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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?
I am broadly pro-trans, but don't really come at it from a progressive/woke angle.
The basic foundation I'm coming from is a combination of libertarianism (people with different belief systems should be allowed to do what they want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else), trans-humanism (people should be allowed to do what they want to their bodies), and a little bit of pronoun hospitality (when you are speaking with someone, it is nice to meet them halfway and use their preferred terminology, even if you don't agree with their metaphysics or ontology.)
I also think there's a strange way in which a lot of the trans debate is primarily a linguistic debate. I've said this before, but I think well-informed pro- and anti-trans people are generally in agreement on empirical questions like, "Can trans women get pregnant?", or "What chromosomes do an overwhelming majority of trans men have?"
I think in a lot of ways, it is less mystifying to model trans people as people with "strange" desires. The same way some people want tattoos and piercings or breast enlargement surgeries, they want to change their bodies to look more like the opposite sex. And the same way some people ask for nicknames and hate their birth names, they want nicknames and "nickpronouns."
My feeling is if they have the money, and that is what they want to do with their life, why shouldn't they be allowed to do that?
I'm okay with private sports organizations making whatever choice they want about which sex trans people compete with, let the free market sort such things out. For government-controlled domains, we'll have to work out what we want to do through a combination of voting, and application of constitutional principles. I'm personally okay if trans women get housed with male prisoners as a stop gap solution, though my preference is for all prisoners to be treated humanely and to be safe from other prisoners, and I am open to other possible solutions that still accomplish those goals.
Thanks for posting this, but I'm more interested in understanding and questioning what I have referred to as "gender ideology," i.e. the mainstream progressive/leftist/woke views about transgenderism.
I agree that one could defend a libertarian take on transgenderism, and in that case I basically agree with @07mk that it comes down to questions of coercion. Which raises a lot of issues, one of which is whether the social norm of being polite is being abused to coerce people into pretending to accept gender ideology. So as to create a false consensus which then becomes a real consensus because people are afraid to speak out publicly (in some circles) against gender ideology.
In this subject it’s way easier to be against something than it is to be for something. Both on a wider level and the details!
Epistemically it’s interesting that someone presents a relatively cogent view and you say “but that’s not what I’m mad at”.
My point is not a criticism of you though. It’s that this works in the opposite direction as well, and creates a lot of confusion. What you depict or want to depict as a monolithic and coherent gender ideology is also best understood as being “against” a caricature of conservative/religious gender ideology.
As an example you might say “there are two genders” or “two sexes” and they might get all worked up and excited since there are all of these edge cases both historically and individually.
It’s actually my observation that there are very loosely two camps: one says that gender is a social construct, and this should be ignored since people can do whatever they want. And individuals can and should be able to discard the baggage on demand since that’s an inherent right/is just. The second says that yes social constructs are real but we need to modify said social constructs in order to better represent the true underlying diversity of things. This camp believes that the constructs are stifling or harmful and need to be consciously expanded. In a way you can see that these don’t actually fit together very harmoniously.
Layered on top of this are various attitudes towards individualism and its sorta-opposite (however you want to phrase it, but the idea that societal or economic or other macro forces are overpoweringly strong). That’s why you see such a disconnect between the libertarian approaches and the other more “oppression” based narratives. The “gender ideology” camp as you describe it doesn’t actually care about reconciling these, since as long as you externally talk about your opposition to the conservatives you are usually going to be accepted.
And this works in reverse as well. You see everything from “gender dysphoria isn’t real” to “gender dysphoria is real and should be treated X way” with varying X’s to “gender dysphoria is ‘real’ but misunderstood or misinterpreted in Y way” and varying degrees of prescriptivism. “Defined” mostly as being in opposition to something.
Can you give me a few examples so I know what you are talking about?
Ok, I'm going to stop here for a couple reasons. First, coyly saying that something is "interesting" tells me that you want to imply something without plainly stating it. I don't have the time or energy to puzzle over what you are trying to say. Second, whatever your point is, if you need to misquote me to make the point, then it's probably not much of a point to begin with.
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