A charitable reading requires only that we avoid interpreting any given premise in a way that makes it immediately self-contradictory and utterly vacuous of meaning; we should be striving to interpret it in a way that could actually be evaluated as either true or false.
I hear you - but to even frame that charitable reading, you have to accept the underlying premise. It's not possible to have a non-contradictory and vacuous interpretation unless you accept the underlying premise. It's the premise itself that makes all subsequent arguments contradictory.
That said, I think what the gender rights activists are really saying is that all people have an inborn sense of which sex (female/male) they would feel most comfortable being / being seen as / seeing themselves as and which gender (woman/man) they would feel most comfortable being treated as in those rare but highly charged and salient situations when we treat women and men differently. This inward sense is called "gender identity" even though it (by hypothesis) exists wholly independently from all observable outward signs of social gender or biological sex.
I understand what they are trying to say, and I also understand that your representation is a true representation of what they're trying to say. The problem is with the fundamental premises.
First, that it is inborn - I don't believe this is true, and I haven't seen any compelling argument that would convince me to even provisionally accept it as true. In fact, the existence of detransitioners, and the documented fact that about 80% of children that present with gender dysphoria at the onset of puberty grow out of it if left alone very strongly argues that it is NOT inborn.
Second, that everyone has this - I don't believe this is true either, nor have I come across an argument that even makes me question whether it might be true. The only people who claim to have this internal sense of what sex they "ought to be" are people who identify as trans. For the vast majority of us, there's no internal sense, there's an observation of what our bodies are. From my experience, most females do NOT like how society as a whole treats us as a result of our sex, and we WISH that society would treat us differently, but very few of us interpret that desire to be treated with equal respect and dignity as being "men on the inside".
Third, and for me most compelling, is that it is not possible for someone of sex A to have an actual understanding of sex B well enough to say with any degree of credibility that they "feel like" sex B. Without having the actual physical experience of that opposite sexed body, and the lifelong treatment that results from it, it's all just imagination. And it's almost always imagination based on sexist stereotypes. I can listen to a black person tell me their experience; I can observe the difference in treatment that my black friends and family receive; I can acknowledge the discrepancy faced by black people in many aspects of society. But I myself have never - and CAN never - actually experience it. I can sympathize, but it is not possible for me to credibly say that I feel like a black person.
Your representation of their stance is an accurate representation - but it is still self-contradictory and vacuous, because the entirety of the premise is fundamentally flawed.
I'm not asking anyone to assent to any of the four statements excerpted at
post #985 but I am claiming that they a straightforward statement of the ideology on offer here. In another thread, I might provide a concise statement of early Xn belief from the Council of Nicaea for roughly parallel reasons.
Yes, you could provide a concise statement of early christian beliefs based on the Nicean council's framing. And it could be an entirely accurate representation of those beliefs.
But they would still be unscientific and contradictory beliefs based on an unprovable premise - and it would be entirely appropriate for anyone else to point out that the premise is in and of itself flawed.
Since I've known these people for decades, I've at least a working theory of what changed and when and how. Since you don't believe they are actually being sincere, you would not find it compelling.
You tell me. By contrast, I'd be surprised if Laurel Hubbard, Lia Thomas, Rachel McKinnon and that whole lot were deliberately and dishonestly exploiting gender ideology rather than just going along with a particular set of ideas prevailing at the time.
My 100% honest opinion is that those three in particular have a paraphilia, and they're exploiting gender dysphoria as experienced by other people in order to deliberately benefit at the expense of females, on the back of society's desire to do good.
They're
going along with a set of ideas because those ideas let them take advantage of females and gain prestige, position, and dominance that they would otherwise be unable to access.
For this analogy to work, there would need to be a material payoff to modern gender ideology resembling the millions of unpaid manhours which inured to the propertied elite in slave societies like Virginia.
There *is* a material payoff.
There's a massive payoff to the various advocacy organizations involved, who receive huge contributions. Most of those organizations previously fought for equal rights for homosexual people - and once that was accomplished they should have disbanded. But the didn't, they switched gears and found a new cause so that they could continue to stay in business and get paid.
There's a massive payoff to the pharmaceutical companies who have seen increases in the use of drugs that previous had relatively low utilization. There's a massive payoff to the clinics and doctors who have seen astronomical increases in their usage as well as policies that force insurance to pay for what has previously been considered a cosmetic undertaking.
There's a payoff to mediocre male athletes who gain positions that would otherwise have gone to females. There's a payoff to mediocre male writers, artists, actors, etc. who would have been passed over if they were held up to other males, but who gain acclaim and status in the current climate that places males-who-want-to-be-females above actual females.
There's a payoff to prisoners who want a laxer incarceration by being moved to a female prison, where the rules are not as stringent and inmates have a higher degree of autonomy and freedom compared to males.
There's a payoff to sexual predators who take advantage of gender-based policies to gain access to their preferred victims in single-sex spaces and services.
