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While in this community we generally understand the term "gender" exclusively to refer to gender identity and the term "sex" exclusively to refer to anatomical sex, normies generally use the two terms interchangeably, and will not be impressed or persuaded by this rhetorical gesture. Rowling's "crime" is that she thinks that there are instances in which a person's anatomical sex is more important than their gender identity, which was sufficient to get her tarred as transphobic.
Right. I'm not making a moral argument here, but I am making a taxonomical one. Even if one thinks that locker rooms and domestic abuse shelters should discriminate on the basis of gender and not on the basis of sex, the two are obviously different. If normies don't distinguish between the two, then either they're all bisexual or have strong cognitive dissonance.
Or just think that trans women are (weird) men in dresses, as your 95 IQ redneck generally believes.
The logic of this position isn't founded on anything unstable.
It's not hard to build trans acceptance on an equally stable foundation though. It's not a popular move for TRAs, but I've always felt the "socially/legally adopted sex" model of transness is the way with the least problems, since it really doesn't commit one to any particular metaphysical view of transness, which can then be left as a matter of individual conscience. In a liberal democracy, that seems like a totally satisfactory way to deal with trans people.
It allows for "man" and "woman" to refer centrally to mature gametic males and females, and peripherally to those adopting the "socio-legal sex" of the same, the same way that "parent" refers centrally to biological parents, and peripherally to step-parents and adoptive parents.
Obviously there are differences between "adoptive sex" and "adoptive parenthood." First, the legal fiction of "adoptive parenthood" is justified by the good the parent does for the child and the benefit this provides society as a whole, while the legal fiction of "adoptive sex" would probably be best justified by a harm reduction model for the minority of dysphoric trans people (although I think a transhumanist or ultra-tolerant liberal perspective could also work in a pinch - I just doubt that that would be sufficiently popular with enough people to serve as a proper basis.)
The first-person psychology of the two is very different as well. An adoptive parent probably doesn't consider themselves a parent until after the legal process, whereas a trans person usually considers themselves to already be their identified sex before the law has recognized it.
But I don't think this model would be in any way "unstable" and it doesn't ask the 95 IQ redneck to believe any metaphysical propositions to strain credulity. It doesn't even commit us to maximal trans inclusion - we could have a legal fiction of adopted sex, and still distinguish between adoptive women and natal women where we consider it necessary for fairness or safety.
I appreciate the formulation but I think it has problems. The entirety of the reason it seems less controversial or imposing is because you aren't actually answering the policy questions that cause the debate to go red hot. It's essentially just responding 'no' to the "are trans women women?" question, so the super straight model but on all dimensions. On the other end it doesn't really buy the redneck anything at all either, it's just weird men in dresses that call themselves something different, maybe with some state enforced normalization. It only manages to be consistent by not actually engaging in all the places where other models bite bullets.
Can't the "bullet biting" just be done on a case by case basis? I see no issue with a negotiated settlement like:
Adding trans people to the list of protected classes in society, making it illegal to fire someone merely for being trans, or to deny them service on this basis.
Social transition allowed for minors, medical transition (including puberty blockers) banned or with many difficult hoops to obtain.
In public schools, trans minors participate on the sports team of their adoptive sex in non-contact, non-fighting sports. In fighting sports and contact sports, they participate with their natal sex.
For private sporting leagues, allow each league to judge for itself whether to be inclusive or exclusive.
Require all public schools and government buildings to have at least one unisex bathroom, and let private organizations do what they want regarding who can use what bathrooms. (Perhaps create standardized signage, or a sticker that can be used to let people know a bathroom is trans-inclusive or -exclusive.)
Keep all dangerous sex offenders, regardless of sex in male prisons.
Medical transition legal, but only covered under government healthcare for people with severe dysphoria. (Or limited to cost-effective options like hormone therapies.)
If you apply your principles in half the cases, you haven't applied your principles. So I don't think a "negotiated settlement" will work.
There's also the problem you have with immigration or gun control, where any "compromise" becomes the new status quo and you end up constantly compromising on the remaining uncompromised portion. This has sort of already happened.
My principal is that "translegalism" (i.e. "transness as socially/legally adopted sex") is a firmer basis for thinking through trans issues than most TRA models of transness (including transmedicalism, identity-only, etc.) And because we're only approaching transness as a legal fiction along the lines of adoptive parenthood, it makes sense for society to negotiate which rules will apply and which ones don't.
After all, there's no universally agreed upon answer to the question, "if a man marries and becomes a step-father, then divorces his wife, should it be legally permissible for him to marry his former step-daughter?" When we created the fictive kinship relationship of "step-fatherhood" we had to make a decision about that. It's just that that was decided so long ago, that most people have forgotten it was ever a debate.
So too, the translegalist approach will have thorny issues to decide about when trans people are relevantly similar to cis people of their legal sex, and when they are not. I don't think it's about not applying principles, it's about trying to craft a rule in line with a pluralistic, inclusive liberal democracy that doesn't force anyone to have to confess a creed they don't believe in.
I think this is only right, especially on the issue of immigration. There's no objectively right answer to "how many people should we allow into the country to become U.S. citizens", so it makes sense to allow voters to elect politicians who will debate the various pros and cons of each proposal and find an amount of immigration that they're comfortable with.
I agree a "translegalist" approach will result in an ongoing back and forth of compromises, with each "compromise" becoming a new status quo. But I don't see how that's avoidable. When rights are being handled by statute or legal precedence, and not by constitutional amendment, they'll always be open to "easy" revision. We could decide tomorrow to strip women of many rights and privileges but not the right to vote, and so too we could decide to create more rights and privileges for trans people or to strip them of existing rights.
All rights have some conflict with other rights, and a liberal democracy has to determine how best to deal with conflicts of rights when they arise.
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