Are transgender people the gender they say they are?

[Antonio the Sixth]

What people miss about this question (and other related ones like the other thread's) is that it's fundamentally a normative question, not a descriptive one. There's no "correct" answer, or at least no answer that can be empirically proven as correct. Ultimately, you're free to answer it however feels right to you (and people are free to judge you for how you answer).

[Antonio the Sixth]

What people miss about this question (and other related ones like the other thread's) is that it's fundamentally a normative question, not a descriptive one. There's no "correct" answer, or at least no answer that can be empirically proven as correct. Ultimately, you're free to answer it however feels right to you (and people are free to judge you for how you answer).

Whether or not the answer to this is objective is itself subjective, apparently.

To argue that there is an objective answer, you have to argue that language itself is objective and words have intrinsic meaning rather than having the meaning we choose to give them. Which is an argument so ridiculous it would get you laughed out of any philosophy of language class.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What people miss about this question (and other related ones like the other thread's) is that it's fundamentally a normative question, not a descriptive one. There's no "correct" answer, or at least no answer that can be empirically proven as correct. Ultimately, you're free to answer it however feels right to you (and people are free to judge you for how you answer).

Whether or not the answer to this is objective is itself subjective, apparently.

To argue that there is an objective answer, you have to argue that language itself is objective and words have intrinsic meaning rather than having the meaning we choose to give them. Which is an argument so ridiculous it would get you laughed out of any philosophy of language class.

If a word has an accepted definition, then you can objectively assess whether something meets the criteria of that definition.

If a word's definition is being hotly debated across society, then it's clearly not an "accepted definition".

[Antonio the Sixth]

What people miss about this question (and other related ones like the other thread's) is that it's fundamentally a normative question, not a descriptive one. There's no "correct" answer, or at least no answer that can be empirically proven as correct. Ultimately, you're free to answer it however feels right to you (and people are free to judge you for how you answer).

Whether or not the answer to this is objective is itself subjective, apparently.

To argue that there is an objective answer, you have to argue that language itself is objective and words have intrinsic meaning rather than having the meaning we choose to give them. Which is an argument so ridiculous it would get you laughed out of any philosophy of language class.

If a word has an accepted definition, then you can objectively assess whether something meets the criteria of that definition.

If a word's definition is being hotly debated across society, then it's clearly not an "accepted definition".

Sure, but there will always be someone who questions the definition of just about any word. The issue then becomes what level of dissent constitutes a definition not being "accepted," and whose opinions really matter.

If someone is explicitly arguing for the redefinition of a concept, then the argument is an intrinsically normative one. In most cases that normative argument would be pointless and not worth having (like if someone comes up to me and said they want to define a chair to only include those made of wood, I'd say "cool, go for it bro" and move on with my life), but even then, they aren't objectively wrong, and to claim they are denotes a frankly puerile understanding of language. To then go on craft some kind of abstruse 4-pronged SCOTUS-esque test to determine when a definition is objective and when it is veers on the ridiculous.

You clearly have a very strong intuitive attachment to the biological-essentialist understanding of gender, and that's fine, but your desperation to prove that your attachment is Totally Objective and Rational indicates a serious lack of emotional maturity. I understand this kind of sophistry from Ben Shapiro, because he's appealing to emotionally stunted 15-year-olds who think they're smarter than everyone else, but what's your excuse?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I didn't make the argument that the definition was objective, so I don't know what you're upset with me for.

This conversation began because you said "Whether or not the answer to this is objective is itself subjective, apparently." I think I was reasonable in interpreting this as you disagreeing with my claim that the definition is subjective. The alternative is that you were just trolling for trolling's sake, which, if so, let's just end it here.

As to your first point: Why would that person not be objectively wrong? Sure, there are many ways to arrive at a definition for a word (a published dictionary definition and the general use of the term being the two major ones). But under no definition is the word "chair" limited to "only items made of wood." Language is a communal effort (something you of all people should be able to appreciate), and allowing isolated actors to redefine terms defeats its function as a form of communication.

This is a normative argument, not a descriptive one. You're arguing for what a definition of a chair should be (namely, what is generally socially understood as a chair), not for what it objectively is (because, again, there's no such thing as an objective definition). And I'm happy to agree that social consensus should prevail in the absence of other normatively significant considerations.

You're right that language is subjective, insofar as specific sounds do not carry with them any intrinsic meaning independent from what humans apply to them. But efficient and useful communication requires some consensus on the meaning of those sounds, and language is about trying to establish objective criteria for those meanings. These two facts aren't in conflict with one another, and they both seem pretty obvious, so I'm not sure what the point of disagreement is here.

I really have no idea what you're arguing anymore. Of course language is (among other things) a tool to help us communicate about objective facts and properties, but that doesn't mean that language itself is objective. We should be able to agree that a subjective phenomenon can help us understand objective reality, since that is the very nature of the human condition (our senses are also subjective experiences after all).

Where did I say that definitions do not evolve? Of course they do. The only relevant test for whether the use of a word is appropriate is whether it conveys the speaker's intentions to the listener. This is why someone unilaterally redefining the word "chair" in their head to fit an imagined definition is not good communication. Similarly, attempts to redefine words like "racism," "gender," or "theft" serve only to divide listeners based on their own personal interpretations of those words. If a word fails the communication test, it fails as a word.

People like to point out that "all words are imagined," which is true. But there is an obvious difference between the collective imagination and the individual imagination, and the former is all that matters when trying to communicate a message to others.

