Hazard a guess
One or two further thoughts on the “what even is my own sex??” issue.
Isla Bumba, 29, is a senior “diversity officer” at NHS Fife. At an employment tribunal on Wednesday, she was questioned about her advice that a trans woman – that is, a biological male – should be allowed to use a hospital’s female changing room. And, during one extraordinary exchange, she told the tribunal that she doesn’t know what sex she is.
“I would hazard a guess that I would be female,” she said, with all solemnity. “But no one knows what their chromosomes are, or their hormonal composition, unless you’ve had that tested – and I at least have not.”
Wait. And then wait some more.
She would hazard a guess?
What, because she’s never known? Her whole life it’s been up in the air what sex she is? Really? Despite the female-coded hair and clothes? Despite having developed breasts? Despite menstruation? It’s just pure guesswork? It’s a guess she would have to hazard?
Did she never pick up cues in childhood that she was a girl, or that everyone around her considered her a girl? Has she been in uncertainty all 29 years of her life?
She can’t have literally thought she was just guessing, so why say it? Especially in court?
Well, because it’s the dogma. But then what makes the dogma so attractive that she says such a ridiculous thing? Why doesn’t the dogma repel her or make her laugh or both?
She doesn’t really think she’s hazarding a guess that she’s a woman. If she did she wouldn’t dress the way she does or wear her hair the way she does. If she did think that she would hedge her bets in public.
For the billionth time, I can’t make any sense of it. It’s not like campaigning against racism, or war, or xenophobia, or theocracy. It’s like campaigning against your own body, which seems a tad counter-productive.
Then how do little children of 2 years old “know” that they are “really a boy,” or “really a girl”? How do they know — infallibly, such that they MUST be affirmed in their ‘ideninny” — that it ” doesn’t match” their sex?
Bumba comes across as an extreme ideologue, but she’s really not all that different from all the other NHS Fife female managers and physicians we’ve heard from so far. They all know NHS’s Stonewall-guided policies and they’re ready to repeat the catechism their careers depend on – TWAW, sex and gender aren’t binary, and so on. Jo Bartosch puts it this way:
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-sandie-peggie-case-has-exposed-the-grim-dynamics-of-the-gender-wars/
@1: I think that the ideology is:
1. You always know your own gender (which is very very important), but you can never know your own sex (which is anyway irrelevant) except by testing.
2. Sex and gender are completely different things.
3. Whenever laws use the word “sex”, it means “gender”. And, given #1 and #2 above, that would be reasonable, because the law surely can’t mean “sex”, because nobody knows what sex they is without testing.
The “correct” answer is whichever one that accords with trans ideology. If you’re a two year old child claiming to be the sex your not, then you’re undoubtedly trans. If you’re a compliant trans ally who is “cis”, you have to express doubt and ambiguity in order to suggest you might be trans. Not that you actually are trans, but to demonstrate solidarity with the dogma, and support its talking points that “sex is complicated”, and “sex is a spectrum”. If you arrogantly express certainty about your own condition (even when you are certain about it), you’re being a bad ally, because your certainty undermines the vagueness and undefinability of sex that they proclaim and promote.
It doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to put genderism in the driver’s seat in establishing and enforcing unquestioned social, legal, and medical policy. Because it is contradictory and incoherent, trans activists and gender ideologues get to cast themselves as the undisputed authorities and experts, the only ones permitted to interpret, pronounce upon, and clarify the squaring of the circles of trans needs and demands. All the rest of us have to do is submit to their judgement and obey their commandments. There are no conflicts or contradictions, only Holy Mysteries.
Well, this opens a philosophical can of worms, doesn’t it? What, after all, is ‘knowledge?’ What is ‘sex?’ Is cowshit better than bullshit? Define ‘better.’ Etc. Etc. Etc….
So how does she know Upton’s a woman?
And, of course, this shows once again the incoherent nature of their position–this flies directly in the face of rejection of the idea that chromosomes determine your sex (see the imbroglio over that transwoman boxer from a few months back, where they utterly rejected the idea that you can determine sex with testing).
Actually, it’d be kind of funny if someone were to point out that she’s guilty of badthink and turned her loose among the wolves.
It’s not an attractive belief despite its absurdity. It’s an attractive belief because of its absurdity. The absurdity is what gives the belief social value. Just like with any luxury good of social significance, it’s the frivolity that matters. Public affirmation of the belief demonstrates that you have the means to afford such a wasteful expense. Wearing a Rolex has the same effect, saying, “Look at me. I’m doing well enough that I can drop this kind of cash on otherwise useless status symbols.”
The idea that Bumba doesn’t know what sex she is is so stupid that either she is committing perjury or she’s not competent to give testimony.
Nullius @ 8 – It’s credo quia absurdum est all over again.
It’s more than that. Public affirmation of the belief demonstrates that you have the power to make others submit to that absurd belief. It might mean that some of those people think you’ve got a bandwagon that they can ride to their own advantage. And some are likely just afraid of your ability to enforce the belief.
Ophelia: Precisely so. Subordination of reason and submission to the group are the foundation and pinnacle of virtue for most people. Always have been, because we’re individually weak and depend on the group for survival. We must be able to believe absurdities. We must accept a teleological suspension of the ethical. We must leap the logical chasm of utter batshit nonsense with the winged sandals of faith.
Some of us are cheeky, rebellious monkeys who who won’t submit to the will of Heaven, and we go around breaking things until the Jade Emperor himself is forced to make concessions. Such monkeys have always been rare, though, and there’s always a price for heresy.
YNnB: And it’s even more than that. Public affirmation of the absurd functions as:
– a shibboleth proving tribal membership.
– a prestige-earning signal of moral virtue.
– a way to “cash in” social capital/prestige; e.g., “Do you know who my parents are?” “Do you see how rich I am?” “Ladies first!” “My pronouns are zi/zir.”
– a sacrificial offering to the group and its ideals, which also reinforces the strength of one’s own belief.
– camouflage against the herd, diffusing moral/epistemological responsibility.
– a shield against accusations of impurity from within the tribe.
– a ritual speech act that strengthens group cohesion.
– a mantra or thought-terminating cliché.
– a demonstration of group power; the group can make people speak/believe absurdities and commit atrocities, so fear us.
– an exercise of individual power; i.e., since I’ve spoken the magic words, now you must or face the consequences of apostasy.
And so on and so forth, because humans are messy, and the social-psychological dynamics of community and epistemology are a Gordian knot of infinite interactions, interpenetrations, and interlocking interdependencies. There’s always another thread to pull, if you will.
Nullius, I love the idea of being a cheeky, rebellious monkey. I might have to make a t-shirt (or something).
Snobbishness, proof of one’s high connections and status are pretty intrinsic in human beings – that’s a huge part of the English novel for instance. In more primitive times it would have been done by superior hunting abilities and a good shaman display.
Once you would have let it be known without stating it that you had family in the peerage. If you were an Evangelical you would have said you didn’t allow card playing or frivolous reading on the Sabbath.
In more democratic times you would have boasted of your grandfather the coal miner and objected to all except socially realistic literature.
In times of cultural polarisation you have to follow another kind of catechism. I do wonder when this will be properly satirised – like Citizen Smith and The Young Ones and The Life of Brian satirised left-wingism. I don’t suppose the BBC will commission such programmes.
iknklast: If you like the cheeky monkey idea, you might enjoy the first seven chapters of Journey to the West, which tell the origin story of Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King. Cheekiest monkey of all time. Seriously.
You can skip the rest of the novel, though, as the Wukong in the first section and the Wukong in the second might as well be different characters. The former would probably make fun of the latter.