Cont: Trans Women are not Women II: The Bath Of Khan

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BobTheCoward said:
The same reason people are not interested in everything in the world. I don't understand why disinterest would warrant its own question.
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No. I'm not asking about your indifference to the latter question. Why are you interested in the former question?
 
BobTheCoward said:
The latter is a question I'm too disinterested in to bother forming an opinion on. I only care about the former.
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Fascinating. You may be the only person on this forum, and darned few people in the world, who would share that particular combination of interests, and because of that, there is a question I have asked many times that I never get an answer to. Most people recognize it, quite correctly, as a ploy to support a position on the practical aspects of transgender issues but you, nearly alone of all people who discuss these issues, may be interested in the actual definition of "man" and "woman", as opposed to some practical aspect that a given definition would imply.

So, let me set up my question. First, I assume you understand what most of us mean by the following terms.

trans-man
cis-man
trans-woman
cis-woman.

Now, the question.

Do you have a definition of "woman" that meets all of the following criteria
1. The definition includes all cis-women.
2. The definition includes all trans-women.
3. The definition excludes all trans men
4. The definition is not circular.

You probably understand all the criteria, so I probably don't need to explain anything about them, but allow me to expand a little bit on number 4, just because in the past, some people have offered circular definitions that they claimed were not circular.

"A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" is rather obviously a circular definition.

"A woman is anyone who identifies as an adult female" is less obviously a circular definition, but it is, nevertheless, a circular definition, because it might take some dodging and weaving but "female" ends up being, "having characteristics often associated with women", in which case the definition is circular, or female gets defined as "having characteristics associated with female", in which case "woman" is defined with reference to a term whose definition is circular, which makes the original definition circular as well.

No one else has ever done it, but you might just be the person who finds the question sufficiently interesting to take it up seriously. In fact, thinking about possible answers, I've realized I have to add a fifth condition. Let me explain.

Someone might say, "A woman is an adult who identifies as a female", and "female" is, "having ovaries". So, I have to add a condition which is
5. Is not contradicted by reality.
What I mean by that is if a biological male were to identify as someone who has ovaries, he/she would simply be wrong. The person does not have ovaries.

And, dang it, I have to add one more stipulation, this one more on me than on you. I will not demand that your definition cover every single "edge case". No need to add a huge number of "unless" and "except" clauses. I'm thinking of the fact that some women who are born with ovaries lose them to disease. They don't cease being women at that point, and I'm not going to demand that your definition cover every single case. If you refer to "capable of bearing children", I'm not going to say "Bob the Coward" says that post-menopausal people aren't women. Stupid people sometimes do that, but I won't.

Even though I've couched it as a definition, I'm not looking to play word games. I'm trying to get to the idea of what people mean by "women" if they include Professor McKinnon in that set. Does the term still have a meaning in that case? Those of us who tend toward using the traditional definition of "woman" can point to specific characteristics that are used to determine a person's membership in that category, and include those characteristics in our definition. Can someone who thinks Professor McKinnon is "really" a woman do the same?

A lot of people have tried and failed to come up with a definition, and a much larger number of people have refused to answer that question for fear that the implications would not support their policy positions, but you might just be interested in the question purely for the sake of knowledge, so I'll offer it to you.
 
Dr McKinnon. I don't believe he has a professorship. (At least the PhD means he can't demand that we call him Miss.)

But good luck with that.

I'll just drop this bit in again, for reference.

A man is an adult male human being. A (mammalian) male is one who took the male (impregnator) developmental pathway as a foetus. Such an individual, if fertile, will typically produce small motile gametes.

A woman is an adult female human being. A (mammalian) female is one who took the female (gestator) pathway as a foetus. Such an individual (if fertile) will typically produce large immobile gametes.

The criteria which determine which developmental pathway the foetus takes are genetic, coded at conception, and immutable. These are that a male has both a functional SRY gene and bioavailable androgens. A female has (in the vast majority of cases) no functional SRY gene or (very rarely) lacks functional androgen receptors.

No ambiguity here. Words mean things. That's what these words mean, with the definitions made excruciatingly explicit to prevent the sort of whatabootery that goes on when the TRAs weaponise the medical problems of people with DSD conditions to try to pretend that sex is some sort of spectrum. It isn't. It's as binary as it gets. Two types of gametes and only two. Two developmental pathways and only two. Male or female. Pick one. Everybody has to, right from conception, and it can't be chosen and it can't be changed.

Not by a costume or makeup or hormones or cosmetic surgery or even by shutting your eyes and wishing real hard.

Sorry.
 
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BobTheCoward said:
The latter is a question I'm too disinterested in to bother forming an opinion on. I only care about the former.
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Fair enough. Deliberately putting sport aside, can you think of any practical reasons to conceptually distinguish men from women?
 