Okay, this is probably getting us closer to what your real argument is, which is about the normative value of pushing competing definitions of gender, and if so, whether or not the relevant social movements are going about it the right way. There's probably a lot to be said in this regard, but I'm not interested in discussing it right now. As long as you can concede that the question is fundamentally normative rather than descriptive, we can leave it here. I just don't know why you chose to pick this fight when it's neither fundamental to your argument nor winnable for you.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Serious question: If you think every aspect of language is subjective-- including meaning-- then what, if anything, do you think is objective? The only way we can describe the world around us is through language. I would argue that something can be objectively symmetrical because it has the properties of symmetry. But the word "symmetry" is just an arbitrary term we've applied to a specific set of conditions. How would you go about describing an objective fact if the terms you use to describe it are all subjective?

Well, you always have to hope that your subjectivity matches the subjectivity of your interlocutor. If it does, then you share the tools that allows you to discuss objective facts. If you and I share the same definition of symmetry, then we can discuss symmetry objectively. If we don't, then we can't until and unless we can find shared words to discuss it. Of course, if you really want to get all philosophical, you can never know that your interlocutor shares your subjective definition, since the only way of discussing definitions is through more language which is itself subjective. So there's an unavoidable element of uncertainty in communication. But in practice, we can make a reasonable guess about whether or not we share definitions. And I for one try to make it explicit when I don't, precisely in order to avoid these sterile semantic arguments.

[Antonio the Sixth]

If we're really being postmodern about this, someone who says "I'm a man because I have a penis" isn't any more "wrong" than someone who claims to be a certain gender because of a "brain sex". The issue here is not to let people define themselves however they want, it's to impose the concept of the "brain sex" and trans jargon onto everyone else.

I'm pretty sure modern trans activism is not centered around the "brain sex" thing (in fact, insisting on it as the foundation of transness tends yo get you cancelled and labeled a "truscum" in the wokest circles, which is itself a whole other can of worms because it leads to the erasure of people with real sexual dysphoria who have unique needs that need to be centered, but I digress). The undefined and self-referential approach to gender that you're hinting at here is exactly the dominant approach in these circles.

[Antonio the Sixth]

oh my God, what happened here

"People who disagree with me also disagree among each other, so that proves they're all wrong and I'm right" is a new one as far as logical fallacies go. I'm not sure if it even has a name.

Anyway as we know I also have my own take on gender which is also different from others here, but I assume there's no point in rehashing it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

oh my God, what happened here

"People who disagree with me also disagree among each other, so that proves they're all wrong and I'm right" is a new one as far as logical fallacies go. I'm not sure if it even has a name.

I can't begin to tell you how deeply disappointed I am with you for making this comment. This is a willful misinterpretation on the level of Dr. Scholl.

Oh please. Like your replies right now have been good-faith engagement. Screaming that people are "get[ting] mad at [you] for questioning what [gender] is and where it comes from" is at least as ridiculous a misrepresentation of others' point as my description was of yours. People are mad at you because you're actively, affirmatively propounding an understanding of gender which they think is wrongheaded and harmful. At least own up to it and don't hide behind the "just asking questions" defense.

[Antonio the Sixth]

oh my God, what happened here

"People who disagree with me also disagree among each other, so that proves they're all wrong and I'm right" is a new one as far as logical fallacies go. I'm not sure if it even has a name.

I can't begin to tell you how deeply disappointed I am with you for making this comment. This is a willful misinterpretation on the level of Dr. Scholl.

Oh please. Like your replies right now have been good-faith engagement. Screaming that people are "get[ting] mad at [you] for questioning what [gender] is and where it comes from" is at least as ridiculous a misrepresentation of others' point as my description was of yours. People are mad at you because you're actively, affirmatively propounding an understanding of gender which they think is wrongheaded and harmful. At least own up to it and don't hide behind the "just asking questions" defense.

I haven't actively propounded any understanding of gender in this particular conversation. I only injected myself into this exchange because a transgender poster was calling someone transphobic for denying that person's interpretation of gender, while ignoring the fact that another trans poster was also denying that interpretation. It is silly to yell at someone for "not understanding your perspective" when they disagree with you, even while others who clearly understand that perspective don't agree with you.

I don't believe that you actually misinterpreted my posts this badly, so my opinion remains unchanged: You are purposely misrepresenting what I said.

I haven't gone through all of the posts in this thread because this seems like a particularly tedious iteration of the Endless Gender Debate (yes, on both sides - I'm not denying that some of the people you're arguing against are making asses of themselves too). But even if you really did "just ask questions" here, I reject the idea that you can abstract this conversation away from the rest of your engagement on the topic. We all know where you stand on it and it makes sense that we'd interpret your posts accordingly

[Antonio the Sixth]

I haven't gone through all of the posts in this thread because this seems like a particularly tedious iteration of the Endless Gender Debate (yes, on both sides - I'm not denying that some of the people you're arguing against are making asses of themselves too). But even if you really did "just ask questions" here, I reject the idea that you can abstract this conversation away from the rest of your engagement on the topic. We all know where you stand on it and it makes sense that we'd interpret your posts accordingly

Clearly not! I never once said here that "my argument is right" because gender theorists disagree; I only said that Del Tachi's perspective should not be rudely dismissed because there are in fact many transgender people (including Disco) who agree with him.

I don't think you (or any of the people recommending your posts) know where I stand on this issue. You clearly do not read my comments closely, by your own admission.

Oh f**k off. I've actually taken the time to engage with you on the issue in great detail multiple times, and every time you ended up quietly leaving when your arguments are seriously challenged. If I "don't know where you stand" it might just be because you don't know either.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I haven't gone through all of the posts in this thread because this seems like a particularly tedious iteration of the Endless Gender Debate (yes, on both sides - I'm not denying that some of the people you're arguing against are making asses of themselves too). But even if you really did "just ask questions" here, I reject the idea that you can abstract this conversation away from the rest of your engagement on the topic. We all know where you stand on it and it makes sense that we'd interpret your posts accordingly

Clearly not! I never once said here that "my argument is right" because gender theorists disagree; I only said that Del Tachi's perspective should not be rudely dismissed because there are in fact many transgender people (including Disco) who agree with him.

