for all purposes.

I am not denying this. Trans activism is trying to make wider society adopt the gender theory lens of viewing things, make it the "standard" as you say.

I'm just pointing out that this is not something that can be objectively proven false, and is just a moral preference.

Gender theory itself isn't an argument, but just a way to view the world. And it definitely arose from wanting to be the opposite sex, as you described. But "I want to be a man/woman" is a totally coherent concept.

It's coherent in that there is a desire there, for whatever reason. Part of my frustration admittedly is switching arguments between "this is totally normal, gender roles are all made up" and "go along with it or kids will commit suicide." The "kids will commit suicide" aspect suggests something is very wrong (when this argument is not used as emotional manipulation) but "go along with it" does not follow. To me "going along with it" is like if society decided that the treatment for hearing voices in your head is to say the voices are real, for society to grant personhood to the voices, and to redefine sound from vibrations in the air to anything someone perceives as auditory sensation. It makes the sufferer feel better about having it, but nothing has actually changed about them having it and it all collapses when someone naturally points out the elephant in the room. The only way for this treatment to improve is to increasingly demand conformity to avoiding the topic.

Whenever someone like Jesse Singal questions whether this treatment program is actually saving kids lives he's accused of wanting to kill kids. If you suggest that some kids might be autistic or struggling with adolescence, you get mobbed. Imagine if someone decided to research a drug to deal with dysphoria by suppressing the dysphoria and making them more comfortable in their own skin. And for that matter, if there have always been trans people, don't you find it a little odd that suicide is such a massive concern now as opposed to 100 years ago? If you think a trans kid was bullied 10 years ago, imagine 100. You'd think they'd have been killing themselves left and right and people would have noticed.

I am not denying this. Trans activism is trying to make wider society adopt the gender theory lens of viewing things, make it the "standard" as you say.

In reality they are doing this. From their own claims they are doing nothing, they are just living their lives and mean people are going out of their way to torment them. They act as if they have always been the standard.

  • Gender was always implicitly recognized throughout history because no one went around looking under women's skirts. Spend 5 seconds imagining what would probably happen if someone with a penis was identified dressing as a woman in the past (not counting theater).

  • Cherry picking niche societies with categories like "two spirit." Many of them were societies with strict gender roles that they wouldn't want to live in, and these gender roles were often a form of emasculation.

  • Salami slicing small changes in the name of acceptance, then framing the opposition as overreacting to nothing. Related anecdote: video games have quietly almost entirely changed character creators to say "Body Type A or B", "styles," or unnamed silhouettes, despite choosing the character's sex. They claim that this is no big deal. The right wing owner of the company behind Lords of the Fallen forced the devs to change it to Male/Female. Cue lefties saying they will no longer buy anything from the company. If asked about this discrepancy, Male/Female is appeasing right-wing chuds, Type A/B is "being a decent person" even when localizers changed it from the original Japanese.

  • Claims that non-experts should defer to experts, then denounce any experts/evidence as operating in bad faith and try to personally and professionally disqualify them. Experts that find evidence in their favor are of course neutral and professional.

I'm just pointing out that this is not something that can be objectively proven false, and is just a moral preference.

Moral preference cannot be proven false, this is true. But try comparing believing in gender identity to religious belief and watch the left howl.

Also, I can point out how their arguments in favor of their moral preference they conveniently discard when it leads to outcomes that don't support their moral preference. The "gender and sex are two different things" argument is presented as "I'm not trying to replace sex, I'm trying to add nuance." Then they repeatedly oppose any decision making based on sex, even matters where biology is a main factor. My favorite was another conversation where I also pointed out the discrepancy of it being called gender affirmation surgery despite gender being all in the mind, and was calmly told that breasts are also a gendered characteristic. And their definition of gender is nonsensical. Ask them to define a woman and it means anyone who identifies as a woman. Ask what woman-as-a-concept is, and all you will get is an endless runaround of what it is not.

Sex was the breadwinner who named all the words for man/woman, but Gender got literally everything in the divorce. If TRAs had invented new terms for masculine/feminine gender roles, then there'd be no issue because it was clear Irish Law was specifying sex

Yes, good point. It seems these gender idealogues are trying to hijack the language. Why can't I have a convenient way to refer to, and distinguish, men and women as those terms have been traditionally used?

Here's another example: Suppose a Trans Identifying Man asserts that he is a woman while I assert that he is not a woman but is in fact a man. Theoretically, there is no contradiction there: We are just using words in different ways. So why is it that I must respect his definitions but he is not required to respect mine?

