Recognized

What’s wrong with this picture.

I don’t think I’m being virtuous. I just think that people should be recognized as how they are. Pretty low bar for virtue. For example: trans women are women. Calling trans women “Male” because you are transphobic is a you problem. Don’t make it their problem.

Spot the flaw. BZZZZZZZT! Correct! The flaw is the non sequitur between sentence two and sentence four:

People should be recognized as how they are. For example: trans women are women.

But that’s not an example of recognizing people as how they are; it’s the opposite. Trans women are in fact men who identify as / think they are / call themselves / claim to be women. How do we go about “recognizing” people as how they are [inside their heads but not on the outside] unless they come with large legible labels attached? In ordinary everyday life we “recognize” people as how they are via our senses and the information our senses give us based on cues we have learned over however many years we’ve lived.

He means something more like “endorse” or “agree with” but didn’t say that…probably because putting it that way makes it more obvious that it isn’t about “how they are” but “how they imagine themselves.” The demand is that we treat fantasies as reality, but the advocates of doing so don’t put it that way because it’s such an obviously unreasonable demand.

7 Responses to “Recognized”