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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.
No, but trans men can, and they're still men, and by the way that's non-binary erasure, bigot.
This is the linguistic jiggery-pokery which annoys most ordinary people, I think. Pregnant people are mothers, not fathers. Women get pregnant, men don't. You can talk about gender all you like and being inclusive and sensitive and all the rest of it, but right now - even with uterine transplants - biological males can't get pregnant, only biological women. EDIT: You want to be called "Bob, pronouns he/him" and after the kid is born everyone refers to you as the father, sure, okay. But you're not a male who got pregnant and you're not the father father. I can see how this leads to the kind of tip-toeing language around terminology that gives us "some people with uteri who carry pregnancies" (thankfully only confined to research papers like this so far).
Later, when technology and medical science
unleashes horrors hitherto unimagined by the human mindprogresses and it is possible to get an entire transplant of donor uterus, donor ovaries, construct a neo-cervix and neo-vagina to be birthing canal, a ton of immunosuppressants and hormones, make sure the entire surgically-implanted new system functions, then yes trans women could get pregnant. Probably go with donor uterus, surrogate ova implanted by IVF, and delivery by Caesarean first since creating a complete and functional reproductive system in a body not meant for one is going to be a huge hurdle and will have to be taken step-by-step.Even uterine transplants, at present, are only good for a couple of pregnancies before needing to be removed in order to come off immunosuppressants:
This is the state of the art at present even for systems set up to be child-bearing. Imagine the difficulties to be overcome for a system that is not intended for same.
Imagine if we could analyze every trans person, find immune compatible pairs and swap their genitalia.
Still a long way from that, but I'm sure Science! is working on it.
I think I read something about male genital transplants? Lemme check - ah yes, Johns Hopkins got you covered there, but only if you're cis I'm afraid.
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