Cont: Trans women are not women (IX)

[d4m10n]

Our friend Dr Jack Turban has declared all gender identities to be valid, including those that change over time. So there!

I'm completely unclear on what this is really supposed to mean.

Suppose someone identifies as quintgender. What does it mean for those of us with much less avant-garde genders to validate them? Why should it matter if we don't?

 

[shuttlt]

I'm completely unclear on what this is really supposed to mean.

[qimg]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20220808/8ad5f67a477a67ab76da9df447ea3b09.jpg[/qimg]

Suppose someone identifies as quintgender. What does it mean for those of us with much less avant-garde genders to validate them? Why should it matter if we don't?

Can one identify with having an invalid gender?

 

[theprestige]

Can one identify with having an invalid gender?

"Attack helicopter", apparently, is invalid. Even though there's gotta be a lot of dudes in Ukraine right now, ambushing tanks with anti-tank missiles. Which is pretty much the whole point of an attack helicopter. So if a Ukrainian soldier carrying an NLAW said to me, "Я ідентифікую себе як ударний вертоліт", I'd be like, "yeah, that's valid."

ETA, and more seriously: I'm coming around to the conclusion that *all* self-ID'd genders are invalid. This conclusion is based on the premise that gender, unlike sex, is a social construct. Therefore, it's actually about how other people see you, not about how you see yourself. "Attack helicopter" is invalid because we can look at you and instantly grasp that we don't identify you as such. Same with an obvious dude who says he wants me to think of him as a woman. No, dude. It's my thoughts, not yours. You don't get to say what goes on in my head, or what social constructs I apply. I can't perceive you as a woman just because you tell me that's how you perceive yourself. That's just not how perceptions work. So when it comes to things like gender, the only valid genders are the ones everyone else assigns to you.

It might be different if you could define a specific gender role, its qualities and attributes, and make a convincing effort to embody that role in some meaningful way. Like I'm not going to identify you as a fifties housewife right off the bat, but if you put in the effort to really sell it, to really pass, my perceptions will come around in time.

 

[Steersman]

Can one identify with having an invalid gender?

Does the barber shave himself?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_paradox

 

[smartcooky]

Our friend Dr Jack Turban has declared all gender identities to be valid, including those that change over time. So there!

I once self-identified as a newt!

I got better!

 

[Steersman]

<snip>

ETA, and more seriously: I'm coming around to the conclusion that *all* self-ID'd genders are invalid.

You might be interested in this post on "The Incoherence of Gender Ideology" by Substacker & philosopher - not that that cuts a lot of ice with you by itself - Michael Robillard which had been published in Quillette:

https://michaelrobillard.substack.com/p/the-incoherence-of-gender-ideology

Of particular note:

The second source and primary culprit of confusion within the present transgender debate, however, is the notion of “gender identity.” This is so since “gender identity,” on the gender theorist’s own account, is defined entirely by one’s own wholly subjective determination.

Moot how anything that is based on entirely "subjective determinations" can be seen as either valid or invalid.

This conclusion is based on the premise that gender, unlike sex, is a social construct. Therefore, it's actually about how other people see you, not about how you see yourself.

No doubt much of gender can be seen as a "social construct" - like pink and blue clothes, entirely subject to the winds of fashion.

But not all of it. For instance, Wikipedia's article on "feminism", supposedly one-half of the gender spectrum:

“Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered feminine are influenced by both cultural factors and biological factors. To what extent femininity is biologically or socially influenced is subject to debate.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femininity

To the extent that behaviours and personalities - more or less synonymous with gender - are determined or heavily influenced by those "biological factors" is, arguably, the extent to which gender is not entirely just a "social construct".

Largely why I've argued that while gender may well be something of a spectrum, it's more plausible to argue that it is, at best, a multidimensional one:

https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/welcome

A salient quote therefrom of an illuminating article - Gender Similarities and Differences - by Janet Hyde on that perspective:

Moreover, this difference or distance is along a dimension in multivariate space that is a linear combination of the original variables, but this dimension is uninterpretable. What does it mean to say that there are large differences in personality, lumping together distinct aspects such as emotional stability, dominance, and vigilance? Certainly contemporary personality theorists do not argue that there is a single dimension to personality.

https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2014-hyde.pdf

 

[d4m10n]

I'm coming around to the conclusion that *all* self-ID'd genders are invalid. This conclusion is based on the premise that gender, unlike sex, is a social construct. Therefore, it's actually about how other people see you, not about how you see yourself.