Yes, good point. It seems these gender idealogues are trying to hijack the language. Why can't I have a convenient way to refer to, and distinguish, men and women as those terms have been traditionally used?

Because when wider society thinks this way, it makes the lives of those with genders incongruent to their sex more difficult.

...Theoretically, there is no contradiction there: We are just using words in different ways. So why is it that I must respect his definitions but he is not required to respect mine?

There is no contradiction - that is why there is this cultural conflict. Who tells whom how the words are used? Neither way of thinking is inconsistent or based on an incorrect map of objective reality - there is just a question of whose feelings and desires are priotised over the other.

it makes the lives of those with genders incongruent to their sex more difficult.

Exactly how? (And by the way, I am very skeptical that any such person actually exists. How could such a thing even be verified?)

there is just a question of whose feelings and desires are priotised over the other.

Agreed. In my view, there must be a very compelling case made to justify this kind of societal change in language. And trans activists have come nowhere near making such a case.

These categories are hard to verbalise.

They aren't, though. A male person is a person who was born with the organs associated with the production of small gametes, even if faulty. A female person is a person who was born with the organs associated with the production of large gametes, even if faulty.

I define a new sort of identity marker (next to stuff like race, sex, age, etc) called "gender identity" (or "gender" for short)

Okay, but I'll ask this question for the millionth time – what is gender identity? Race, sex and age are all traits which can be directly observed or verified via a medical test. What does it even mean to "identify as" a woman? Every single attempt to define this concept inevitably runs into circularity. What does it mean to "feel like" a woman, or to have an "internally felt sense of womanhood" or whatever? You say "I define... this is a redefinition of...", but you didn't even define it, you just asserted that it exists. If I ask you for a definition of the word "ladder", I will not be satisfied if you just repeat "Ladder!" in a confident tone of voice. What actually is "gender identity"?

Being a man/woman means sincerely wanting to be male/female

What, then, to do with the male people who purport to "identify as" women and yet make no effort to make themselves more like women than they could be e.g. the ~95% of trans-identified males who don't undergo bottom surgery?

But I think most anti-trans people are unhappy even in cases where there is clearly a sincere desire (e.g. this one!)

What gives you the impression that the complainant in this case had a "sincere desire" to be female? I can think of few things less typically female than impregnating someone with your fully intact and functional penis with your semen.

Correct, she is not a father.

Is your claim then that this child, wholly unique in the annals of human history, has no male biological parent? Because that's what the word "father" means in a legal context. You are committing yourself to a stance that this is the first child in the history of human race with two female biological parents and no male? And you wonder why people assert that gender ideology is anti-scientific claptrap?

They aren't, though

I was referring to the fact that the categories of "male/female" are so basic and obvious, they are hard to define. And that people just think of them as primitive concepts in practice - you gave a definition (and it is a good one!), but I doubt you ever thought of man/woman needing a definition prior to gender ideology.

In case you are pattern matching me to those who try and deny sex exists, I want to make clear I am not saying the "old system" is in any way inconsistent or incoherent. I agree male/female are real, meaningful concepts.

Okay, but I'll ask this question for the millionth time – what is gender identity?

I explained my definition of gender identity immediately after asserting it's existence and the corresponding language changes.

What, then, to do with the male people who purport to "identify as" women and yet make no effort to make themselves more like women than they could be e.g. the ~95% of trans-identified males who don't undergo bottom surgery?

Ok, this is a good point. I will then amend my definition (I have edited my original comment) of [gender] to mean "wanting to be like [sex] in most regards".

So we can still have a trans woman with a penis, as long as she wants to be a female in most other ways, like wearing dresses, being perceived as a female, etc

What gives you the impression that the complainant in this case had a "sincere desire" to be female? I can think of few things less typically female than impregnating someone with your fully intact and functional penis.

See my above ammendment. Obviously the perception of sincerity depends on your own personal judgement, but I was more referring to cases where the person is likely trying to be a woman just to get a temporary benefit (like the situation where a male is sentenced to prison and then afterwards claims to want to be a woman)

Is your claim then that this child, wholly unique in the annals of human history, has no male biological parent?

No, that would be insane. This is just a mundane change of definitions - under gender theory, "father" refers to gender identity instead of sex. The child has a male and female parent, like every other human child - but the male parent has a woman gender identity.

Because that's what the word "father" means in a legal context

Part of the goals of the theory is to change all of these definitions to refer to gender instead of sex, including in the law.

And you wonder why people assert that gender ideology is anti-scientific claptrap?

