Originally a comment by Artymorty on How do we know.
Sometimes I like to imagine the moral-philosophical questions surrounding transgender as a debate between Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk.
Weâd ask each of them to break all the variables down into that great moral philosopher David Humeâs two columns: what âisâ and what âoughtâ. Everything in the âisâ column is a morally neutral statement of fact, or whatâs close enough to fact based on the evidence. Everything in the âoughtâ column is a prescription for behaviour that rests on value premises and moral sentiments.
The primary difference between the gender criticals and the gender zealots is the order in which the table gets filled in. Do you start by filling in the âisâ column or the âoughtâ column? Critical thinkers start by filling in the âisâ column: first, they gather the facts. Then they feed these facts into their moral calculus to determine what should or shouldnât be done about the matter. Thatâs how they fill in their âoughtâ column. Rational, logical, scientific. Like Mr. Spock.
If Spock flew his spaceship back in time to Earth today and decided to investigate the trans phenomenon, starting with facts, and only assembling a moral case after the facts were gathered, heâd build up an âisâ column that looks something like this:
â Transwomen are biologically male.
â Decades of studies show that some heterosexual males are autogynephilic, and some of them will mentally conceptualize themselves as âwomenâ as a result of the neurochemical rewards associated with erotic and romantic pleasure that are activated when they do so.
â Decades of studies show that some homosexual males will also conceptualize themselves as âwomenâ as a result of a handful of complex psychological conditions related to distress surrounding their sexual and behavioural atypicality.
â Itâs an undeniable fact that teenage girls virtually never mentally conceptualized themselves as âmenâ until very recently, coinciding with the advent of social media.
â Thereâs overwhelming evidence that social media is the instigating factor in girls and young women recently taking up trans identities in droves.
From there, heâd have a very easy time filling in the other column with a list of oughts, marking out the moral boundaries of transgender acceptance in secular society. Those bounds would be mostly limited to their personal social sphere. Heâd no doubt be fine with cross-gender dress and presentation, and heâd be fine with people engaging in whatever personal activities they like, imagining themselves however they like within the scope of personal private lives, just like with other groups, such as religious affiliations.
But heâd find very little merit in arguments for changing the sex marker on peopleâs passports or allowing males with transgender identities unfettered access to womenâs spaces. And heâd no doubt be appalled at the misapplication of the label âtransgenderâ onto children â heâd rightly see that as an egregious category error â taking an adult psychological/superstitious/sexual concept and re-framing it as an innate state of being.
Gender zealots, on the other hand, lead with their feelings, like Captain Kirk. They start by filling in the âoughtâ column. The first order of business upon hearing the word âtransâ is to establish oneâs value premises and moral sentiments. Am I a good liberal? Do I care about âLGBTQâ? Isnât it virtuous to support smashing barriers around âgenderâ? Donât I just hate those horrible Klingons homophobes who were so cruel to gays and lesbians? Then, after their moral framework has been laid out, they start to fill in the âisâ column: they go out and gather facts, unwittingly letting their biases influence where theyâre getting their data from.
â They suddenly find themselves eagerly swallowing postmodernist gobbledygook in order to justify their biased desire to conclude that transwomen are not, in fact, biologically male.
â They willfully accept absurd claims that âautogynephilia is a mythâ desipite the comical abundance of evidence that cross-sex erotic roleplay is a massive kink for some men.
â They block out their own memories of their own childhoods, where âtrans kidsâ clearly didnât exist, and none of their classmates and neighbours killed themselves because they couldnât get sex changes before they were old enough to get a driverâs licence.
On and on. From there, once theyâve got both the âisâ and âoughtâ columns filled in, they see the whole picture quite differently. Thatâs why theyâre so utterly blind to the scandalous goings-on. They think theyâve got the complete picture already. But because they started assembling the picture with their biases, the rest of it ended up terribly biased as a result, and thereâs no room left in either column for dissenting views.
Captain Kirk was a passionate man, who led with his emotions, and he saved many people â and aliens! â with his daringness and bravery. But he was also flawed: good liberal that he was, devoted to the Space UN Federationâs progressive, pluralist, diplomatic, largely pacifist, science-embracing objectives, his passions also gave him a prejudice: a hatred for homophobes and by extension transphobes Klingons that lasted for several years, from 2285 to 2293 (or, from Star Trek III to Star Trek VI, if you must). Ultimately, it was combination of persuasion from Spock and personal experience that helped him see past his biases around this touchiest of subjects, those blasted transphobes Klingons.
Hopefully, with a combination of persuasion from us gender-criticals plus personal experience as a result of the mounting chaos the gender mess has created, the otherwise well-intentioned gender zealots will eventually come to the light of reason. It took Kirk eight Space Years to reconcile with the Klingons. How much longer until the gender zealots come around?