I don't think you (or any of the people recommending your posts) know where I stand on this issue. You clearly do not read my comments closely, by your own admission.

Oh f**k off. I've actually taken the time to engage with you on the issue in great detail multiple times, and every time you ended up quietly leaving when your arguments are seriously challenged. If I "don't know where you stand" it might just be because you don't know either.

You are now trying to dig yourself out of this hole by deflecting from the simple fact that you misrepresented my post.

I've explained why I think my hyperbolic rephrasing of your post is warranted. Feel free to bitch about it if you don't think it was, but there's nothing left to say here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Perhaps the reason why I sometimes abandon our conversations is because they have a tendency to migrate away from the main point.

Moving from one point to an adjacent point is how normal conversations go. This is usually productive because resolving one point tends to help moving the conversation forward on the original point. If that hasn't been the case with us, well, I'll let people decide whose fault that is.

Take our recent exchange over Sam Harris, for example: You called Harris "alt-right." I said that was a big stretch of the definition of that term. You responded by saying that Harris endorsed racial IQ theory because of comments he made during his interview with Charles Murray. I said that his decision to host him did not constitute an endorsement of his views. We then became embroiled in a debate over how much it was possible to read into Harris' comments, while missing the main point: You did not provide any evidence for Harris being affiliated with the alt-right movement, so the initial claim which started the conversation was unsubstantiated.

You don't think that Harris endorsing the claim that the racial gap in IQ has genetic origins is directly relevant evidence to him being alt-right? If so, we're just operating on fundamentally different definitions of what "alt-right" means. Which, fine by me, but I don't know what him being "affiliated" with a "movement" (whatever that means) has to do with anything. There's no alt-right membership card, you know.

Here, we are doing something similar. I criticized one user for unfairly dismissing Del Tachi's take on the subject of "brain sex" as transphobic, when many trans people agree with him. You have taken this as an opportunity to wax poetic on what you call "the rest of my engagement on this topic." All the while, we are missing the main point: What I said was fair, and relatively politely phrased (by my standards). Simply put, I don't like conversations where every time someone is backed into a corner, the subject magically changes.

I'm really sorry if you didn't like the argument I laid out for why I thought my phrasing was warranted, but that doesn't make laying out that argument "changing the subject". I accentuated the ridiculousness of what you were saying in order to point out that your own rephrasing of it ("why do they get mad at us for questioning what it is and where it comes from?) was  itself disingenuous. At no point in that post did you mention DT, so I had no reason to believe it was in response to how he had been treated specifically. Your post was making a broad claim about the state of this conversation and I treated it as such. If that's not how you intended it, fine.

So from now on, let's make a deal: When either of us is forced to concede a particular point, let's just concede it before we move on. Here, it sounds as though you've made some minor concession (that your "reframing was hyperbolic"), and I'll take what I can get.

You mean like how you conceded that Sam Harris directly endorsed Murray's views when I gave you textual evidence to that effect? Oh wait, you weaseled out of that with references to some nebulous hypothetical alternative interpretation of what he said.

Don't f**king lecture me on conceding points. You'd sooner bite the dumbest bullets than admit you were wrong in any way.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Call me a stickler, but I sometimes like to hear a formal acknowledgement that my arguments have actually gotten through to someone.

Then that's two of us. We've definitely been talking past each other a lot but I don't think I'm uniquely at fault for it, and I don't think your example do a good job of showing that.

I really did not want to get into this again. I just brought it up as an example of how a discussion can obsess over the minutiae of a particular claim while missing the big picture. But regardless, I sincerely doubt that Harris (who is of Jewish descent) feels any secret allegiance to a neo-Nazi movement that he has never publicly identified himself with and which I have never heard others affiliate him with.

Actually, hey! Here is a great example of YOU refusing to acknowledge MY argument. You describe my mention of Harris' comments on race and IQ "obsessing over minutiae" when I just told you I consider this to be direct evidence that he's alt-right. If you disagree, fine, but if I think it's relevant I have every right to bring it into the conversation. That's not deflection, it's called making an argument.

And again, I don't know what definition you're using, but as far as I'm concerned not all alt-righters are neo-nazis (though plenty are). Some, like Harris, are just bog standard racists.

My point was this: Some trans people believe in "brain sex" and some don't. Some trans people call gender dysphoria a "mental illness," while others find that classification offensive. Some believe you can change your gender, while others consider it an immutable part of your identity. Because there is so much disagreement in this community over basic terminology, I find it frustrating when trans activists jump down people's throats for "misusing" a word or a term. That was the sole objection I made to that exchange involving Del Tachi, and at the time I thought it was a pretty obvious point that illustrated a broader argument I've been making for years. Apparently I was wrong.

I, in fact, completely agree with this point, and have made similar ones in the past. If that's really all you were saying, then fair enough, I misinterpreted.

All I'll add is that I don't think you're a very good messenger for this point, given that you've made statements previously which indicate that your own stance on the issue goes quite a bit further than good-faith misusing of a term. You have indicated in the past that you fundamentally reject the very idea of gender as something distinct from biological sex, and that means that a lot of your posts will inevitably be interpreted in that light.

I've promised to do better about this, if you would too.

Fair enough. I hope that the above is enough of an olive branch in this regard.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The "alt-right" is a movement explicitly dedicated to antisemitism and white nationalism. I still fail to see how Harris' connection to Murry (while not something that I will make excuses for) places him within that definition. Even taking those comments in the light most unfavorable to Harris, it's possible for someone to be racist without being "alt-right." Just look at Ben Shapiro.