As I conceded at the very start:

I am aware that the stance in practice varies between activists, and they often contradict one another

I am providing a formulation of gender ideology that would allow for most of the stuff that happens in practice, without having to need to resort to lies or logical inconsistency.

You seem to conflate changing definitions with changing the underlying meaning of statements and lying. Addressing an analogy you made elsewhere that isn't gender specific:

Well, I don't care if an official proclamation from a state body that "the earth is 6,000 thousand years old" is followed by a footnote clarifying that the word "year" is here defined as a unit of time equal to 756,667 rotations around the sun. That might make creationists feel more "included", but it's still a lie.

Again that is not a lie! It is just a redefinition. The earth is 4.5 billion years old, and under this change it would still be that old, but we just wouldn't be able to talk about the old unit of a year, and instead have to talk about the new invented unit.

I agree this, and gender theory, is an inconvenience and makes reasoning about things more difficult. But that is not lying.

I was referring to the fact that the categories of "male/female" are so basic and obvious, they are hard to define. And that people just think of them as primitive concepts in practice - you gave a definition (and it is a good one!), but I doubt you ever thought of man/woman needing a definition prior to gender ideology.

Incorrect. The differences between men and women are taught to children at a very young age, in the form of "mummy has a baby in her tummy". I think the average five-year-old child could reliably explain the key difference between the sexes: women can have babies, and men can't. And I'm sure the average five-year-old child could reliably do this long before Judith Butler was born. As they get older the definition these children use will get a bit more precise and granular to account for edge cases (not all women can have babies, some women had babies but no longer can etc.) but the basic concept of sexual dimorphism is understood from a very young age.

I explained my definition of gender identity immediately after asserting it's existence and the corresponding language changes.

Did you? If so, I missed it. I'm reading your comment again, and the best I can find is this:

I define a new sort of identity marker (next to stuff like race, sex, age, etc) called "gender identity" (or "gender" for short). This is a redefinition of the old concept of gender.

That... isn't a definition. At best it's an IOU for a definition. "Gender identity is a redefinition of the old concept of gender." "Psawdo identity is a redefinition of the old concept of psawdo". Do you see how this doesn't provide me with any insight into what "psawdo identity" is? Even when I was in primary school, I was told that, when defining a word, you can't use that word in the definition. It amazes me that so many proponents of gender ideology have yet to grasp this basic fact: when defining a word, if you use that word in the definition, it renders the definition circular and hence useless.

Ok, this is a good point. I will then amend my definition (I have edited my original comment) of [gender] to mean "wanting to be like [sex] in most regards".

So we can still have a trans woman with a penis, as long as she wants to be a female in most other ways, like wearing dresses, being perceived as a female, etc

How many "regards" must this trans woman be "like" before she qualifies as a woman? Are these "regards" weighted in any way, or are they each assigned a value of 1? ("Well, Jo is a vicious rapist and a domestic abuser – but he likes astrology and wears skirts sometimes, so I'm calling it a wash.") Who is entitled to make that judgement? If you're interacting with a male person on the internet who has a penis, but they assert that their name is Sheila and their pronouns are she/her, does it therefore follow that you shouldn't play along until after you have verified that Sheila "wants" to be a woman in most regards? ("Send pics or I won't respect your preferred pronouns.")

As an aside, I have it on good authority that trans women don't owe me femininity, so when a bearded man with a penis wearing jeans and a T-shirt calls himself a woman, I'm meant to just go along with that or I'm a hateful Nazi fascist TERF bigot who deserves to be decapitated.

You seem to conflate changing definitions with changing the underlying meaning of statements and lying.

Yes, I do, because it is. To quote myself:

Bill Clinton may have been technically telling the truth when he said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" according to the stipulative definition of "sexual relations" which only refers to PiV intercourse. But I have zero qualms about saying he was lying when he said that: in common usage, sucking someone's dick or inserting a cigar into someone's pussy absolutely falls under "sexual relations", and Clinton knew this, and he knew (indeed, hoped) that people would interpret his statement as a denial of any kind of sexual interaction with Lewinsky at all even if he'd only technically denied having PiV sex with her. So when a significant proportion of the population is unfamiliar with gender ideology and assumes that anyone referred to with the pronoun "she" is female, if you refer to a person as "she" and neglect to specify that the person is male, you are obfuscating important facts about that person whether you like it or not. And if you retort "it's not my fault those people aren't woke enough to know that not every woman is female", I'll respond with about as much sympathy and understanding as if Clinton had said "it's not my fault people are so uneducated that they don't know the legal definition of the term 'sexual relations'." Truly honest communication necessitates taking your audience's level of education and ideological leaning into account.