Wouldn't that mean self-ID works, but only if and when one can persuade other people to validate one's gender after making one's act of self-identification public?

If, like Sam Smith, I announce myself as non-binary, I will inevitably be validated.

If I announce my fursona is a cuddly narwhal, I will have a tougher row to hoe.

Can one identify with having an invalid gender?

Apparently.

https://twitter.com/tired_of_debate/status/1556311797086490624

 

[theprestige]

You might be interested in this post on "The Incoherence of Gender Ideology" by Substacker & philosopher - not that that cuts a lot of ice with you by itself - Michael Robillard which had been published in Quillette:

https://michaelrobillard.substack.com/p/the-incoherence-of-gender-ideology

Of particular note:



Moot how anything that is based on entirely "subjective determinations" can be seen as either valid or invalid.



No doubt much of gender can be seen as a "social construct" - like pink and blue clothes, entirely subject to the winds of fashion.

But not all of it. For instance, Wikipedia's article on "feminism", supposedly one-half of the gender spectrum:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femininity

To the extent that behaviours and personalities - more or less synonymous with gender - are determined or heavily influenced by those "biological factors" is, arguably, the extent to which gender is not entirely just a "social construct".

Largely why I've argued that while gender may well be something of a spectrum, it's more plausible to argue that it is, at best, a multidimensional one:

https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/welcome

A salient quote therefrom of an illuminating article - Gender Similarities and Differences - by Janet Hyde on that perspective:



https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2014-hyde.pdf

Welcome to the thread! I know you've been here before, but let me take this opportunity to welcome you.

Thanks for the references and citations. They seem to parallel my own thinking, and reach similar conclusions, as do you yourself.

You should probably note that I've been in this thread, discussing these issues, for several years. A lot of the reasoning you're presenting here is already familiar to me. I'm glad to see we're in agreement on at least some of the points raised.

Finally, I've been around and around on this topic for quite a while now, as I said. For me, at this point, I consider almost all the questions either already answered, or else largely irrelevant. My one remaining area of interest and focus is recommendations for public policy, and the reasoning behind them. Should transwomen be housed in women's prisons? Should they have the right to compete in women's sports? Those kinds of policy questions.

In the DSD thread, you've repeatedly suggested that our current definition of sex has important implications for public policy decisions regarding trans people. Can you give us some details about what you mean?

 

[shuttlt]

"Attack helicopter", apparently, is invalid. Even though there's gotta be a lot of dudes in Ukraine right now, ambushing tanks with anti-tank missiles. Which is pretty much the whole point of an attack helicopter. So if a Ukrainian soldier carrying an NLAW said to me, "Я ідентифікую себе як ударний вертоліт", I'd be like, "yeah, that's valid."

ETA, and more seriously: I'm coming around to the conclusion that *all* self-ID'd genders are invalid. This conclusion is based on the premise that gender, unlike sex, is a social construct. Therefore, it's actually about how other people see you, not about how you see yourself. "Attack helicopter" is invalid because we can look at you and instantly grasp that we don't identify you as such. Same with an obvious dude who says he wants me to think of him as a woman. No, dude. It's my thoughts, not yours. You don't get to say what goes on in my head, or what social constructs I apply. I can't perceive you as a woman just because you tell me that's how you perceive yourself. That's just not how perceptions work. So when it comes to things like gender, the only valid genders are the ones everyone else assigns to you.

It might be different if you could define a specific gender role, its qualities and attributes, and make a convincing effort to embody that role in some meaningful way. Like I'm not going to identify you as a fifties housewife right off the bat, but if you put in the effort to really sell it, to really pass, my perceptions will come around in time.

What you have is IS and OUGHT smashing into one another. You seem to be describing how you think gender works in society. The people who say trans-women are women are not remotely trying to understand how "woman" is defined, they are saying how woman ought to be defined.

 

[theprestige]

What you have is IS and OUGHT smashing into one another. You seem to be describing how you think gender works in society. The people who say trans-women are women are not remotely trying to understand how "woman" is defined, they are saying how woman ought to be defined.

I'm actually just describing how "gender is a social construct" seems to work in my head.

And I would say '[t]The people who say trans-women are women are not remotely trying to understand how "woman" is defined', full stop. Actually trying to understand such a definition, or produce an intelligible definition, is counter-productive to their aims.

 

[shuttlt]

I'm actually just describing how "gender is a social construct" seems to work in my head.

And I would say '[t]The people who say trans-women are women are not remotely trying to understand how "woman" is defined', full stop. Actually trying to understand such a definition, or produce an intelligible definition, is counter-productive to their aims.

