There’s a significant degree to which the sex vs gender debate feels like Groundhog Day. I’ve been called the same silly names, marvelled at the same scientific and logical illiteracy, and made the same rebuttals, hundreds of times. But now and then, somebody comes at the issue from an angle that’s at least
That conversation seemed too much like trying to nail jelly to a tree.
Your correspondent seemed to be jumbling up concepts of objectivity and subjectivity in a mush, rather than having a coherent concept to promote or defend. I admire your patience in seeking from them some substance with which to agree or disagree, but I don't think the attempt was very successful.
WRT the discussion, Jane seemed to think that just because something like vision is subjective, that any statement of fact based on seeing something is subjective. But I may not know what you really see when you see red (maybe it looks like blue does to me), but if you blow through a red light in front of the police, that's not going to get you out of a fine.
Even somewhat subjective experiences can lead to statements of replicable facts. If you run a red light, you're breaking the law and might get a ticket. If you see a rocket explode on takeoff, it's gone.
Now, if you're going to argue that everyone sees a completely different reality, well, that's a subject for a Philip Dick novel.
The most interesting part of this column was where you summarized the thoughts of some teenage girls interested in transitioning. I'm really curious where you heard/read their discussion.
This discussion sounded a little like Plato’s cave in that it was the idea of the chair that became real - either that or Neo saying ‘there is no spoon’. Deeply confusing and confused. Like objective and subjective really are the central tenants of conversations about gender….really?
I liked your point about this all really being about personality. Heck I was a ‘tomboy’ climbing trees, wearing ripped blue jeans way before it was a thing, learning how to replace a Weber carburetor because that highly tuned piece of equipment made my car sing. Didn’t stop me from finding and loving my husband and thrilling to being a mom.
In all our beautiful complexity and difference, we are human.
People like your correspondent seem to want to control how we express our personalities in all their delightful variation. What a sterile and sad world to live in, filled with rigid labels.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this whole gender concept. On the one hand, I agree with the idea that no one knows what it is like to be anything other than him- or herself. I am an adult male human, but I do not know what it is like "to be a man" in the general or categorical sense; I only know what it is like to be me. So it is meaningless for me to say that I feel like a man, or that I feel like a woman. (Thomas Nagel addressed this idea more broadly in his paper "What It Is Like to Be a Bat".)
On the other hand, I am not persuaded that there is nothing more to the idea of gender than stereotypes. I cannot help but wonder whether there is something deeper going on, perhaps along the lines of an archetype, and whether this is something more deeply seated in the psyche. However, whatever gender is, I don't believe it can negate the objective reality that there are only two sexes. No one is born in the wrong body; they are born in their own body (albeit a body that might have something wrong with it). I have no problem believing that some people very strongly feel that they are or should be the opposite sex from their biology; but what one feels does not change the biological facts. Rather, I believe that the gender dysphoria is a simplified self-interpretation of feelings which are associated in some manner with ideas of gender.
I am not dismissing the feelings, which I don't doubt are very real. And perhaps in some cases it is easier to change one's body to smooth over this kind of dissonance than it is to rework one's mindset and mental models. If an adult makes that choice, who am I to say they are wrong to do so? But the thing about feelings in general is that they need to be taken seriously, not necessarily literally.
* A trans woman: is not a woman, the modifier is required.
* A trans person: is a person.
At this point in time, perhaps personhood is what should be acknowledged for trans persons, rather than a false claim of a sex behind the thin veil of the now meaningless word gender.
The invocation of subjectivity is one of those arguments that, as with "who gets to decide," leads me to stop reading.
Yes, there is a place for both, but it is statistically defensible to presume the invocation is dishonest and that it is a waste of my rapidly dwindling life expectancy to read any further. And in settled matters like biological sex, the possibility of an honest argument approaches zero.
Daryl Davis did a wonderful thing and he deserves our unmitigated admiration. Note however that it took him years to change the mind of one man. His success was also extremely improbable to succeed in generality.