This is one of my biggest problems with gender ideology. Its proponents claim that they just want to redefine words to be more inclusive of trans people. But they don't. They want to muddy the waters such that the old words (like "woman", "mother" and "girl") no longer denote female people only, but still retain the positive connotations people have for those words. Because if you're a bad actor, passing yourself off as a good person is a vital strategy. Bad actors who are trans are not hoping to redefine the word "woman" such that everyone who hears it thinks "a person of unspecified sex but a female gender identity". No: they are hoping that when people refer to them as "women", people make the same statistical assumptions of them as they would make of a given female person (e.g. physical strength, aggression, propensity for violence, propensity to commit rape and sexual assault). The strategy is glaringly obvious when you recognise that trans activists make it perfectly clear they want both definitions in circulation at the same time, allowing them to strategically equivocate between the two as needed. Gender ideology's drive to "redefine" words (by which they really mean "add secondary definitions to words already in use") is just a big motte-and-bailey:

Frankly, I think the two definitions of "woman" you're using (one commonsense and straightforward, the other postmodern and controversial) amount to a motte-and-bailey fallacy, and I don't like motte-and-bailey fallacies on general principle.

If you said "a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman", I would think that definition was incoherent and circular - but at least I'd know exactly what you meant when you used the term "woman" in conversation. If you said "a woman is a person with female reproductive organs", I would likewise know exactly what you meant whenever you used that term.

But if the single word means both of those things, then that gives you a blank cheque to jump back and forth between the definitions on a whim according to the needs of the moment, depending on who you're trying to persuade and what rhetorical point you're trying to make.

To return to my earlier analogy: if a public official exclusively used the word "year" to refer to a single rotation around the sun, that's fine. If he uses it exclusively to refer to 756,667 rotations around the sun, that's also fine. But if he uses both definitions, jumping back and forth depending on the needs of the moment, the rhetorical point he's making and the audience to whom he is speaking: then I can no longer trust any sentence that comes out of his mouth that contains the word "year", any more than I can trust Bill Clinton's claims not to have had "sexual relations" with Ms. Lewinsky.

So I ask you this: are you really advocating redefining the word "woman" such that it only refers to "a person of either sex with a female gender identity"? Or are you advocating that it mean that in addition to its traditional meaning of "an adult female human, regardless of gender identity"?

Actually, I don't even need to ask you – that's what your comment history is for!

Now that I think about it, even this comment, the one to which I'm replying, is internally contradictory. If you define "woman" as "a person with a female gender identity", and a "female gender identity" is the state of "wanting to be a woman in most regards" – again, it's just circular, isn't it? It never bottoms out at anything.

Suffice to say that your attempted "steelman" of gender ideology has left me no less confused than I was before reading it, and no less convinced that it's just a fundamentally incoherent belief system from top to bottom. Honestly, I get the impression that even you don't fully understand this belief system or what it entails (just like Freddie deBoer).

Did you? If so, I missed it. I'm reading your comment again, and the best I can find is this:

I gave the following definition: "Being a man/woman means sincerely wanting to be (EDIT: mostly) male/female" (this is a definition of gender identity, because man/woman refers to gender identity under gender theory)

It amazes me that so many proponents of gender ideology have yet to grasp this basic fact: when defining a word, if you use that word in the definition, it renders the definition circular and hence useless.

I am aware of that problem, which is why I made sure my definition references sex ("male/female"), which is already defined.

Its proponents claim that they just want to redefine words to be more inclusive of trans people. But they don't. They want to muddy the waters such that the old words (like "woman", "mother" and "girl") no longer denote female people only, but still retain the positive connotations people have for those words.

But they are trying to make the definitions more inclusive of trans people. You are literally just described the mechanism by which they make things more inclusive - by trying to blur people's mental categories. In practice, this often does include lies / inconsistencies, but the blurring can be done without having to lie (e.g. via my construction of gender identity)

But if he uses both definitions, jumping back and forth depending on the needs of the moment, the rhetorical point he's making and the audience to whom he is speaking: then I can no longer trust any sentence that comes out of his mouth that contains the word "year"

Sure, and in practice many activists do switch the meanings. But I'm saying that we can still have gender theory (and the various policy implications) without having to be inconsistent.

So I ask you this: are you really advocating redefining the word "woman" such that it only refers to "a person of either sex with a female gender identity"?