I think we agree on this. If we think of the origins of all this, you'd often have initiation rituals to become a man, or a woman. Identifying as somebody who had completed the ritual wouldn't have cut it. The community decided what did and didn't count as a man or a woman.

 

[theprestige]

I think we agree on this. If we think of the origins of all this, you'd often have initiation rituals to become a man, or a woman. Identifying as somebody who had completed the ritual wouldn't have cut it. The community decided what did and didn't count as a man or a woman.

I remember reading an article from way back in the day, about how in rural Albania gender roles are both closely coupled to biological sex, and also taken very seriously. To the point where if a family is left without a patriarch, one of the women sets aside her womanhood, goes through the initiation rituals for manhood, and is thereafter recognized as a man by her family and her community, for the purpose of fulfilling a man's gender role for the family. This included granting her access to sex-segregated spaces for men, and denying her access to sex-segregated spaces for women.

This strikes me as both remarkably conservative, and also remarkably progressive. Having recognized that the men gather in men-only spaces to do guy stuff, but also to discuss social issues and decide on community policy, they also recognized that in order to fulfill the role of patriarch for her family, the woman must have access to those spaces and be able to participate in those discussions as a peer - as a man.

 

[shuttlt]

I remember reading an article from way back in the day, about how in rural Albania gender roles are both closely coupled to biological sex, and also taken very seriously. To the point where if a family is left without a patriarch, one of the women sets aside her womanhood, goes through the initiation rituals for manhood, and is thereafter recognized as a man by her family and her community, for the purpose of fulfilling a man's gender role for the family. This included granting her access to sex-segregated spaces for men, and denying her access to sex-segregated spaces for women.

This strikes me as both remarkably conservative, and also remarkably progressive. Having recognized that the men gather in men-only spaces to do guy stuff, but also to discuss social issues and decide on community policy, they also recognized that in order to fulfill the role of patriarch for her family, the woman must have access to those spaces and be able to participate in those discussions as a peer - as a man.

I like that.

 

[d4m10n]

An incident at Mountain View Pool has sparked debate in the community regarding the facility’s policies around bathroom and locker room access for transgender people.

Julie Jaman, 80, was permanently banned from the pool on July 26, after she confronted a transgender woman about her presence in the women’s locker room.

https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/ban-from-port-townsend-pool-sparks-debate/

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[Steersman]

Welcome to the thread! I know you've been here before, but let me take this opportunity to welcome you.

Thanks.

Thanks for the references and citations. They seem to parallel my own thinking, and reach similar conclusions, as do you yourself.

Share the wealth, praise the lord and pass the ammunition. Complex issue, maybe more complex than it maybe needs to be. But some clarification seems urgently required to resolve the issue.

You should probably note that I've been in this thread, discussing these issues, for several years. A lot of the reasoning you're presenting here is already familiar to me. I'm glad to see we're in agreement on at least some of the points raised.

Consensus is a good thing, generally speaking in any case. United we stand, divided we fall and all that.

Finally, I've been around and around on this topic for quite a while now, as I said. For me, at this point, I consider almost all the questions either already answered, or else largely irrelevant. My one remaining area of interest and focus is recommendations for public policy, and the reasoning behind them. Should transwomen be housed in women's prisons? Should they have the right to compete in women's sports? Those kinds of policy questions.

I'll probably have to at least skim through some of the last 45 pages on the topic to get a "lay of the land", but to answer your questions - offhand, shooting from the hip - I'd say that the topic question or thesis - "transwomen are not women" - seems to be something of a red herring. Not sure if the question has been explicitly stated this baldly, but your questions seem to boil down into whether penis-havers should be housed in women's prisons, whether XYers should have a right to compete in sports leagues historically reserved for XXers. Think the answers should be obvious in that case.

As I put it in the DSD thread:

You need to ask yourself, what exactly are our objectives? Clearly, it's to give some measure of privacy and safety for vagina-havers by excluding penis-havers from those venues [toilets, change-rooms, sports leagues]. Reproductive abilities - past, present, or future - generally have diddly-squat to do that objective. Much of the "debate" over the biological definitions for the sexes is something of red herring, and serves only to muddy the waters, corrupt the biological definitions, and give free rein to the transloonie nutcases.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13873369&postcount=465

Questions about gender, about sex as a binary or a spectrum, and about "what is a woman" generally serve only to obscure those nitty-gritty realities. They have largely served only to create something of a Gordian Knot of mythic proportions - which I think you may have alluded to at one point.