That conversation seemed too much like trying to nail jelly to a tree.
Your correspondent seemed to be jumbling up concepts of objectivity and subjectivity in a mush, rather than having a coherent concept to promote or defend. I admire your patience in seeking from them some substance with which to agree or disagree, but I don't think the attempt was very successful.
WRT the discussion, Jane seemed to think that just because something like vision is subjective, that any statement of fact based on seeing something is subjective. But I may not know what you really see when you see red (maybe it looks like blue does to me), but if you blow through a red light in front of the police, that's not going to get you out of a fine.
Even somewhat subjective experiences can lead to statements of replicable facts. If you run a red light, you're breaking the law and might get a ticket. If you see a rocket explode on takeoff, it's gone.
Now, if you're going to argue that everyone sees a completely different reality, well, that's a subject for a Philip Dick novel.
The most interesting part of this column was where you summarized the thoughts of some teenage girls interested in transitioning. I'm really curious where you heard/read their discussion.
This discussion sounded a little like Plato’s cave in that it was the idea of the chair that became real - either that or Neo saying ‘there is no spoon’. Deeply confusing and confused. Like objective and subjective really are the central tenants of conversations about gender….really?
I liked your point about this all really being about personality. Heck I was a ‘tomboy’ climbing trees, wearing ripped blue jeans way before it was a thing, learning how to replace a Weber carburetor because that highly tuned piece of equipment made my car sing. Didn’t stop me from finding and loving my husband and thrilling to being a mom.
In all our beautiful complexity and difference, we are human.
People like your correspondent seem to want to control how we express our personalities in all their delightful variation. What a sterile and sad world to live in, filled with rigid labels.
Awesome Rowling quote too.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this whole gender concept. On the one hand, I agree with the idea that no one knows what it is like to be anything other than him- or herself. I am an adult male human, but I do not know what it is like "to be a man" in the general or categorical sense; I only know what it is like to be me. So it is meaningless for me to say that I feel like a man, or that I feel like a woman. (Thomas Nagel addressed this idea more broadly in his paper "What It Is Like to Be a Bat".)
On the other hand, I am not persuaded that there is nothing more to the idea of gender than stereotypes. I cannot help but wonder whether there is something deeper going on, perhaps along the lines of an archetype, and whether this is something more deeply seated in the psyche. However, whatever gender is, I don't believe it can negate the objective reality that there are only two sexes. No one is born in the wrong body; they are born in their own body (albeit a body that might have something wrong with it). I have no problem believing that some people very strongly feel that they are or should be the opposite sex from their biology; but what one feels does not change the biological facts. Rather, I believe that the gender dysphoria is a simplified self-interpretation of feelings which are associated in some manner with ideas of gender.
I am not dismissing the feelings, which I don't doubt are very real. And perhaps in some cases it is easier to change one's body to smooth over this kind of dissonance than it is to rework one's mindset and mental models. If an adult makes that choice, who am I to say they are wrong to do so? But the thing about feelings in general is that they need to be taken seriously, not necessarily literally.
Your patience in conversation is the stuff of legend.
Is a word still true if it has no modifier?
* A black woman: is a woman.
* A homosexual woman: is a woman.
* A trans woman: is not a woman, the modifier is required.
* A trans person: is a person.
At this point in time, perhaps personhood is what should be acknowledged for trans persons, rather than a false claim of a sex behind the thin veil of the now meaningless word gender.
The invocation of subjectivity is one of those arguments that, as with "who gets to decide," leads me to stop reading.
Yes, there is a place for both, but it is statistically defensible to presume the invocation is dishonest and that it is a waste of my rapidly dwindling life expectancy to read any further. And in settled matters like biological sex, the possibility of an honest argument approaches zero.
Daryl Davis did a wonderful thing and he deserves our unmitigated admiration. Note however that it took him years to change the mind of one man. His success was also extremely improbable to succeed in generality.
yeah but how many fairies can dance on the point of a pin dude?