From the start, I made it clear that I was just providing a consistent framework for gender that could be used in theory. An easy way to use preferred pronouns without lying.

But since you've asked my personal stance, and have brought up specific things I've said, it has made me second-guess whether I'm personally consistent and not the young-earth guy with this stuff, and whether I actually know what I mean when I say things all the time (regarding gender)

My personal policy is to be okay with both systems. And to use the gender system myself (but when speaking to an unsympathetic audience, make it clear what I mean, e.g. by stressing "cis") - but be willing to listen to and understand others when they are clearly using the old system (and I can use the old system when defining gender theory)

  • "Every "non-binary" I know of is either a woman or a male homosexual" - This one was written prior to me committing to my policy on pronouns/gender.
  • "... I would view it the same to a heterosexual male gynaecologist treating an attractive young woman." - ditto
  • "...what if a normal woman literally decided, against common sense, to walk around in a bad part of town at night in a miniskirt alone?" - so, my point is valid irregardless of whether we refer to woman-gendered people or XX-havers. But my internal mental state was partially "blurred" here, which is not good (technically "normal woman" is fine, because being cis is normal, but that wasn't what I was actually thinking at the time)
  • "Eleanor is a (White) woman. Her flaws are being lecherous, loud, rude, and gluttonous. Generally she just acts as the oppposite of a woman... Janet is a (White) woman..." - yes, this is a violation of the policy I have. Since I was making a non-gender point, I forgot about my policy. Which is exactly the problem you have pointed out with the young-earth guy using the normal meaning of year sometimes.
  • "Also the person who said it was a woman (in the normal sense of the word: an AFAB, uterus-haver, etc)" - this is not a violation? The person was a (female) woman, and I was just stressing that the woman was a woman in the old system as well (because the cis/trans distinction is important here)

So, actually, I have failed to follow my (until now unwritten) policy, and I don't think it is workable in practice (I will eventually forgot to do the substitutions, in a few months when this conversation fades from memory) - I'll go back to the old system (on the Motte) as default, and mark clearly where I am using the gender system (i.e. what most people do)

But moving away from my own personal failing/refusal to adhere to the theory, the theory is still consistent!

... and a "female gender identity" is the state of "wanting to be a woman in most regards"

It is the state of wanting to be a female in most regards (which in gender theory is still the normal thing - an XX-haver), you misquoted me.

Just using normal language - surely it makes sense for a man to say "I want to be a woman", right? And the definitions of gender theory flow from trying to accomodate this desire ("dysphoria") - we change the meaning of woman to mean "wanting to be a woman", where the second "woman" is the old kind of woman (and leave the synonym, now semantically distinct, "female" as the original concept)

It never bottoms out at anything.

It bottoms out at sex, after just one step: "[gender] = wanting to be (mostly) [sex]"

Suffice to say that your attempted "steelman" of gender ideology has left me no less confused than I was before reading it, and no less convinced that it's just a fundamentally incoherent belief system from top to bottom.

I don't see what is confusing about inventing a concept to refer to the state of "wanting to be (mostly) [opposite sex]", in order to help make people with that desire feel happier.

It causes concept blurring and just generally makes it harder to reason about things you care about (this is by design, because most people care about the difference between male/female) - in fact, as your callout on my old comments show, it very difficult to talk this way over a long time without slipping up.

But it is possible to adhere to this ideology without being inconsistent or lying. It doesn't require you to think false things, just to avoid thinking/saying certain true things. If you want to use a boo-word, I think "censorship" is more appropriate.

Honestly, I get the impression that even you don't fully understand this belief system or what it entails (just like Freddie deBoer).

It's not a single belief system, because there is no central authority. Lots of people can make theories (like the one I gave), that roughly overlap in spirit and conclusions (e.g. "trans X are X" must somehow arise from the theory), but will contradict eachother (and in some cases, contradict themselves) - it's like how Catholics and Protestants are both Christian, but contract eachother on some stuff.

I tried to provide a consistent theory, to prove most of the demands of the movement can be made in a logically consistent way. To challenge the general anti-woke liberal attack on the grounds of pure logic without making value judgements about lifestyles being "wrong".

This was quite rambly. So I will repeat my main points:

  • There is a non-circular definition of gender identity: "[gender] = wants to be mostly [sex]", and the wider theory is self-consistent.
  • I thought I personally worked with this system without having self-deceive or mislead others when writing on the Motte. But you gave some examples where I did not
  • I am not personally going to use this system any more, because I'm not willing to put in that level of effort
  • But the theory does remain logically consistent, despite its practical inconvenience.