Somewhat apropos of which, you might enjoy a post over on Colin Wright's Substack on the biological definitions of the sexes by philosopher Tomas Bogardus:

https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/how-our-shoes-can-help-explain-the

Bonus is a comment over there by yours truly critiquing his "arguments" ...

But somewhat more importantly is this oldish essay by Bogardus on Evaluating Arguments for the Sex/Gender Distinction:

https://philpapers.org/archive/BOGEAF.pdf

Been a couple years since I read it and I'll have to take a bit more time to pick up the threads, but, offhand I'd say he's contributing mightily to the creation of that Gordian Knot with a bunch of largely impenetrable bafflegab and self-serving claptrap, both his own and that of others. And his Substack is little better for peddling a rather egregiously unscientific definition for the sexes.

Seems to me that the only reasonable way of cutting through that Gordian Knot is to be clear on what our objectives are. And be willing to call a spade an effen shovel, to define our terms clearly and objectively with no fear or favour.

In the DSD thread, you've repeatedly suggested that our current definition of sex has important implications for public policy decisions regarding trans people. Can you give us some details about what you mean?

Good question, one not easily answered in a dozen words or so. As I've suggested above, I think that the fractious "debate" over achieving coherent definitions for both sex and gender tends to preclude answering the questions you raised above. The objectives I've suggested seem paramount, should be our focus, although I suppose "gender dysphoria" is part and parcel of that.

But the path to those objectives seems badly littered with any number of pitfalls created by those debates, by a lack of consensus over what we mean by sex and gender - Bogardus' old essay being a case in point. Going to be a challenge to achieve that consensus, but seems to be Job One.

 

[theprestige]

I'll probably have to at least skim through some of the last 45 pages on the topic to get a "lay of the land", but to answer your questions - offhand, shooting from the hip - I'd say that the topic question or thesis - "transwomen are not women" - seems to be something of a red herring. Not sure if the question has been explicitly stated this baldly, but your questions seem to boil down into whether penis-havers should be housed in women's prisons, whether XYers should have a right to compete in sports leagues historically reserved for XXers. Think the answers should be obvious in that case.

As I put it in the DSD thread:



http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13873369&postcount=465

As you put it in the DSD thread:

"Much of the "debate" over the biological definitions for the sexes is something of red herring"

I think you are mistaken. The point of defining the sexes biologically is to resolve the question of whether transwomen should count as women in public policy. Specifically, if and when and why males should count as females.

The "developmental pathways" definition resolves the question nicely, in my opinion. Mammals have two pathways: male and female. Everyone on the female pathway is female. Everyone on the male pathway is male.*

Good question, one not easily answered in a dozen words or so. As I've suggested above, I think that the fractious "debate" over achieving coherent definitions for both sex and gender tends to preclude answering the questions you raised above.

I disagree. I think the fractious debate is entirely manufactured. I think you're manufacturing it here, for example.

I think the developmental pathways definition works just fine, covers all relevant cases, and causes no confusion at all.

If you have a better definition, tell us what it is, and how you'd apply it to public policy questions.

But the path to those objectives seems badly littered with any number of pitfalls created by those debates, by a lack of consensus over what we mean by sex and gender - Bogardus' old essay being a case in point. Going to be a challenge to achieve that consensus, but seems to be Job One. : )

This thread has already achieved such a consensus: The developmental pathways definition.

Can you describe any concrete problems you see, with using this definition to resolve public policy questions about trans rights and trans access to sex-segregated spaces?

---
*There are some very rare edge cases, but even they do not stray outside the binary pathways of biology. And they are, in fact red herrings in the trans policy debate.

 

[porch]

I remember reading an article from way back in the day, about how in rural Albania gender roles are both closely coupled to biological sex, and also taken very seriously. To the point where if a family is left without a patriarch, one of the women sets aside her womanhood, goes through the initiation rituals for manhood, and is thereafter recognized as a man by her family and her community, for the purpose of fulfilling a man's gender role for the family. This included granting her access to sex-segregated spaces for men, and denying her access to sex-segregated spaces for women.

This strikes me as both remarkably conservative, and also remarkably progressive. Having recognized that the men gather in men-only spaces to do guy stuff, but also to discuss social issues and decide on community policy, they also recognized that in order to fulfill the role of patriarch for her family, the woman must have access to those spaces and be able to participate in those discussions as a peer - as a man.

