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In the trans debate, I encountered an argument the other day which to me reads like a textbook example of an unfalsifiable hypothesis. I would like to run it by you good people to see if there's something I'm missing.
My woke, far-left sister was complaining about a male person she knows who claims to be non-binary, and yet behaves in a manner entirely consistent with certain negative stereotypes about masculinity, specifically "mansplaining", the tendency of certain men to condescendingly talk down to women, even if the women in question are more knowledgeable about the topic in question than the man himself is. She said it was abundantly obvious from his demeanour that this person was a man, not something intermediate between male and female.
I thought to myself "wow, my sister's gotten redpilled somewhere along the way" and enthusiastically agreed with her, arguing that I think the concept of "gender identity" has essentially zero predictive power, and that self-declared trans people almost invariably behave in a manner more consistent with their natal sex then their claimed gender identity. The specific example I gave was that trans women are 6 times more likely than cis women to be convicted of a crime, and 18 times more likely to be convicted of a violent crime. Which is exactly what you'd expect on the basis of their sex, not their gender identity. If trans women are women trapped inside men's bodies, why do they commit crimes at the same rates as men?
My sister's rebuttal was that, even though trans women are women trapped inside men's bodies, they were still socialised to be male prior to their coming out as trans, which compels them to behave in a manner consistent with the masculine norm.
This strikes me as a perfect example of the adage "if a theory explains everything, it explains nothing". If a trans woman behaves in a manner consistent with how you'd expect a female person to behave, that demonstrates that she's really a woman. If a trans woman behaves in a manner consistent with how you'd expect a male person to behave, that demonstrates that she was socialised into behaving like a male person against her will. Under this framing, there is literally nothing a trans woman can do which can ever point away from her "really" being a woman.
What would it take to falsify this hypothesis? Is there some piece of the puzzle that I'm missing here? I'm sincerely looking for a steelman.
I think your sister's stated explanations are simply an attempt to rationalize her feelings. They're not a description of her actual underlying reasoning.
I think for a lot of everyday liberals who haven't thought carefully about this stuff, the reasoning goes like this: trans/NB people are oppressed, and oppressed people are good and virtuous. Therefore if someone (in my estimation) is not good and virtuous, then they are not "really" trans/NB.
You see this a lot. When a trans person is in the news doing something bad, then they're not really trans, they're faking it. Similarly, if a member of an oppressed minority group doesn't hold the right opinions or vote the right way, they're self-hating or not "really" an authentic member of their race, etc.
That would be perfectly self-consistent (if a transparent no true Scotsthey argument). What I don't understand is how she thought this one random dude isn't "really" non-binary on the basis of his toxic mansplaining, but a trans woman who commits a violent crime (up to and including raping a female person) is still a woman.
I do think that binary and non-binary trans are inherently different things, though.
Like, 'man' and 'woman' are legal categories with real effects, and they are coherent permanent social categories which include a lot of variance while retaining their core identity. It's entirely possible for a man to wear makeup or for a woman to mansplain, they will be unusual in that one regard but can still be unarguably a member of their larger category based on everything else about them (including their legal classification). There's also an established path to binary transition covering things like hormone therapy, changing your legal status, standard types of presentation changes, voice therapy, etc.
Whereas being nonbinary is not really a well-defined social or legal category in the same way. Saying you're nonbinary is not so much a declaration of 'I am in that stable well-understood category you already know about, as it is a declaration of intent to exhibit behaviors and presentations that don't match either of the established categories. There's no established path and no checkboxes to show that you're 'doing it right'.
In that sense, it sort of is possible to 'fail' at being nonbinary, in a way that's a lot less possible with binary trans (assuming you're making an effort at the established path). Someone can look at your self-invented steps and methods and say 'You really are not anywhere outside of the established binary, or even near the periphery.'
Of course, they don't have any authority to stop you and their judgement is not inherently more valid than yours, or w/e. But such judgement are abstractly more coherent, at least.
Sure, and my question is, what is the equivalent for trans women? What would it take before I can legitimately say "you really are not anywhere outside of the social category associated with your sex, or even near the periphery"? Looking like a cis man apparently doesn't invalidate a trans woman's self-declared gender identity; nor dressing like one; nor sounding like one; nor having male genitalia; nor behaving like a cis man - is there anything more quintessentially masculine than starting a drunken fight outside of a bar, or raping someone (a crime that, as I mentioned in another comment, is defined in many jurisdictions such that only male people can commit it)? "Trans women don't owe you femininity", after all - a trans woman is not obliged to do anything associated with the female sex or women, and must still be considered a woman no matter what.
To sum up: I don't understand why a "non-binary" gender identity is contingent, but a "trans woman" gender identity is axiomatic and unquestionable.
Oh, sorry, I thought that was clear: It's because we're currently engaged in a number of legal battles over the rights and status of binary trans people along many different axes, so the actual considered discussion of such topics is drowned out by political activists on both sides circling the wagons and offering extremist rhetoric to push their side of the ballot onto voters.
Yes, that's annoying, but it's approximately what always happens when any issue is being used as a wedge in elections and coming before legislatures.
Beneath that, and especially in offline spaces where real people are talking to real people, there's much more measured standards that consider all the stuff you're talking about in a holistic way. Although, with the caution that a lot of people are at the start of their transition process or have to stay closeted at work or at church or etc., and these are valid excuses for not already always ticking all the boxes.
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