But since you've asked my personal stance, and have brought up specific things I've said, it has made me second-guess whether I'm personally consistent and not the young-earth guy with this stuff, and whether I actually know what I mean when I say things all the time (regarding gender)

Yeah, this is the big part of why some of us are confused by your view. It's not that I think you're inconsistent, it's that you seem to have had a major change of heart on this issue, but you're solely describing it in terms of logical consistency as a frame of the world. The gap isn't in logic, it's in personal experience.

Especially when you say this:

"Every "non-binary" I know of is either a woman or a male homosexual" - This one was written prior to me committing to my policy on pronouns/gender.

"... I would view it the same to a heterosexual male gynaecologist treating an attractive young woman." - ditto

That's a pretty big change, to go from "non-binaries are actually just women or gay men" to "gender self-id is logically consistent with the facts of the world and I choose it as a policy"! I feel like there's a whole part of the story that's missing, where you met a transgender person, or you read some stories, or you yourself dealt with gender identity issues... I feel like what we're getting is the rider's logical post-change ideas, not the elephant's emotional journey.

I actually went through a similar change of heart -- though obviously not as extreme -- and my earlier reply to you was in part a way for me to express that.

One of my key values, in terms of communication and persuasion, is that the most persuasive argument for any position is the reason why you, personally, believe it. If you try to craft a persuasive argument independent from your own reasons, you're simply going to construct a worse argument for your position... if it were a better argument than your own reasoning, it would become the reason you believe it! That's why a lot of my posts are emotive, and personal (perhaps more than they ought to be): I don't know how to argue for something where my head and my heart aren't both in it.

I think very few people, even in rationalist-lite spaces, are really all that interested in logical consistency. They're interested in living in a compelling narrative, or having some reason for their values that gets their whole self aflame. Obviously, as you see, this particular issue gets people immensely emotionally invested.

You obviously have some reasons for your change of heart, from dismissive comments about elements of the gender self-id movement, to a logical case for gender theory as a frame on the world, which you've used several comments to justify. What I'd like to hear, if you want to argue for it, or resolve your feelings of personal inconsistency, is what changed in you or your life that made you look at things a different way.

Okay, so rewinding all the way to the start when I made the original post. OP said:

I think my main objection here is the twisted logic on show ...

And I pattern matched this to a general theme where people attack [progressive cause] by saying it is inherently "confusing" or "logically inconsistent": not just in practice, but that the entire idea of colourblindness, DEI, gay/trans rights, etc somehow doesn't make "logical" sense.

resolve your feelings of personal inconsistency

I don't have a coherent view on the moral side of gender ideology, and I didn't want to try and sort through my feelings on the issue (then or now) and commit to a stance on that question under my pseudonym.

So I deliberately avoided taking any such stance, and just stated this theoretical framework that explains the various demands of the movement as part of a unifying theory, without saying if it is good or bad.

what changed in you or your life that made you look at things a different way.

Very roughly, my "story" is that:

  • I was a progressive (and yes, I "dealt with gender identity issues")
  • I decided HBD was true, so abandoned my old ideology wholesale ("Every "non-binary" I know of is either a woman or a male homosexual", amongst other things), adopting what I guess was an "alt right" view of things.
  • I later decided that I'm not comfortable with that morality. I still believe in HBD (so I can't just be a progressive again, as much as I often want to be), but I think all the important moral questions are very gray for the most part, and have no strong stance on them.
  • In particular, I am no longer stridently anti-trans (or "sexual degeneracy") - as I said above, I don't have a coherent stance on it.

Also I realise I was ambiguous when I said I adopted the theory. I meant I adopted the language definition parts of the theory on the Motte, I don't advocate (again, it's a gray area) for trying to make society adopt the theory.

This is a low stakes personal stylistic choice, on the level of capitalising Black/White (and with no neutral answer) - hence my willingness to just change it when someone gave examples where it makes my writing less clear to others and myself.

If you try to craft a persuasive argument independent from your own reasons, you're simply going to construct a worse argument for your position... if it were a better argument than your own reasoning, it would become the reason you believe it!

I fully agree with this when the position in question is about objective reality. But when it comes to stuff about subjective morality, like, say, whether or not the government should change the definition of "mother" to include a transgender person of the male sex - then it's all a matter of taste and personal experiences.

And for moral questions - yes that probably is the best way to persuade. But this mode of discourse feels sort of "pointless": both sides just take turns sharing really emotive stories, and nothing is really learned except about the person sharing their stories.

