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Does anyone who is pro-trans want to steelman gender ideology for me and try to field questions? It's always seemed rather ridiculous to me (for example, the idea that someone with XY chromosomes, a penis, and the physical size of a man might actually be a woman) but I realized the other day that I haven't looked carefully at the details of pro-trans arguments.
I realize that this is something I could probably look up elsewhere online, but I would like to follow up with critical questions so that the whole argument is laid bare without any motte/bailey pivots.
To start things off, I understand that those who adhere to gender ideology draw a distinction between "sex" and "gender." "sex" refers to the markers such as male versus female genitalia; XX versus XY chromosome; etc. which have traditionally been used to distinguish between human males and human females. "Gender" (according to gender ideology) refers to a person's internal feelings in regards to their sex. So that a person who is of the male sex, might possibly be of female gender and vice versa. The purpose of sex reassignment procedures (hormones, surgery, etc.) is to align the disconnect between the person's sex and their gender. But even in the absence of such procedures, a person who is of the male sex and the female gender should be treated by society as a female (and vice versa). Even to the point where a another person's sexual preferences should go to the gender, not the sex, of a potential romantic partner. So that a straight man or a lesbian woman should be okay dating an individual who is of male sex but female gender, and if not they are a "transphobe."
Is that a fair summary of gender ideology? If not, what did I leave out? Or what did I include that's incorrect?
Gender ideology is a big-tent movement, and many of its members can be pretty slippery about assigning concrete meanings and labels to things, so it's going to be difficult to make a specific set of claims that "those who adhere to gender ideology" believe.
With that being said, I think the main way your explanation differs from the usual story is that "sex" is not considered a category that exists. Each person has a "gender", which is an innate property that's not externally observable. Then they have several externally observable traits, things like what kinds of clothes they wear or what kind of genitals they have. Society generally has associations with which traits correspond to which genders (e.g. sundresses are typically worn by women), but it's not necessary for a person's traits to align with their gender (e.g. putting on pants does not cause you to cease to be a woman).
Taken to the extreme, it's not necessary for any of a person's externally observable traits to align with their gender. While many people feel an innate, personal sense of despair when their externally observable traits do not match their gender identity (according to their/society's general associations between traits and genders) and they should be given the resources and medical care to bring their traits into alignment with their gender identity if they wish, that's a purely personal decision on their part. It's important for everyone's gender identity to be respected regardless of the traits they have.
"Externally observable traits" here is a term I made up. The term used most often is "gender expression", which refers to the traits that other people can actually observe in practice, which is what matters most of the time. But things like "the feelings caused by the hormones in your body" are also usually considered to be something external to your gender identity, such that you might want to bring them into alignment but are not required to. (Things like the Y chromosome are not considered relevant here because they aren't easily observable. It's nice if you happen to get a bunch of traits that all align with your gender identity, but the "how" of that doesn't matter much.)
Thank you for responding.
Ok, and is it fair to say that (according to gender ideology)
(1) each person is the sole and ultimate arbiter of his own gender;
(2) there is no objective way to test for gender, it's just a matter of what the person says; and
(3) society should treat people based on their gender, so for example any adult of the female gender should be able to referred to as a "woman"; should be permitted to use women's changing facilities and play women's sports; and straight men or lesbian women who refuse to date this person would be considered "transphobic."
(1) Yes.
(2) Yes.
(3) Yes, with the caveat:
This works similarly to anti-discrimination law. You're allowed to refuse to date any individual, but you aren't allowed to refuse to date people because they're transgender (or, more broadly, because you do not accept their gender identity). You can express preferences based on gender identity, and you can sometimes get away with expressing preferences based on physical traits, but you can't express preferences based on transgender status or things that obviously correlate with it (like "gender assigned at birth").
(You can't even express preferences in favor of them, that's called being a "chaser".)
Ok, thanks for responding again.
My next question is this:
What's the evidence that "gender" exists in the way you have defined it? Is there any evidence other than self-reporting?
Speaking as a very pro-trans person: I don't especially believe that "gender" "exists" in some objective sense separate from subjective preferences - nor that it needs to.
I think it might help you understand my perspective if we look at another marker of identity with huge emotional significance to individuals, but very little biological basis if any: names. If an individual whose legal name is William would prefer to be known as Bill or Tex or Archimedes, it's clearly the correct thing to do to call him by his chosen name. In some technical contexts it might be necessary to bear in mind that the name on his ID papers is "William", but it would be dickish and bizarre to chime in whenever he says "Hi, my name's Tex" and go "ackshually, your name is William; either you're lying or you're delusional". If one of Tex's coworkers keeps passive-aggressively calling Tex "William" no matter how many times he explains that he doesn't like hearing that stuffy-sounding name that doesn't feel like it reflects him as a person, that coworker would clearly be engaged in a kind of low-grade psychological harassment.
Social transition, to my way of thinking, works very much like this, except in addition to a "William" who would rather be an "Alice", it's a "Mr" who would prefer to be called a "Miss", a "he" who would prefer to be called a "she". It is clearly, I feel, the nice, the civil, the moral thing to do to respect that person's wishes; and it doesn't require anyone to be confused about what William/Alice has got in his/her pants. She can be a conversational "she" and a medical "he" in the same way that the first guy was a conversational "Bill" but a legal "William". It's just that, unless you're a doctor/an IRS employee, the underlying technicalities of Tex or Alice's identities are none of your business. If a guy tells you "I'm Tex" it's none of your fucking business whether it says "Tex" or "William" on his driving license, outside a few specific technical circumstances; likewise if someone tells you "I'm a woman" then it shouldn't be any concern of yours what she looks like naked, unless you happen to be a doctor, or a prospective date. To put it another way, under normal circumstances, the only relevance that the sex of a random person has to you, whatsoever, is by what titles and pronouns it would be polite to address that person; how you should refer to them if you don't want them to feel insulted or misrepresented. So if that person dislikes the pronouns and titles that their biological sex would normally entail, sex loses relevance altogether, trumped by self-identification.
And a similar analogy can be devised for medical transition. Let's say you like to shave your chin but keep a mustache. Is there some specific factor in your brain that makes you a Person Whose Inner Identity Is A Mustache Guy? Probably not. It's besides the point. It would still be dickish of someone to say "biology says the male Homo sapiens is meant to have hair all over his face, you're not allowed to shave your chin", or indeed "it's better for society if grooming norms are cohesive, shave that mustache as well or you're a hippie freak". How you want to style your facial hair-growths is your business; if it's emotionally important to you to present the face of a Mustache Guy to society, and you don't feel like yourself with a lumberjack beard or a full shave, then it would be dictatorial of society to force you to do otherwise; it would be rude and invasive of any private third party to tell you how they think you ought to be styling your body.
"Gender identity" is just a kludgy concept lumping together a lot of disparate preferences, positive and negative; and even when two trans people share a preference, they might have come to it for completely different reasons (much as you may like to shave your beard because you think a full beard makes you look like some kind of caveman, while I like to shave my beard because I don't like how sweaty and itchy it makes my neck). But all those preferences, individually, should be valid in any free, humane society.
A name doesn't claim to be a statement of fact about anything except an arbitrary designation. A term about sex does.
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