Rolfe said:
Dr McKinnon. I don't believe he has a professorship. (At least the PhD means he can't demand that we call him Miss.)
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My mistake. I thought I read he was teaching. Maybe I just assumed. What else does a PhD in philosophy do?

ETA:
wikipedia said:
Rachel McKinnon (born 1982) is a Canadian philosophy professor, competitive cyclist, and transgender rights activist
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Meadmaker said:
Fascinating. You may be the only person on this forum, and darned few people in the world, who would share that particular combination of interests, and because of that, there is a question I have asked many times that I never get an answer to. Most people recognize it, quite correctly, as a ploy to support a position on the practical aspects of transgender issues but you, nearly alone of all people who discuss these issues, may be interested in the actual definition of "man" and "woman", as opposed to some practical aspect that a given definition would imply.

So, let me set up my question. First, I assume you understand what most of us mean by the following terms.

trans-man
cis-man
trans-woman
cis-woman.

Now, the question.

Do you have a definition of "woman" that meets all of the following criteria
1. The definition includes all cis-women.
2. The definition includes all trans-women.
3. The definition excludes all trans men
4. The definition is not circular.

You probably understand all the criteria, so I probably don't need to explain anything about them, but allow me to expand a little bit on number 4, just because in the past, some people have offered circular definitions that they claimed were not circular.

"A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" is rather obviously a circular definition.

"A woman is anyone who identifies as an adult female" is less obviously a circular definition, but it is, nevertheless, a circular definition, because it might take some dodging and weaving but "female" ends up being, "having characteristics often associated with women", in which case the definition is circular, or female gets defined as "having characteristics associated with female", in which case "woman" is defined with reference to a term whose definition is circular, which makes the original definition circular as well.

No one else has ever done it, but you might just be the person who finds the question sufficiently interesting to take it up seriously. In fact, thinking about possible answers, I've realized I have to add a fifth condition. Let me explain.

Someone might say, "A woman is an adult who identifies as a female", and "female" is, "having ovaries". So, I have to add a condition which is
5. Is not contradicted by reality.
What I mean by that is if a biological male were to identify as someone who has ovaries, he/she would simply be wrong. The person does not have ovaries.

And, dang it, I have to add one more stipulation, this one more on me than on you. I will not demand that your definition cover every single "edge case". No need to add a huge number of "unless" and "except" clauses. I'm thinking of the fact that some women who are born with ovaries lose them to disease. They don't cease being women at that point, and I'm not going to demand that your definition cover every single case. If you refer to "capable of bearing children", I'm not going to say "Bob the Coward" says that post-menopausal people aren't women. Stupid people sometimes do that, but I won't.

Even though I've couched it as a definition, I'm not looking to play word games. I'm trying to get to the idea of what people mean by "women" if they include Professor McKinnon in that set. Does the term still have a meaning in that case? Those of us who tend toward using the traditional definition of "woman" can point to specific characteristics that are used to determine a person's membership in that category, and include those characteristics in our definition. Can someone who thinks Professor McKinnon is "really" a woman do the same?

A lot of people have tried and failed to come up with a definition, and a much larger number of people have refused to answer that question for fear that the implications would not support their policy positions, but you might just be interested in the question purely for the sake of knowledge, so I'll offer it to you.
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I'm still confused why simple declaration is not adequate? The primary characteristic of a sports team fan is a person identifying as a fan. Both the person raised in NYC and the person in Asia who only wears a hat and doesn't watch any games get to declare themselves Yankees fans and both are correct. Even the fan that roots against them is a fan.
 
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BobTheCoward said:
I'm still confused why simple declaration is not adequate?
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I don't believe you. I think you are lying. And I say that because even people who think that self declaration should suffice usually have some conception of why it doesn't suffice for others.

And I asked before but you never answered: what definition of "woman" are you using? The standard definition is "adult human female". You don't seem to be using that definition.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm still confused why simple declaration is not adequate? The primary characteristic of a sports team fan is a person identifying as a fan. Both the person raised in NYC and the person in Asia who only wears a hat and doesn't watch any games get to declare themselves Yankees fans and both are correct. Even the fan that roots against them is a fan.
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Bob, you disappoint me. I expected better. Once more, my gods have feet of clay.

First of all, "fan" has an agreed upon definition already. Here's dictionary.com's version
"an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc.:"

Now, I might declare that I am a Cubs fan, and I sometimes do make that declaration, and someone might declare that I am a fraud, because I rarely watch games and cannot name very many of the players. In that case, everyone agrees what "fan" means, but question my inclusion in that group.

Similarly, one might go to dictionary.com and look up "woman" and find

"An adult human female", then, looking up female, we find
"an organism of the sex or sexual phase that normally produces egg cells."

I'm perfectly ok with that definition, but if that's the definition we use, then Rachel McKinnon is clearly not a woman.