You can share with us how you came to your own change of heart - and it might unironically be really emotional to read (e.g. someone killed themselves over a lack of affirmation), but then I'm sure an anti-trans person can share a similarly emotional story (e.g. I remember there was a post on the Wellness thread once about a guy struggling to convince his friend not to transition their son)

And where does this go? Nowhere it seems - there's just a bunch of different perspectives. What is the best ice cream flavour? Favourite color? Best way to cook a steak?

I think I can read my comment on a formulation of gender theory in many years time and still stand by it, because I just put forward a possible set of rules, without saying that they are good/bad for [reasons].

I can think of few things less typically female than impregnating someone with your fully intact and functional penis.

To be as fair as I can be, this person froze their sperm before transitioning and that frozen sperm was then used to impregnate their wife, so penises may not have been involved at all (we can hope and pray).

Ah, that's marginally different I suppose.

Okay, but I'll ask this question for the millionth time – what is gender identity?

When Marsha Blackburn asked Ketanji Brown Jackson for her definition of a woman during her confirmation hearing, Jackson gave a weasely answer that satisfied nobody and caused a minor kerfuffel over her need to defer to a medical professional a determination that the average person can make in five seconds. If Jackson wanted to turn the tables she should have confidently asserted that a woman was someone, anyone, who made it clear that they wished to be treated as such, whether explicitly or by adopting conventional gender norms. If Blackburn were smart she would leave it right there and change the subject, but she's a senator, and it's unlikely that she'd be able to resist pressing the issue further. Hell, in the real case she could have left it at that but had to press the issue further.

Since we all know that no definition that doesn't involve genetics or genitals is unacceptable to conservatives, there's a strong likelihood that the senator would have prodded in that direction, at which point Jackson could have told Ms. Blackburn that she assumed that she (Marsha Blackburn) was a woman despite never having seen her (Marsha Blackburn's) genitals nor though much about what they might look like. At this point Ms. Blackburn has no choice but to back off and change the subject, leaving Jackson with the last word, as the subject is, for all intents and purposes, now her (Marsha Blackburn's) genitals, unless of course Ms. Blackburn really wants her genitals to be the subject of senate confirmation hearings.

she should have confidently asserted that a woman was someone, anyone, who made it clear that they wished to be treated as such,

To be treated as what?

she should have confidently asserted that a woman was someone, anyone, who made it clear that they wished to be treated as such, whether explicitly or by adopting conventional gender norms

Out of curiosity, is that the definition of "woman" that you operate on?

Yes, and that's almost certainly the definition that you operate on, and that Marsha Blackburn operates on, and that Ketanji Brown Jackson operates on, despite her insistence that she doesn't operate on any definition besides perhaps a legal one. We can talk definitions until the end of time, but in the real world, when we have to make a decision whether to call someone sir or ma'am, we aren't asking to see their genitals or for chromosomal testing results and instead make a snap judgment based on their appearance.

There are 100% people who, obviously, are not women and wish to be treated as such. They're called non-passing transgenders.

No, I wouldn't say that's the definition I operate from. I'm not sure exactly how I would phrase my definition of "woman" (as definitions are notoriously hard to nail down), but it more or less comes down to "an adult who was born with female reproductive organs". The adoption of gender norms you speak of is a proxy that I use to determine if someone is a woman (since one can't, after all, go checking everyone's pants to see what bits they have), but it is a proxy measurement only and not the actual definition I use.

I need to come back to this again. If I'm reading you correctly, if I think a person is a woman, or if a person looks like a woman, then they are a woman. There is no objective state of fact: "woman" is defined solely by looking like, by resembling, by observation. It has absolutely nothing to do with objective factual questions like "what kind of organs does this person have?" or "can this person bear children?"

Your definition implies that a person who has never been observed by someone else cannot be a woman!

"Schrödinger, are there any women inside that room?"
"There are female people inside, but we won't know if they're women until we open the door and collapse the wave function."

Literally: if a female person falls over in the woods and there's nobody around to observe them, is that person a woman?

Maybe I sound a bit facetious, but trans activists have been scoffing at me for years for attempting to define "man" and "woman" based on biology because umm that's like gender essentialism?? and the idea of two sexes is a Western construct?? and also intersex people exist and you're like totally erasing them??

