Guest post: A few questions
Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on He says please read it all.
Les sigh. This is just a little of what goes through my head when I see this sort of thread/post/article/etc.
Trans women are women.
Trans men are men.
Non binary people are non binary.
For some, these terms are porous and they live between them.
Gender is not absolute.
What are women? What are men? Are you using the same senses of these words as the people you’re responding to? As law does? As science does? As literature does? As the totality of our species history does? If yes, can you show that? If not, how do you justify that, and what are the potential consequences that need to be navigated?
What does it mean to be non-binary? Does it entail that everyone who is not non-binary is binary? Is that not a binary? If non-binary means neither A nor B, what are the potential Cs? What distinguishes A from B, A from C, and B from C?
What does it mean for a term to be porous? If non-binary’s complement is binary, what would it mean to “live between” the dichotomy?
Are the proposed senses of these terms indisputable? On what grounds? Does that sort of justification apply to other terminology? How do we know when a term isn’t indisputable?
Most people’s gender “matches” with the one conferred on them by biology and society.
What does it mean for a gender to match? How do you know that this is true of most people? What does biology confer, gender-wise? What does society confer, gender-wise?
To the cis women who feel betrayed by the Guardian’s coverage of trans issues: I’m genuinely saddened to have lost you as everyone working here wants to fight misogyny, sexism and patriarchal power/bullshit.
How does misogyny relate to gender? To sex? Does this understanding of misogyny result in things previously considered misogynist no longer being considered so? What of the reverse?
How does sexism relate to gender? To sex? Does this understanding of sexism result in things previously considered sexist no longer being considered so? What of the reverse?
How does patriarchy relate to gender? To sex? Does this understanding of patriarchy result in things previously considered patriarchal no longer being considered so? What of the reverse?
Do transwomen have concerns not shared by “cis” women? Do “cis” women have concerns not shared by transwomen? If the answer to either question is no, what does this entail with respect to biology? If, instead, the answer is yes to either, what are those concerns? Do transwomen have the right to speak about those concerns that are peculiar to them? Do “cis” women have the right to speak about those concerns that are peculiar to them? Does any of the aforementioned vocabulary make discussing those concerns difficult or unclear?
Men threaten women in so many ways. Trans women (often non-white trans women) experience the blunt, murderous end of that threat all too often.
What does “all too often” mean? Why is the frequency with which “cis” women experience violence from men not mentioned? Is the omission to suggest that “cis” women suffer violence from men at an acceptable rate?
Does any of the aforementioned vocabulary make the source of violence and the nature of its threat unclear? If transmen are men, then do transmen threaten women? How do non-binary people fit into this analysis?
Again, these women need compassion.
What do you mean by compassion? Is compassion an experience of empathy? A display of sympathy? Does it entail a particular sort of social or legal practice?
There needs to be debate on how to ensure safety and agency of all women; of methods and timings of transitioning, which will vary for each person. But any debate needs to come from a place of compassion where the fact of trans women’s existence and womanhood is honoured.
What do you mean by honored? Do honoring and compassion have any entailments about what sort of positions are permissible in the debate you desire? Do they preclude certain conclusions about transition timing?
What do you mean by the fact of transwomen’s existence? Does it mean that a person labeled as trans exists? Does it mean that a person labeled as trans is all the things that the label denotes? Does this reasoning apply elsewhere? Is it possible for a label to denote logically impossible things? Is it possible for a label to denote empirically impossible things? How do we determine which labels those are? Is it possible for a label to be wrongly applied? How do we know when that happens? When a label is wrongly applied to something, does that thing exist?
I signed the letter in the wake of Suzanne Moore’s column because I thought she mis-characterised the fight for trans rights as denying women’s rights.
In your terms, to what class of people is Moore referring when she says “women’s rights”? Is Moore using the same sense of women as you? If not, how can you restate her position or argument in your terms? How can you restate your argument in her terms? Are these restatements equivalent in meaning?
This debate should continue until everyone feels safe.
Is feeling safe the most appropriate goal? Why a feeling of safety over the fact of safety? Would feeling safe make us safe?
Is a universal feeling of safety is attainable? If it is, how? If it isn’t, what level of feeling safe is acceptable?
People often approach it in bad faith. … Talk to trans people and understand the reality of their identities; their difficulties and joys.
What does it mean to understand the reality of their identities? Does this mean “understand that their identities are real”? Is this any different from accepting what they say to be true? Is it possible to approach the discussion in good faith and yet disagree on whether a transperson’s claim are true? If not, in what sense is there a discussion or debate? Is your belief potentially falsifiable or defeasible? What sort of argument, evidence, or experience would be sufficient to reduce your confidence in your belief?
I don’t have all the answers but I want to ask the right questions, to help equality and understanding, and for everyone to be empowered.
If you do not have all the answers, does that mean that some of the answers you do not know might be incompatible with a belief you currently hold? Would such an answer mean that the question isn’t right?
Wow. Quite the tour de force. I don’t think many (if any) of these questions can be answered honestly by TAs in such a way that they would be able to retain the moral high ground and righteousness that they claim for themse7lves. Detailed examinations of basic, forthright questions like these clearly demonstrate that TAs have nochoice but to approach these issues though bullying and obfuscation. There’s no there there.
Tour de force? Sacre bleu!
Honestly, I’ve just been reading How to Have Impossible Conversations. These really are just the sort of basic questions the book advises you keep to. Over and over it says to focus on epistemology, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do of late. The sad thing is that the vast majority of TWAW types have apparently never had someone ask basic questions like these. It’s just like it always was back in the heyday of New Atheism, when we kept encountering people who’d never had their faith genuinely challenged.