Yeah, as I suspected, you're working off an extremely restrictive definition of "alt-right" by which the only people who'd qualify as such are the likes of Nick Fuentes. I think that's a ridiculous definition personally, and it's certainly not the mainstream one. Just googling "alt right meaning", you get the following (from Oxford): "(in the US) a right-wing ideological movement characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate provocative content, often expressing opposition to racial, religious, or gender equality." By which definition Sam Harris undoubtedly qualifies.

Regardless of semantics, though, you still haven't owned up to failing to acknowledge my argument, so we're off to a bad start as far as concessions go.

I would say roughly 90% of my comments on trans issues revolve around semantics and language, and specifically how imprecise and ephemeral these definitions are. Maybe I'm not very good at communicating my point, and I guess I do have myself to blame for that. However, I never seem to run into these kinds of extreme misunderstandings on other subjects. I would suggest that this issue is such a linguistic minefield that discussing it without a communication breakdown has become nearly impossible.

I don't disagree that it's a linguistic minefield (and I've tripped up in it quite a few times myself over the years). But I don't think you're doing yourself any favors when you do things like claiming there's such a thing as "scientifically accurate pronouns" and (once again) refuse to acknowledge it when people point out to you how reductive this kind of terminology is.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm not failing to acknowledge this argument. I'm questioning its validity.

I've explained why the argument is valid based on my definition of alt-right. Whether or not you share this definition or not is irrelevant to the validity of the argument itself. You can't in good faith accuse me of "obsessing over minutiae" when the argument was, from my perspective, entirely germane to the discussion at hand.

If you don't have the good faith to take the L on this, I don't want to hear anything from you about conceding points ever again.

Honest question: Would you refer to Ben Shapiro as alt-right?

Eh, I'd say he's right on the fence. He's usually smart enough to avoid engaging in overt racism (except against Palestinians, but that's another story), so I guess he's not fully there like Harris. I'm open to changing my mind if I hear something more mask-off from him, though.

Do you disagree that pronouns (historically at least) are assigned based on the biological traits of the child? That's all I meant with that comment.

At birth, they're usually assigned based on the observed genitals (which may differ from the chromosomal sex, as I'm sure you know), yes. In the rest of life, they're usually assigned based on secondary or even tertiary sexual characteristics, where the correlation is even weaker.

Now, if that's all you meant, cool, we don't disagree on the substance. The fact remains that if you doggedly insist on using imprecise language after it's been explained to you why that language is imprecise in a harmful way, you can't blame others for getting annoyed about it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

You're free to place whatever appellation you like on Harris, Shapiro, and the rest. All I will say is that I don't think you met the burden of proof for your claim, as I still am not aware of anyone but you identifying Harris with the alt-right (either Harris himself or self-professed alt-rightists).

So do you admit that I wasn't "obsessing over minutiae" and that my point made perfect sense in line of the argument I was putting forward? I'm not letting you off on this.

A particularly maddening element of the gender conversation is the false equivalency between intersex people and transgender people. Intersex people are biologically different from other humans; their condition is considered a birth defect, and they account for a very small fraction of the population. The exception you're carving out here is exceedingly narrow-- narrow, I would argue, to the point that it becomes not worth mentioning. It's as if I said "Humans are born with two arms," and you said "Actually, some babies are born with one arm, or no arms, or several arms." Are you correct? Technically yes, but acknowledging extreme statistical outliers does not necessitate incorporating them into our everyday lexicons.

The fact that you're getting so bent out of shape over a 12-word parenthetical that you yourself admit is factually correct and that played only a minor part in my broader argument suggests to me either 1. that you get irrationally triggered by this issue or 2. that you're trying to deflect. Either way, that's not a tangent worth going into.

Pronouns are applied based on genitalia.

Not in everyday life, they aren't. You'd have caught that if you'd actually read my response beyond the aforementioned parenthetical.

Genitalia is determined by biological sex.

Generally, yes. I still don't know why you get so triggered when I remind you it's not a complete 1:1 match, though

Biological sex is determined by chromosomes.

I mean, tautologically, sure, since chromosomes are normally used to define biological sex (although there are other proposed definitions, and none is 100% satisfactory).

If you think it was an oversimplification to say "Pronouns have scientific roots," then fine, maybe I omitted one or two steps there-- but I still consider the statement to be accurate.

The problem is deeper that just "omitting a one or two steps". It's that you're conflating gender being socially connected to biological sex with gender epistemologically deriving from biological sex. It's one thing to say that people who are given masculine pronouns are typically biologically male and vice versa. It's another to say that being biologically male provides an objective basis for masculine pronouns and vice versa. That's the point I was trying to make last time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I think the point was relevant, but it didn't prove your assertion. That would have required other evidence.

I'm not letting you back out of this. You came in hot accusing me of derailing the Harris conversation by bringing up "minutiae" irrelevant from the original point. I showed you that I was following a coherent line of logic directed at substantiating my assertion. You're free to believe that I didn't prove it, but that doesn't change the fact that your accusations were spurious, and I'm not letting this go until you admit so.

At what point in the history of the English language did pronouns not derive directly from biology? Prior to the very recent idea that gender exists as something distinct from sex, I am unaware of any counterexamples.

Uh, they have never derived directly from biology? At most, they've historically derived indirectly from biology, through the mediation of physical appearance and all sorts of other contextual clues that have themselves varied quite a bit. Either way, you're not resolving the fundamental conflation I pointed out. There's a difference between "throughout history people generally assigned people a gender on the basis of physical cues that typically derive from biological sex" and "gender itself is the same as biological sex". One recognizes that this is a fundamentally sociological phenomenon, while the latter devolves right back into essentialism.

