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PaperclipPerfector  30d ago (text post)   25120 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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Nevermind the old chestnut of "what is a woman?". That one has multiple satisfactory answers from the simple to the scientifically robust. Try out "what is a transwoman?". The sole universal quality of every possible rational answer begins with "a man who...". A man.

This is literally assuming the conclusion. You can't build an argument to support your opinion that starts with your opinion.

OP does go on to say:

Because without that there's no binary boundary to transit. A woman cannot be a transwoman.

Seems to me the argument is not circular, just compact: without a concrete definition of man and woman, there is nothing to be "trans" in comparison to.

This sort of argument is not new - a common variant is to argue that trans and non-binary are inherently in tension for this reason.

Fair enough. But then isn't this just answered by "man and woman are not actually clean natural categories"? With transpeople being exactly the cross-boundary cases, and then still, the "a man who" argument fails to be convincing. The extended form of the counterargument then is just "you're concluding group membership by using as an argument your choice of group criteria", which is still just as circular.

(This is not a "pro-trans" view: "trans women are women" were just as silly, for the same reason, if it were an argument and not a cudgel.)

"man and woman are not actually clean natural categories"

The answer to this is that this argument proves too much. If we go by the pre-trans, biology-based definition based on biology and the type of gamete a body is geared towards producing, there are edge cases - but it's the intersex (it's telling how the intersex and language associated with them , "assigned sex at birth" , have been appropriated by trans activists) - but this small minority doesn't render the category meaningless or most biology-based categories - as a start - have to go.

With transpeople being exactly the cross-boundary cases

Going by the biology-based definition it's easy to see how intersex are an edge case (which doesn't vitiate the category). It's much harder to see how transpeople as a class are given that there is no concrete definition - it's not based on dysphoria since some deny that (and lack of comfort with your body doesn't change your sex in any case), not based on intersex-style biological ambiguity since most trans are not intersex, you don't need any brain scans to fit your claimed gender so it's not based on that, you don't need to transition - and then what of women who're non-conforming? Where do they fall? It's similar to the "Trans-Inclusion Problem" and "woman":

Every proposal so far has failed to draw the boundaries of womanhood in a way acceptable to the Ameliorative Inquirists, since not all those who identify as women count as women on these proposals, and some who count as women on these proposals don’t identify as women.

You complain about the inherent fuzziness of the biology-based definition of "man" and "woman" but you run a worse issue with "transpeople". You cannot say "transpeople are the edge case" when defining trans in the first place in a concrete way is a problem.

Oh, wow, look: we've basically circled back to OP's original complaint. Like I said: compact not circular.

I don't think the category is meaningless! Certainly, men and women overwhelmingly exist. However, as the tomboys and the androgynous and crossdressers already sufficiently demonstrate, some traits of the category have more separational power than others. And the intersex - but the intersex are much more rare than those! I would not look at genetics first if I wanted to demonstrate definitional issues of gender. And showing that the category is broken in some cases even on genetic grounds strengthens, not weakens, my case.

I think the phrasing "have to go" implies that we either have rigorously separated men and women or we cannot have men and women at all. I reject this line of thinking anyways. A group doesn't have to be total to be useful. I'm sure there are people who argue like that; I don't count myself among them.

It's much harder to see how transpeople as a class are given that there is no concrete definition

Oh, I'll be the first to agree that the vacuous nature of the term weakens the trans case! This is only a problem for non-exclusive leftist politics though. I'm entirely willing to accept that there are people who claim that they are trans but aren't, "in fact", trans under any meaningfully objective definition. This does not however disprove the existence of trans people; it just shows the category is fuzzy - as should be expected of a category defined as category-crossing. A sphere is inherently easier to define than a concave lens.

But none of this invalidates the point that you can't argue for group membership on the circular basis of a criterion. I think trans people have shared traits and interests that justify - make useful - the existence of the group term. I think the trans movement often fails to make this case, or make it convincingly; that doesn't make "mtf are men because I put them into that category" any better; it just shows the error is widespread and not limited to any side.

I think trans people have shared traits and interests that justify - make useful - the existence of the group term.

So do I when they're grouped as a sub category to a referent super category, but if we call them women the super category ceases to signify anything essential and becomes effectively arbitrary and correspondingly insignificant. (And when it's arbitrary I have no need to justify my opinion beyond it being an opinion that's mine. Back to square one, the circle created by trans rhetoric travels in both directions despite their intention.)

When I say "transwomen aren't even transwomen" I say it to contrast their own rhetoric and demonstrate their dependence on the binary they (selectively) disavow.

At base my argument is that "men who [choose to pursue and increase their femininity, AKA transwomen]" is legible. Each element points to something distinct even where the element might be fuzzy at the boundaries. "Transwomen are women who want to affirm their gender identity as women by pursuing feminine social signifiers" (the most charitable framing I can come up with) loses legibility the more you think about it as each element circles back to itself until the boundaries it depends on collapse into meaninglessness.

My own belief is that they do this because, less charitably, they are men who [want to be women and throw out these convoluted rationales to avoid the distress of acknowledging that they simply can't]. What they can do is increase/maximise their femininity, which is what they're already doing, and which I can't see anyway of discrediting. It's plausible, it's feasible, and it's legible. It doesn't float my boat, but it doesn't knit my brow either.

At base my argument is that "men who [choose to pursue and increase their femininity, AKA transwomen]" is legible.

And my point is that this argument, ultimately, only makes sense to you because it begins with your choice of the critical definitional aspects of masculinity. You say "men who" because you consider these attributes of manhood as critical, in which transwomen are masculine. But that is not an argument.

I consider those attributes critical inasmuch as absenting them from the discussion leaves us with nothing to discuss, or at least nothing conclusive. Non rhetorical question: How can it be otherwise?

I might be mistaken but your objection seems to rest on "man" operating as a floating signifier that can be either male (sex) or masculine (gender). This is problematic because for transgenderism to be legible the gender has to be associated with sex. A gender that is unassociated with a sex is effectively arbitrary. If transgenderism depends on gender being arbitrary then it can't make strong claims predicated on gender, if gender is illegible then claims on gender can't be understood, and if gender is strict then gender only serves its function as it relates to sex.

I think man operates as a floating signifier covering a dozen axes that are all more or less correlated, which is why it causes debate.

I think the leftist view is that tg depends on gender being arbitrary, which is why they've spent years disclaiming any claims it actually makes.

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