But the ostensibly common-sense definition(s) you're proposing seem far more insane and incoherent than "does this person ever have the organs associated with the production of large gametes?", a simple binary question that delineates the categories with significantly greater than 99% accuracy.

that's almost certainly the definition that you operate on

No, it isn't. A woman is an adult female human i.e. a person born with the organs associated with the production of large gametes, even if faulty. Owing to sexual dimorphism, it's usually possible to tell this at a glance, although errors can and do occur. A person being mistaken for a woman does not make them a woman, any more than people mistaking me for a German makes me German.

This is a map-territory confusion. If I mistakenly assume that a male person is female, that reflects a failure in my model of the universe (I have failed to take into account that some male people have androgynous appearances, unusually narrow shoulders, unusually wide hips, whatever). It does not reflect anything about the universe itself.

A person demanding that I "treat them as" a woman (whatever that means) does not make them a woman, any more than Rachel Dolezal demanding that people treat her as a black person makes her a black person.

we aren't asking to see their genitals or for chromosomal testing results and instead make a snap judgment based on their appearance.

You literally moved the goalposts from one end of your comment to the other! A moment ago you asserted that the practical definition of "woman" that I and everyone else is operating on is "someone... who made it clear that they wished to be treated as such, whether explicitly or by adopting conventional gender norms". Now you're saying that a woman is anyone who looks as we'd expect a female person to look.

Which one is it? Is a woman a person who looks female, or a person who demands that I treat them as such, regardless of their appearance?

In either case, both definitions are incoherent, which is obvious when applied to literally anything else. A person does not become African-American just because they've expressed a desire to be treated as such. "A turtle is an entity who has made it clear that it wishes to be treated as a turtle" is a circular definition that tells you literally nothing about what a "turtle" is. The circle on the left does not "become" smaller than the circle on the right just because it looks like it's smaller than the circle on the right: both circles are the same size.

The thing about expressing a desire to be treated as such was more to account for people with an unintentionally androgynous appearance who are women under anyone's definition but for whom you wouldn't necessarily know it unless you were told. I wasn't referring to trans people who make no effort to appear as women. But when someone has a stereotypically feminine appearance, one generally assumes they are female and treats them as a woman, no? I know you probably think you can spot trannies a mile away, but I've known enough women who have a mannish appearance that I'm hesitant to start making assumptions about the shape of their genitalia. I'm guessing that for north of 99% of the women you actually deal with you don't give the matter a second thought.

but I've known enough women who have a mannish appearance that I'm hesitant to start making assumptions about the shape of their genitalia.

I want to be flippant and say "skill issue" here, but maybe it comes down to people not really paying attention. I know a tall, strong-jawed broad-shouldered woman with a deep voice and large hands. She still doesn't have a brow ridge or adam's apple or surface veins in her large hands.

But when someone has a stereotypically feminine appearance, one generally assumes they are female and treats them as a woman, no?

Yes, but this is a heuristic, not a definition.

Definition: A woman is an adult female human; that is, a person born with the organs associated with the production of large gametes (even if faulty).

Heuristic: You can usually identify a woman by sight on the basis of her height relative to men and various secondary sexual characteristics (narrow shoulders, wide hips, breasts, vocal pitch etc.).

A heuristic is a useful guide to identifying something, or to distinguishing X from Y, but every heuristic is prone to error to a greater or lesser extent (tall women and short men exist, as do women with deep voices or flat chests). A definition, by contrast, is supposed to be, well, definitive, clearly delineating the members of the set X from the members of the set Y with zero room for ambiguity. If you mistake a member of set X for a member of set Y, then this demonstrates a limitation of the heuristic: it does not necessarily imply any limitation of the definition.

I know you probably think you can spot trannies a mile away, but I've known enough women who have a mannish appearance that I'm hesitant to start making assumptions about the shape of their genitalia.

FtMs have a vastly easier time passing as male far more than MtFs can female. That being said, FtMs still have certain features that distinguish them from real men. In my experience, trans-identifying men stick out like a sore thumb, but people are polite enough to not bring it up, or at least not in front of them.

I'm guessing that for north of 99% of the women you actually deal with you don't give the matter a second thought.

Correct. Which brings up a good point, that if one has to assert that they are a woman, they probably aren't. A real woman almost never has to clarify that she is a woman. She simply is.

More comments

You are right to call this out. My most charitable explanation is that she just misspoke when she said "same-sex" (other than that, she didn't say anything contradictory) - though it does seem that as of late, TRAs has started conflating the 2 concepts (more egregiously are the terms MtF and FtM, which refer to sex!)

People don't have platonic definitions in their head that they use to make their speech perfectly logical. The generic term is "same-sex marriage" so that's the term they use. People use "male" and "female" to refer to both sex and gender, hence MtF and FtM.

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