Saying "People who are given masculine pronouns are typically biologically male" is an unnecessary overcomplication of the truth. The truth is that-- aside from people with birth defects-- 100% of babies with male chromosomes are assigned male pronouns at birth. This is not some kind of weak correlation that can be waved away as "typically" or "generally" or "one of many factors." Phenotypical sexual dimorphism (the result of chromosomes) has been until very recently the only relevant determining factor in deciding what pronouns to assign to a person. Calling a male baby "he" is as scientifically accurate as calling a cat a "cat." If you want to argue that this objective standard needs revising or has changed in recent years, ok-- but that does not change the fact that the linguistic history of pronouns in the English language derives them directly and solely from biological reality.

This is hysterical. "When you take out all the exceptions, the correlation is 100%!" is somehow a more factual statement that "there is a correlation but it's not 100%"? You have to realize how far you're reaching to take issue with what should be an uncontroversial formulation. And I never said the correlation is weak, we all know it's pretty strong. But the fact that it's not 100% matters when one of us is speaking in such absolute categories.

And the "scientifically accurate" designation of cats is felis cattus. "Cat" is a colloquial world we use for the animal, but it's not a scientific term as such either, and in fact there can be quite a bit of ambiguity around it (do wildcats count as cats? What about bobcats and other closely related felines?).

[Antonio the Sixth]

The crux of that conversation drifted from the question of "Is Sam Harris a member of the alt-right?" to "Did Sam Harris make racially charged comments once on his podcast?" I understand the line of reasoning that brought us there, but the topical drift distracted from the fact that the fundamental point of disagreement was not being addressed.

I was addressing the fundamental point of disagreement. I just wasn't addressing it to your satisfaction. Which is fine, but not something you can turn around and fault me for. This is getting ridiculous. Just because your definition of "alt-right" is absurdly restrictive to the point of uselessness (if it just means "online neonazis" we could just say "online neonazis") doesn't mean you get to be the objective arbiter of what constitutes acceptable evidence.

The idea that parents in the 1700s believed they were "assigning" pronouns to a newborn baby is just absurd. They were not the ones making that determination; nature was. They simply observed the results of the natural process and then applied the appropriate English term to the outcome.

And why should the beliefs of 1700s parents get to dictate our modern understanding of gender in 2022, exactly?

But the exceptions we're talking about are the result of birth defects. Again, this is like taking issue with the claim that "Humans are born with two arms"-- it is an objective fact that the human genome provides for certain outcomes, and those outcomes only change as a result of a defect in genetic copying. The fact that the biological causes of gender sometimes make an error does not mean that gender itself is a social construct.

That's not the point I was making? Gender would still be a social construct even if sexual dimorphism was 100%, and it would still be a social construct even if everyone in the world identified with the gender corresponding to their birth sex. The only way to coherently define gender is as a social construct. Otherwise it would just be biological sex, in which case why use two words for the same underlying concept?

It's starting to become evident that you have a problem with social constructs themselves - that is, with the idea that social understandings build on and give meaning to the biological reality. If you're really that opposed to any sort of sociological understanding of the way in which we construct meaning, there's really no point in discussing this.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I wasn't faulting you for it; I was just observing that when we have these conversations we often wind up exerting herculean efforts to prove minor points that ultimately don't have much bearing on the overarching disagreement. I hadn't heard of Harris' connections to Murray before, and without having heard that podcast, I would agree that his comments sounded racist. That's still several steps away from proving that he is associated with a very specific movement-- a movement that is defined by much more than the paternalistic type of racial science Harris was pushing.

It sounded a lot like you were accusing me of (either deliberately or out of intellectual sloppiness) deflecting the conversation. If that wasn't the case, then fair enough, but I'd encourage you to be more careful to avoid giving that kind of impression next time.

The point I was making there is that gender has never been understood as a social construct distinct from biological sex until very recently. My more general contention that this innovation was neither necessary nor useful is not relevant to that point.

Yes, I know that's your positions. I already correctly identified that as the key point of contention like a page ago, and explained why that makes you a poor messenger as far pointing out that the discussion is a "linguistic minefield" goes. Fighters in a conflict can't really complain when they walk into minefields.

How would you define a "social construct" then? I agree that particular gender roles such as women wearing dresses or men picking up the check on a date are socialized, even if these have their roots in biological causes. However, these are just roles we socially assign to the sexes-- the sexes themselves are the same regardless of the behavior of the person. As I have always understood it, "gender roles" are the changing cultural expressions of "gender," which is synonymous with "sex."

That's a common enough understanding, but I think it's missing an important piece. "Gender" is best understood as a kind of social connective tissue through which these social roles, norms, and expectations are transmitted. In order for an individual to have gender roles and expectations placed on them, they must first be assigned a gendered identity marker. Society recognizes you as a "man" or as a "woman" - and while, yes, this social recognition is usually the product of one showing the outward signs of being male or female, it remains useful to conceptually distinguish, for the reason I outline below.

The reason why (binary*) trans people are so insistent on being recognized as the gender they identify as isn't because they inherently, objectively are that gender (some of them might take that line, of course, since trans people aren't a hive mind and there's plenty of diversity of approaches within the movement, but I don't think that's a helpful framework). Rather, it's because they've determined that the best way for them to live fulfilling lives within the existing gendered society is to inhabit the roles and expectations corresponding to that gender. And in order to do so, they must first be viewed by society as belonging into that gender. Many of them take a myriad affirmative steps to ensure that happens, of course (hence the whole concern about how much you "pass" - "passing" here indicating your ability to be socially recognized as the gender you want to inhabit). Even when they don't, however, I do think that it's simply the right thing to do to extend such recognition to them to the extent possible. Again, to be very clear, this is a normative position, not a descriptive one. I'm not saying that anyone is "objectively" a given gender, because as far as I'm concerned there's no such thing as "objective gender". The point is that assigning gender based on self-identification rather than based on biological sex is more conducive to a fair society.