That's an interesting case. It reminded me of this old PBS World Gender Customs map. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/ I don't remember where I first saw this link, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was from this megathread. And of course I was reminded, because the Albanian Sworn Virgins are included.

I did an informal survey of their informal survey. There's been discussion in this thread about sexism and transgenderism, and I did a quick count. On that map, there were about 23 cultures that allowed for only males to switch to a different gender role, just 5 where only females were allowed to switch it up, and 2 or 3 where both sexes may switch gender. Maybe this says something about a tendency towards male privilege across the globe when it comes transgender? Then again, some of the roles are more privileged than others. In some cases a male can participate in men's roles, women's roles, and their very own special roles, and they seem to have some freedom of choice there. But there's one place where a woman is required for religious rituals, but women aren't allowed in the temple, so some males get to be eunuchs for the specific ritual role. Or in the Albanian case, there's a privilege and a price. The women get the position of the patriarch, but they can't have children. Wonder if that effects property inheritance? Anyhow, the eunuchs are most likely never thinking of it as a personal expression of their inner gender. The Albanian deal, maybe there is some overlap, where a family would choose the woman best suited to be a man, so there could be some personal expression involved, but I see it mostly as a social role that benefits their family and the community at large. According to the map, Iran forces gay men and non-conforming men to transition. It doesn't say anything about gay or non-conforming women, which I choose to interpret as being grim for the women. Again, nothing about personal expression unless you are lucky enough to be a man that wants to transition in the exact same manner that the government wants you to.

I noticed that across the board, there was no culture where transwomen are women or transmen are men, in the sense that they are always considered a separate gender; there's always a name for a woman in a man's role beyond simply referring to her as a man, for example. And all these cultures that have these gender exceptions are traditional ones with rigidly delineated gender roles. I am curious as to how these came about in these different cultures. Except the Guevedoche, the origin of the third gender seems pretty obvious there.

In an exceptional case, genetics seems to have created a third sex in Dominican Republic. A heritable pseudo-hermaphroditic trait was discovered by ethnographers in the 1970s, who followed the children over generations. With undifferentiated genitalia, they generally were raised as girls, but began developing male traits at puberty. Instead of changing their gender identities to male, most chose to live as a third gender called guevedoche (roughly meaning "testicles at 12") or machi-embra (man-woman). The society has accommodated the guevedoche and constructed a third gender with distinct roles for them.

In any event, I live in the post-whatever world of Canada in 2022. There is no proscription for how to treat a man, or how to treat a woman, and there is no evolved and culturally universal way to treat a transwoman or a transman, except for, increasingly, pronouns. I mean, I believe trans people when they feel that, eg, "just being a man that is into traditionally feminine stuff" does not satisfy their inner needs. I guess I am just at a loss when their expectations of my gender expectations don't match with up with my actual expectations.

 

[d4m10n]

This thread has already achieved such a consensus: The developmental pathways definition.

Agreed.

Can you describe any concrete problems you see, with using this definition to resolve public policy questions about trans rights and trans access to sex-segregated spaces?

I'd be interested in an answer to this one as well, Steersman.

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[d4m10n]

In recent sex ≠ gender news

https://twitter.com/SecularStudents/status/1552357186386395136

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[stanfr]

As you put it in the DSD thread:

"Much of the "debate" over the biological definitions for the sexes is something of red herring"

I think you are mistaken. The point of defining the sexes biologically is to resolve the question of whether transwomen should count as women in public policy. Specifically, if and when and why males should count as females.

The "developmental pathways" definition resolves the question nicely, in my opinion. Mammals have two pathways: male and female. Everyone on the female pathway is female. Everyone on the male pathway is male.*


I disagree. I think the fractious debate is entirely manufactured. I think you're manufacturing it here, for example.

I think the developmental pathways definition works just fine, covers all relevant cases, and causes no confusion at all.

If you have a better definition, tell us what it is, and how you'd apply it to public policy questions.


This thread has already achieved such a consensus: The developmental pathways definition.

Can you describe any concrete problems you see, with using this definition to resolve public policy questions about trans rights and trans access to sex-segregated spaces?

---
*There are some very rare edge cases, but even they do not stray outside the binary pathways of biology. And they are, in fact red herrings in the trans policy debate.

I'm sure this has already been discussed, so I apologize for not going through 100s of pages of this thread (I wish these mega-threads would have a cliff notes version...) But could you inform me how structural brain differences (studies that show trans brains are more like the gender the person identifies with) fit in with the "developmental pathways" definition? Pleas and thank you!