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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?
The canonical defense in these parts would be what Scott Alexander wrote almost twelve years ago. He is always worth reading in full in my opinion, but the trans defense starts in section IV.
I am not doubting that there is some penis-haver who is asking women in a Lesbian bar if they would want to suck their cock and cries trans-phobia once they get kicked out. From my personal experience, this is rare. As a straight guy, I do not have to fend off trans-women cancelling me for refusing to fuck them basically ever. Love is the last bastion of libertarianism. You can be into one gender, one sex, one type of genitals, hair or skin color, a certain BMI or age range and people will usually accept this and not try to cancel gays for having some anti-women bias in their dating partner selection or whatever.
Are you adopting his position? Because I would like to ask some critical questions.
Ok, so I take it that you are disputing that according to gender ideology (and by that I mean the general progressive/leftist/woke position on transgenderism) if a person claims to be "superstraight," they are considered to be transphobic? And that other than that, you agree with my summary?
Mostly, I am. I still reserve the right to say "oops, I do not agree with him on this sentence in particular".
Feel free to ask some questions. Note that I am defending SA's position "it is worth having trans-inclusive gender definitions", not woke positions like "it is fine to put a third of a school class on puberty blockers" or "if you have any preference for genitals that makes you trans-phobe".
I am sure that people who use the term "superstraight" are widely decried as transphobic by the wokes. On the other hand, I think that there is not a consensus in the LGBT community that lesbians who are not into dicks are transphobic. On priors, I would expect that a lot of lesbians are not into dicks.
I agree with your summary that trans acceptance requires that we separate sex and gender, and have actually argued previously that we should.
Ok, thanks.
I'm not sure what this means. As I understand gender ideology (or whatever you want to call it), a "man" is anyone who self-reports that they are a man, and a "woman" is anyone who self-reports that they are a woman. Have I misunderstood? If so, can you please set forth the "trans-inclusive gender definitions"?
In any event, as I understand Scott's argument, his position is that there is nothing inherently incorrect in re-defining categories, it's just a matter of semantics. So for example, if I change the definition of "King of England" so that it includes not only King Charles but also myself, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it's just a matter of definitions. Moreover, Scott's position is that one can and should do so, at least to some extent, in the interest of helping a psychiatric patient. So for example, if my mental problems will be greatly alleviated if my therapist starts addressing me as "Your Highness," then he should do so.
Do I understand his argument correctly?
As far as I am concerned, this is correct. Obviously there can be people who are gaming this system where self-id is the tiebreaker, like Cartman self-identifying as a girl so he (!) will get his own bathroom in school, or trolls insisting that their gender is "attack helicopter" and making up weird pronouns for themselves or whatever.
To quote the man:
Definitions should preferably carve reality at its joints. A definition of fish which includes some whales but excludes other whales is probably not a good definition. But sometimes there are multiple options for a workable definition.
That being said, society runs on on polite fictions to some degree. If you are invited to dinner and find the food barely tolerable, it would be poor form to communicate this fact directly to your host. Likewise, if your colleague introduces you to his "beautiful wife", most people know better than to contradict him. If you get asked on a date and feel insulted that the asker even considered you in his league, it is poor taste to let the disgust show, and the appropriate response would be to tell them to that you are not interested without going into the specifics of his shortcomings. If my English teacher introduced herself as Mrs Smith, it would be extremely impolite to call her Miss Smith even if I knew for a fact that she has never been married.
There are topics where other considerations overrule polite fictions. If some parents believe that prayer is better than chemotherapy for their kid's cancer, you can tell them that this is an insane view even if it will likely upset them. However, the gender in the social sphere is IMHO not something which is especially worth protecting. It used to be that your gender/sex had a lot of legal implications, but today in Western societies that is no longer the case.
The reality is that in the social sphere, we generally have to infer the gender of people through indirect evidence rather than just looking at their genitals. That is fine for most social situations, if I am selling you a cup of coffee, I do not really care if I sexed you as "female" because you are a cis-woman or because you are a trans-woman who was able to pass as a woman. There is no law prohibiting the sale of coffee to penis-havers, so I do not care either way. The same is true for most social interactions, with the exception of sex and procreation.
Few people would support tattooing people their birth gender on their forehead or criminalizing cross-dressing, so the social gender will not be co-extensive with the sex assigned at birth either way. Given that background, I think it is not a huge step to let people pick their pronouns. Of course, if someone is a trans-woman presenting as a bearded guy, I will probably misgender her a lot more by accident than if she is presenting at least somewhat feminine, and I will not lose a lot of sleep over it either.
In the SSC article, the canonical example seems Napoleon, but that is the same up to isomorphism.
For a psychiatrist, how they will refer to their patient is up to them. If they decide to indulge some fantasy or not I will not second-guess them. If you feel they do not have your best interests at heart, find a different psychiatrist.
In a world where a few percents of the population identify as Napoleon, I think it would probably not be helpful for strangers to go to them and tell them that they are not Napoleon, and that the real Napoleon died on St Helena a long time ago. Perhaps the psychiatric community finds that the best outcome is for the public to indulge their fantasy (within limitations -- no invading Russia). Let them put Napoleon Bonaparte as their artist's/order name in their passport, whatever.
It is pretty much the same for your "king of England". Obviously Charles has constitutional duties which we won't let everyone handle who claims they ID as the British monarch. But if it affected multiple percent of the population, I would be fine with making "king of England" free-for-all and having a separate term, like "constitutional monarch of Great Britain" to refer to Charles.
It is different if you were to id as a physician, because society has good reason to not politely play along with you. We should not change the laws to grant you a MD to make you feel better.
So it seems like you are saying that defining "King of England" as I have is not technically incorrect but it's disfavored because it doesn't "carve reality at its joints."
Meanwhile, according to you, defining a man as "anyone who self-reports to be a man" and a woman as "anyone who self-reports to be a woman" is NOT disfavored because it DOES "carve reality at its joints."
Do I understand your position correctly?
Ok, so if I understand you correctly, your position is that the decision of whether society should go along with these redefined terms depends on (1) whether doing so will be beneficial to some people; and (2) whether there is a "good reason" not to do so.
Do I understand your position correctly?
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