*there's a whole other discussion to be had about nonbinary gender expressions, but it's probably best left for another time

[Antonio the Sixth]

I guess, but I don't think political discussions should use armed combat as their template for acceptable behavior.

The minefield was your metaphor, I just logically extended it. Obviously it's hyperbole on both ends. I have no idea what you're trying to accomplish here.

I can understand a social role (like a gender role) and a biological trait (sex). What I can't understand is this amorphous, vague space that "gender" seems to inhabit according to gender theorists.

I did my best to hopefully make it less amorphous for you. If I didn't succeed, I'm happy to further elaborate on any point that caused confusion. Obviously this is just my two cents as someone who has an interest in gender theories but doesn't have formal training in the area.

If gender is a social construct, then why do some trans people say it is inborn? If gender is comprised of mutable and changing social norms, then why is gender considered an immutable part of a person's identity? I'm sure you've memorized my litany of gender contradictions by now, so I won't go any further.

Yes. A lot of people, including people who are "on my side" as far as political divides go, have gender takes that I strongly disagree with. The ideas that gender is "inborn" or "an immutable part of a person's identity" are among those takes. I understand why some people have those takes, but I do think they're intellectually misguided and tend to muddy the discourse rather than clarify it.

Now, again, just like when this conversation started, it really feels like you think that the fact that people who disagree with you on gender also disagree among themselves is evidence that your own position is right (or at least, that every other position is wrong). This just doesn't follow. The fact that there are many different perspectives on gender doesn't prove any one perspective on gender right or wrong. It just means that a lot of people have a lot of takes (and statistically, most of those takes are bad), nothing more.

The attempt to parse out a difference between biological gender ("sex") and social gender is, in my mind, a failed political project. Even if these things make sense in the academic sphere to people who study this stuff, you must concede that it has not succeeded in winning over the general public or getting them to see things from the perspective of transgenders. Language can only work through broad consensus, and trying to weaponize it by constructing ever-changing terminology that forces speakers to walk on eggshells completely defeats the purpose of communication.

There's obviously a different time and place for different rhetorical styles in different settings. I'm not advocating for Joe Biden to start discussing trans issues the way a tenured queer theory professor would. There was a similar discussion with Joe Republic in another thread where I mentioned that many Democrats do seem to have developed the toxic habit of speaking in academic-speak when talking to regular voters. If that's the extent of your criticism, then we can agree, though you seem to take it quite a bit further. Anyway, I'm not talking to regular voters right now, I'm talking to you - and I'm sure you can stomach a more intellectually grounded conversation if you really want to.

That aside, I really don't think you can call the discourse on gender "a failed project". Trans acceptance has become significantly more mainstream in the past decade, and I think many people are slowly coming to terms with the idea that gender isn't as fixed and absolute as previous generations tended to believe. Of course that has generated a huge backlash, but that always seems to happen with this kind of social change.

I do agree generally that extending this Hegelian sort of "recognition" to trans people is a simple courtesy. However, to be brutally honest, it makes me sad. The people who extend these courtesies-- by using preferred pronouns, for example-- rarely accept the logical conclusions of the beliefs they espouse. We saw this on Atlas when the poll in this thread received a majority vote, yet a clear majority simultaneously rejected the idea that men can be pregnant. The term "feminine penis" that some people unironically throw around is still met with widespread mockery, even from self-described progressives. Men who say they support trans rights still are reluctant to put their money where their mouth is and actually date trans women. The list goes on. I'm sure you've seen trans Atlas users discuss their insecurities about how others (even their supposed "allies") perceive them. It's clear they've noticed the existence of this gulf between words and beliefs.

This is what courtesies do-- they pay lip service to tolerance and acceptance while masking people's true feelings. Extending weak linguistic courtesies without backing them up through behavior is dangerous to the mental health of a vulnerable population that depends upon recognition and validation from others in order to feel secure in their own body. I fear that doctors and activists are setting up many trans people for failure by implicitly asserting that transitioning will solve their self-image problems, when the other end of that journey may not bring with it the acceptance and recognition they desire. I sincerely hope I'm wrong about this, as I would never wish loneliness or depression upon anyone. Maybe someday gender reassignment will reach levels of technological sophistication that will render this entire debate moot. I hope you understand I'm being honest when I say that day can't come soon enough.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. There is a lot to potentially unpack, but I'm not really sure if those are tangents we want to get into or that getting into them would help us come into an agreement on the main point (especially since you've recently expressed annoyance at the fact that our discussions tend to go into tangents a lot).

All, I can say, I guess, is that I don't think anyone here is saying that referring to trans people by their preferred pronouns is going to solve all their problems. Obviously that's a fairly minor point in the grand scheme of things, and I'd much rather focus on the material ways in which we can help trans people feel more at ease in society (such as by making medical treatments that are proven to alleviate mental distress more accessible). Still, I do think that being able to think about gender as something separate from biological sex has to be part of how we move forward. In fact I don't advocate for that solely out of ~allyship~ with trans people or whatnot: as a cis person, I think I've come to a healthier understanding of myself by letting go of the idea that the category of "man" is something I objectively, intrinsically am, and instead thinking of it as a vague label that helps explain part of my social experiences but doesn't define me in any greater sense. Of course, my experiences are not universal, but I do think I'm not the only cis person who feels that way.