HtHIC also talks about another thing that makes me really appreciate this little web zone: the ability to let people disagree and have that be fine. It’s a tragically rare social practice. Thanks for fostering that, Ophelia.
Excellent questions indeed!
If a word carries real content it should be possible (albeit slightly cumbersome) to point directly to the content without using the word itself. E.g. I often make a point of writing things like “people with a strong preponderance of innate physical traits more representative of mothers than fathers” etc. instead of “women” precisely to emphasize that nothing I have to say about these people depends on whatever arbitrary names or labels we choose to call them by. It would be illuminating indeed to hear TRAs attempt something similar.
Some more questions otf the top of my head.
Who are the “binary” people?
What are the ways of thinking and feeling that makes someone a “man” regardless of physical traits?
What are the ways of thinking and feeling that makes someone a “woman” regardless of physical traits?
What what are those of us who don’t think of feel in any of these ways allowed to call ourselves?
Which toilets are we allowed to use if there are only two, and both are reserved for people who think or feel in ways that we don’t?
Which sporting events are we allowed to participate in if they are all reserved for people who think or feel in ways that we don’t?
How do we make sure that only people who really do think or feel in the ways required are allowed in?
How are we supposed to fill out those forms that require us to tick of either “M” of “F” if either option commits us to ways of thinking and feeling that we don’t subscribe to?
What if there’s a conflict?
What if the very same things that make one group feel more safe make another group feel less safe?
Could the latter have legitimate reasons for feeling that way?
If yes, whose (feeling of) safety prevails, and why?
If not, how do you know?
Well argued, Nullius.
Indeed, that’s more what it looks like to ask questions, Nullius. It would be nice if people like poor Ben Double-Barrels did that instead of chanting the TRA mantra.
I’m at the point with all this nonsense that I resent it when I have to fill out a form and it requires me to indicate a “gender.” I don’t have one of those, and if I do it’s just in my imagination. A more important thing to know about me is that I have a sex. Back when I was a lad, that’s what the forms asked (to much titillation and the occasional incorrect response).
Your first two questions have already stumped them.
When there’s an area on a form where we’re supposed to indicate our “gender,” there should be enough space to allow us to explain in what ways we’re masculine, and in what ways we’re feminine. We should also be allowed to write what we think about this on the back.
Putting down our “sex” is only complicated if we’re a member of a small fraction of those few individuals with DSDs. But dealing with “gender” could keep us busy for hours, or longer.
Sastra,
Don’t give me ideas, I’m already the sort of person who treats tick boxes as essay questions.
Bjarte:
Precisely so, otherwise the word simply does not refer. It’s something that the vast majority of people never think about, unfortunately. If a man is defined as “someone who identifies as a man”, then man only refers to a speech act. What meaning is there in identifying with a speech act?
Papito:
I think that’s one of the things that bothers me so deeply about this whole thing. Those who carry water for the TRAs say vague things about the importance of humility and asking questions and keeping an open mind, and yet the most basic, the simplest, surface-level, prima facie, off-the-top-of-your-head questions are hardly ever asked. When they are, they are often dismissed as transphobic or ignorant. Other times, the questioner is referred to magazine articles and videos from the likes of Teen Vogue. So rarely does someone answer the questions in good faith that I have yet to encounter it. I have been emotionally blackmailed with trans suicide, though.
Almost every time I see “gender”, my brain goes, “You mean sex, there, maybe?”
I’m still okay with “gender” as a euphemistic synonym of “sex”, but just barely. If people were generally conscious and deliberate with their use of language, I’d have no problem with it at all. However, people are not, and using “gender” in place of “sex” contributes to confused discourse because people aren’t aware of when referents change.
I suspect that the most difficult of the basic formal fallacies for people to detect is equivocation, and that’s how this sort of thing propagates. Cults (e.g., Scientology) often withhold their more extreme claims from potential converts and new believers. That’s what happens with trans rights jargon (and woke jargon more generally). People hear and sign up for A, and only much later do they find out that it’s A`. By then, they’re in for the whole pound.
I mean, they tend to answer with, “An X is someone who identifies as an X.” This is horribly unsatisfying and leads to yet more questions, some of which I mentioned.
In a recent argument on Mano’s blog, I put some similarly awkward questions to the TRAs. You’ll be shocked – shocked! – to learn that the answers were evasions at best.
Responses to this were facetious non-answers.
The only response to this was “#33 People can’t be [sic] exclude themselves, can they?” Which blatantly ignores the fact that ‘trans exclusionary’ in these conversations is de facto defined as disagreeing with any portion of TRA theory. If I said the things Buck Angel or Blair White say about sex and gender, I’d be called a terf for their words… so are those trans people terfs? That was the crux of the question, ant it remained unanswered.
The first response was “Gender. Trans women are female” which is a deliberate avoidance of answering the question that was actually asked. Later, the question was danced around but never answered.
I think the standard line is something like, “They have internalized anti-trans views, and they are acting in support of cis-supremacy in order to gain cis-privilege.”
Or something.
But female is the term for sex, not gender. It is the same term I use when I discuss the life cycle of trees (sexually reproducing organisms) or lizards (sexually reproducing organisms). Male produce the sperm (a term that disturbs my students when I apply it to trees, but not to lizards). Female produce the eggs.
They continue to obfuscate every term in every possible manner, probably hoping to confuse their interlocutor enough to make them go away and put their head in the oven.
Of course they do. They’re pulling from queer theory, which epitomizes postmodernism. Pomo rejects any notion of fixed meaning or objective standards of truth. It’s a feature of all the critical theories, unfortunately. For example, objectivity is considered a bigoted problematic.