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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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Are stepmoms real moms?

The things that stepmoms may or may not be able to do that distinguish them from non-step-Moms are, except for a vanishingly small set of cases, not based on the stepmoms' physical traits. Whether you think they count as moms or not, or whether they should count in some cases but not others, that's very different from trans.

I think that you perfectly describe what is going on, namely trying to use language games and sophism to permeate the borders of some categories often in order to capture some social or legal advantage. This is a standard contention where the left views something as socially constructed - so "social and relational presentation" in your parlance - as opposed to anything else. The issue here is that applying this analogy there are no borders, Rachel Dolezal presents as black and you should accept it, and grant her all the advantages of being black such as those related to Affirmative Action legislature.

And we do not even have to borrow these examples, what if some child thinks that their teacher is their mom? It is this children's reality, in kid's lived experience this teacher is performing all the motherly roles so she is this child's "real mom". On what grounds are you going to dispute this personal lived experience of this poor kid? Parasocial mom is "real mom", so she better coughs up some money for child support or maybe vice versa, this teacher should be able to provide consent for kid to get tattoo or act in some other parental capacities. So this example proves too much, "stepmothers are real mothers" argument can "prove" that transwomen are real women but also that people wearing blackface are real black people. So it is not a good argument.

In reality even the most enthusiasts of social construction of reality do understand the power of categories. Deep down they do not believe in fluidity of these categories, shouting that "transwomen are real women" is a proof that they want to advocate for this change, they do not respect the status quo when it comes to this category.

As for the matter at hand, we do have mothers and setpmothers and adoptive mothers for millennia as categories. There is no confusion to be had, there is no need for new category such as "real mother". In fact there is a similarity where the society uses the word "mother" in stepmother as a courtesy, similarly as it uses "woman" transwoman as a courtesy there. However the very prefix "step" and "trans" implies the difference. Or in other words, stepmother is literally different word, it is not just some adjective such as let's say "tiger mother" or "tall mother".

Always the question, categories for what purpose? Whether adoptive mothers and mothers are the same or different categories will depend on whether you're a woman trying to commiserate about pregnancy (obviously different) or a child classifying their experience of motherhood (usually indistinguishable). Without clarifying what task we are trying to differentiate, the question is unanswerable; when clarifying, the categories almost disappear.