In the meantime though, I have to reject your premise: I think it is wrong to deliberately mislead others about your perception of them. Saying "he" or "she" may be a harmless courtesy-- but I don't think anyone does a trans person any favors by saying these things if they don't actually believe them. Personally, I roll my eyes at the phrase "male pregnancy" and I cannot imagine myself dating a transgender woman. Normally my private views on such a thing wouldn't matter, but apparently transgender people depend upon recognition from people like me in order to feel comfortable about themselves. I don't think people are generally happy if they feel they're being lied to, and they especially aren't happy when others clearly aren't backing their words of support up with genuine action. In this way, I believe that my pushback on this subject is for the best. The lives and mental health of transgender people should not depend upon the opinions of people like me.

Well, that's your premise though. If for you, gender refers to something objective, inherent and biological, then obviously referring to a trans woman as "she" would be deceptive. The point of this now month-long argument isn't to bully you into hiding your beliefs and lying for interpersonal convenience: it's to challenge your beliefs and hopefully adopt a different framework, which will also have the benefit of greater interpersonal convenience. I've already made the case that conflating gender and biological sex makes little sense if we're going to have the two concepts. I then proposed a definition of gender that, in my opinion, has a great deal of explanatory power. Finally, I showed you why adopting this definition would have social benefits in addition to its explanatory power. If I haven't convinced you on the first two points, I can't blame you for disregarding the third one. I just think it's a shame on all accounts.

[Antonio the Sixth]

But I didn't say they shouldn't be prescribed at all. I've reiterated several times in this thread that I don't support a blanket ban on them.

Out of genuine curiosity (you might have already answered, but keeping up the discussion with you is taking enough time as it is and I really don't want to have to read even more of this thread if I don't have to), do you have a problem with puberty blockers being prescribed (by medical professionals going through the properly appointed medical channels) to children when they are actually going through puberty, as a stopgap measure until they're old enough to decide if they want hormones? Because that's obviously the key issue here. Puberty blockers aren't going to do much good at 18.

[Antonio the Sixth]

To explain how this got started:

Del Tachi made a remark about how the idea of "brain sex" is incorrect, and that gender is not in your brain the day you are born. Progressive85 then responded, saying that to suggest this is equivalent to "mocking" and "making fun" of trans people. This is what I took exception to-- a non-transgender user made a very innocuous and inoffensive remark that essentially endorsed the viewpoint of many trans activists, and yet he still got called transphobic for it.

The fact that gender activists disagree on these things doesn't "prove" my point and I never said it did. What it does prove, however, is that they should not jump down people's throats for misusing a word or disagreeing with them on the particulars of gender, since their own community cannot form a consensus on these things. For the record, Progressive85 later PM'd me and we buried the hatchet. Still, I stand by the point I was making there: You can't say that there are multiple valid positions on this subject for trans people and then complain when non-trans people take reasonable positions you don't agree with. I think if you re-read that exchange you'll see what I meant, and why I was so irritated by your interpretation of my comments.

I understand the original misunderstanding came from, yes. I've since read Progressive85's posts and I agree with you that they were completely over the line and, frankly, deeply cringeworthy. It's pretty representative of everything I hate about online trans advocacy, and probably does serious harm to the cause.

What confuses me is that we seemingly resolved this issue a few posts ago, but then you brought that very same issue back into the discussion out of nowhere, when you asked: "If gender is a social construct, then why do some trans people say it is inborn? If gender is comprised of mutable and changing social norms, then why is gender considered an immutable part of a person's identity?" How are these fair questions for me to answer now that we're talking about the substance of the issue exactly? Like, at the end of the day, if someone claims gender is innate and immutable, I'm going to disagree with them, regardless of whether they're trans or cis. Such a disagreement shouldn't prove anything about the merit my perspective.

On the contrary, I would argue that the acceptance of transgenders in recent years is despite the discourse surrounding them, not because of it. I think the most appropriate way to view this cultural shift is as a by-product of gay rights, and a general move towards the socially libertarian "harm principle" in much of our social discourse. This is why gay marriage is no longer very controversial (as it harms no one), whereas abortion continues to be a major national division. It's also why the subject of hormone treatment and surgery for minors remains so controversial, because as we've gradually begun to accept that consenting adults may do as they choose, that principle clearly does not extend to underage people in a number of different ways (as I've tried to point out).

"The discourse surrounding them" can mean a lot of different things here. As I said above, I certainly agree that there's a lot that's wrong with the discourse around trans issues. A lot of people on the internet are obviously positively eager to lash out at anyone who says anything that might remotely be constructed as disagreeing with the most up-to-date orthodoxy on the issue, and we see shades of this in posters like Progressive85 and Klobmentum. The worst of those types spend their time on Twitter harassing actual progressive advocates who do meaningful work promoting trans acceptances, and I'd be happy to tell you all my thoughts about these miserable creeps. As a proud atheist, I'm sure you can see why it's unfair for a whole political movement to be defined by its most cringeworthy proponents online, so I hope you can sympathize a bit with my position here.

Is the gender-constructivist perspective, in and of itself, a liability for trans acceptance? I don't see any evidence for that. Of course the "live and let live" libertarian instinct is always going to be the strongest angle of attack for LGBT acceptance, given that it's so central to the American ethos. And conversely, it's not surprising that "think of the children!!" is always the last refuge of conservatives when they start losing a culture war, since people are understandably particularly sensitive to potential harm to children. I don't think how things have played out in this regard contradicts my argument at all. As far as gender-constructivism goes, though (that is, after all, the point of this discussion), I think it is becoming normalized in a lot of circles, and not just in turbo-woke spaces. In plenty of places thinking of trans women as women and trans men as men is intuitive and doesn't entail the kind of insincerity or doublethink that you seem to associate with it - people have just internalized the new understanding of gender. Of course that's not the case for most of US society, and no doubt there are places where this sort of discourse generates backlash, but I don't think it's nearly as ubiquitous as you're making it out to be, and I think it will become more and more normalized as time goes on.