You have said that she is a woman, even though you know she is not of the sex that normally produces egg cells. You must be using some other definition of "woman".

In other words, in the case of "fan", we agree on the definition, but we could argue about whether a particular person is sufficiently enthusiastic in their devotion to the sports to actually qualify for that definition. In the case of Rachel McKinnon and "woman", you know that she does not qualify using the dictionary definition, and yet you declare that she is a woman. You also professed to be interested in the metaphysics of the language of "man" and "woman", but when given an opportunity to explore the language, you bobbed (pun intended) away from the opportunity to present it.

My disappointment is palpable.
 
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Meadmaker said:
Bob, you disappoint me. I expected better. Once more, my gods have feet of clay.

First of all, "fan" has an agreed upon definition already. Here's dictionary.com's version
"an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc.:"

Now, I might declare that I am a Cubs fan, and I sometimes do make that declaration, and someone might declare that I am a fraud, because I rarely watch games and cannot name very many of the players. In that case, everyone agrees what "fan" means, but question my inclusion in that group.

Similarly, one might go to dictionary.com and look up "woman" and find

"An adult human female", then, looking up female, we find
"an organism of the sex or sexual phase that normally produces egg cells."

I'm perfectly ok with that definition, but if that's the definition we use, then Rachel McKinnon is clearly not a woman.

You have said that she is a woman, even though you know she is not of the sex that normally produces egg cells. You must be using some other definition of "woman".

In other words, in the case of "fan", we agree on the definition, but we could argue about whether a particular person is sufficiently enthusiastic in their devotion to the sports to actually qualify for that definition. In the case of Rachel McKinnon and "woman", you know that she does not qualify using the dictionary definition, and yet you declare that she is a woman. You also professed to be interested in the metaphysics of the language of "man" and "woman", but when given an opportunity to explore the language, you bobbed (pun intended) away from the opportunity to present it.

My disappointment is palpable.
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I'm simply indifferent to the definition of either fan or woman. I dont dispute anyone's claim to be either.

And that is my exploration. You may reject it, but it is a metaphysical position.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm still confused why simple declaration is not adequate?
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Would you accept simple declaration for a criminal being sent to prison? For example, a serial rapist is convicted and sent to prison for 20 years. He claims to be a woman. Would you simply accept that declaration and send this person to share a cell with actual women who cannot escape?

The primary characteristic of a sports team fan is a person identifying as a fan. Both the person raised in NYC and the person in Asia who only wears a hat and doesn't watch any games get to declare themselves Yankees fans and both are correct. Even the fan that roots against them is a fan.
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Do you understand the difference between inherent characteristics and extrinsic characteristics? Being a fan of a particular sports team is not an inherent characteristic, but a person's DNA is inherent.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm simply indifferent to the definition of either fan or woman. I dont dispute anyone's claim to be either.
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You aren't indifferent, because you don't accept others using the standard definition.

Your entire argument is dishonest.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I'm simply indifferent to the definition of either fan or woman. I dont dispute anyone's claim to be either.

And that is my exploration. You may reject it, but it is a metaphysical position.
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So when you said,
BobTheCoward said:
The latter is a question I'm too disinterested in to bother forming an opinion on. I only care about the former.
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(emphasis added)

you were just leading us on.

I had my hopes up there for a minute, but in the end, it was just another episode of Lucy and the football.
 
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I still don't understand how it is still so hard.

From my understanding

Gender normally used to be another word for sex, now stolen by certain identity politics groups to mean internal thinking of oneself.

Sex: 2 Male Female (with a miniscule amount of have to decide at birth which way to go) - Biological, non changing -

Genders - Now what people think in their heads (from memory currently over 60 different ones) - What they think they should have been.

Sports categories - Based on sex, not gender.

Therefore - What ever they think their gender is irrelevant to what category of sport they qualify for.
 
According to the online etymology dictionary:

Meaning "having the appropriate qualities of the male sex, physically or mentally: Manly, virile, powerful" is attested by 1620s.
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So gender has had social connotations beyond sexual characteristics for quite a while.
 
Robin said:
According to the online etymology dictionary:



So gender has had social connotations beyond sexual characteristics for quite a while.
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Yes that is why I said normally and the identity politics groups have taken it over.

Similar to "SJW" which started as a proud left term and now is ridicule.
 
applecorped said:
What goes up must come down, spinning wheel keeps spinning around
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Indeed

Progressive changes to an evil left thing.

Nationalist now means far right

Interesting thing is it seems to be happening quicker.

And before all the Yanks start. It was happening before Trump
 
Puppycow said:
Would you accept simple declaration for a criminal being sent to prison? For example, a serial rapist is convicted and sent to prison for 20 years. He claims to be a woman. Would you simply accept that declaration and send this person to share a cell with actual women who cannot escape?
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I would be sending a woman to women's prison.
 
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