I can understand why a deconstruction of gender roles might be beneficial for some non-trans people. The word "man," though, is not a social role-- it is a descriptor of a biological reality.

You're just casually stating as a fact the thing that is the point of contention in this discussion. Come on, don't go all Ben Shapiro on me here.

But without even wading into that quagmire, I'll just say this: The implication in modern gender discourse that anyone who doesn't conform 100% to the stereotypes of their gender is "challenging gender roles" is just as narrow and confining as gender roles themselves. Does my beer-drinking, baseball-loving mother "challenge" gender roles with her interests? Am I "challenging gender roles" if I grow my hair long or learn how to cook? No. To say that is to ironically endorse a stereotypical baseline of what it means to be male or female. I have a few interests and preferences that some might consider "feminine," but that does not mean the label "man" applies to me any less. I don't think the application of that term is even remotely vague, because 99.8% of the time everyone will know exactly what it means.

I'm not sure where you read all that in what I said, but no, deviating from gender roles in some minor ways is not the same thing as challenging gender roles. The latter implies intentionality as well as a degree of expected societal backlash that obviously doesn't apply to your examples. I wouldn't say I really "challenge gender roles" myself in particular, as I don't go out of my way to act one way or the other in particular (although glad we agree that longer hair looks better and cooking is cool!). And I'm not attached to the label of "man" but I don't really take issue with people ascribing to me. If you are attached to the label, that's totally fine and valid, and I don't think adopting a constructivist framework makes that masculinity less real for you (especially since presumably everyone will recognize you as one regardless). You have nothing to worry about here.

I would just say that any social benefits of using the word "gender" are outweighed by the (possibly intentional) confusion it stirs up whenever it enters a conversation. You yourself are "proposing" definitions for gender in this thread-- definitions that you admit many (probably most) people don't share, including the transgender community-- thus implicitly conceding the fact that no generally accepted definition exists. Not to go all Cool Hand Luke, but what we've got here is a failure to communicate. If a word does not adequately and concisely transmit information to the listener/reader, it fails as a word.

Well, this whole clusterf**k of trash-fire threads on Talk Elections Atlas Forum Blog Dot Org is certainly not how I would set out to talk about gender with normies on my own. The terms of the discussion were largely imposed on both of us by OPs basically looking to stir up drama, so it's not surprising that this is what happened. Of course, that is the norm almost everywhere online, unfortunately. But I get the impression that in everyday, normal conversations, people are a lot more open to these ideas, as long as they aren't preached to them. Like, if I had a trans friend, and a cis friend was confused about her, I'd say something like "yeah, she was born male but now she lives as a woman" and I feel like 90% of people would be fine with this and use the right pronouns from the get go.

Maybe as social conservatives become fewer in number and the gender activist movement becomes more organized and less obnoxious, a generally accepted definition of "gender" will emerge that will serve a utility in our language. Maybe we'll find that it actually describes something relevant to people's lives, and the "social" concept of a man will become divorced from the "biological" concept of a man. Right now, however, I don't see any such consensus--

I don't see a consensus either, but that argument goes both way. There's no longer a consensus on equating gender with biological sex either, though, and trying to impose gender-essentialism on society would be as much of a tall order for you as trying to impose the gender-constructivism is for me. Ultimately, when linguistic consensus breaks down, we have to try to be sympathetic to each other's perspective, but also make our case for why our own is better. The fact that there's no consensus isn't an argument in my or your favor - it's the reason we're debating the topic in the first place.

and more importantly, I see no utility in that separation. Every explanation I have heard for the term has differed from the previous explanation. My only possible conclusion is that the word has become a catch-all term that the user imbues with their own predilections and eccentricities. I won't deny anyone their right to express themselves as they see fit-- however, as I said earlier, I absolutely draw the line at people being called out as bigots for not fluidly conforming their vocabularies to every definitional shift of this ever-changing, utterly subjective, and consistently divisive term.

I guess I haven't made a good case for it. I'm still convinced that the thing I'm advocating for here is both perfectly logically consistent and very intuitive to a lot of people. To me, something clearly breaks down when you argue that there's such thing as "gender expectations" and "gender roles", but then say gender itself is just biological sex. That makes it seem like the reason women are held to given roles and expectations is directly because they have XX chromosomes or vaginas or whatnot, when there's clearly a mediating social force at play in them being identified as women and womanhood itself being associated with those expectations and roles. Gender as a sort of medium though which these social understandings get transmitted and amplified seems like a concept with a lot of explanatory power to me. Again, I can't speak for anyone else here, and I'm sure there are plenty of trans people who disagree with me. But at the same time, I'd appreciate it if you could give those ideas some thought in isolation, abstracted from the context of cringeworthy online woke scolds, because I do feel like this has been a barrier to mutual understanding as well.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The terms of the discussion were largely imposed on both of us by OPs basically looking to stir up drama, so it's not surprising that this is what happened.

I'm not imposing terms of discussion on anyone. I made this thread because of how many people voted No in the 'Can a man get pregnant' thread. I suspected that fewer people would be open about their disbelief in trans people's genders if the question were phrased more broadly, so I made this thread to compare what people say they believe (this thread) to what people really believe (the other thread, which I didn't make).

Drama only started because transphobes can't help themselves but rub it in our faces. When they do that, I am going to respond, as will other people. Sue me, call me a turbo wokescold, whatever.

I didn't mean you specifically fwiw, this is like one of 3 or 4 threads when the same conversation has been going on, so I'm thinking about it as a continuum. That said, it's undeniable that the knee-jerk over-the-top outrage toward anyone who expresses anything other than full agreement with your perspective isn't moving the conversation forward.