One of the most under-represented social groups in the modern West are those millions who could not give a flying f*** about 'trans' issues. Until a few years ago, few ordinary people, living their largely apolitical lives, were even vaguely aware (if at all) of the 'trans',‘cis-gender’, ‘non-binary’ etc pseudo intellectual mind games that emerged from the ivory towers of our elite academic institutions and then ran riot through our MSM media/social media ecosystems. And that’s the way it should have stayed.
It is our Western tragedy that - because of the inherent click-baityness of the ‘trans’ fad - its politico-obsessives have won the day nevertheless. So, on this Thanksgiving Day, let's give thanks for the vast majoity of men and women who just have a normal sexuality. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
lol very true, it’s probably bad for most people to have seriously pondered “what is a woman” and “what is my gender”. I think this gets to Sowell’s ideas about process costs. The idea that everyone should think about gender raises process costs for everyone while only benefiting a small minority
Sowell was right! The collective brain power and mindshare that humanity has thus far devoted to this subject (yourself included) is staggering. It’s quite sad considering the big issues that still exist in the world that need fixing. If for nothing else, this should be the biggest reason to never forgive the activists and cosplay or actual cultural marxists who kept pushing this subject until it became mainstream!
I mean, you can not be against trans people or believe everyone should fit gender roles from the 1950s but also not believe the whole Judith Butler position about how gender is a social construct completely unmoored from any sort of biological basis or support this weird fake 'sex-positive' construction where all sexuality is OK except for heterosexual male. A pox on both your houses.
Elite sports is as you note of much greater interest than bathrooms. But note that at its very heart, the idea of "women's sports" is based on discrimination. That's fine with me, but I think it's worth a moment to think about that. I'm not sure but I think most men's competitions are actually "open" in that women/females are allowed. I think that's true of all the "men's" pro sports leagues. So if you have to discriminate somewhere, it seems just where to draw the line is up for debate. People note that elite athletes are highly unusual in relevant ways. So if a male puberty gives an advantage, that's just an unusual thing? I'd say no. One way of defining elite women's sports would be "no one with any evidence or trace of maleness of any kind". It's not as if anyone's saying the others can't compete, it's just that they can only compete in the open leagues instead. And we don't need to say that defines who's a "woman" or "female". It's a specific definition for use in women's -- I mean "no one with any trace of maleness" -- sports.
Bart: "But note that at its very heart, the idea of 'women's sports' is based on discrimination."
Indeed. Somewhat amused to note that the suffragettes of the 1930s were up-in-arms over discrimination in the case of voting rights, but now apparently want the same thing in the case of sports, though with far more justification.
Bart: "One way of defining elite women's sports would be 'no one with any evidence or trace of maleness of any kind'. ...."
Kinda think that that is just moving the goalposts downfield if not out into the parking lots. ICYMI, you might note that more than a few States -- mostly Red ones for some unfathomable reason ... -- are trying to define "man" and "woman" in law, though with varying degrees of usefulness. The better ones don't use "male" and "female" at all, possibly because they recognize the problematic consequences:
"The Kansas law legally defines a woman as someone whose reproductive system is designed to produce ova, and a man as someone whose reproductive systems are designed to fertilize ova."
Anecdotally, I have heard hard-line TERFs bite the bullet and say that anyone with XY chromosomes is a man.
Being a chromosomal truther about biological sex is dumb imo (let alone about gender). I think the cases of XX/XY mosaicism serve as a sort of reductio ad absurdum of that position (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46,XX/46,XY).
Agreed! I’ve noticed a shift from a sole focus on chromosomes to phrases like “oriented to produce large/small gametes”, but whatever you choose comes with edge cases, there is no getting around it.
Oh actually the discussion is strange. Like it’s obvious trans women don’t have all the characteristics that cis women have, can’t get pregnant for example, but at the same time they are not ordinary males. But trans people aren’t claiming anything like that either. Like trans people never can completely transition, because of their genetics but that doesn’t make them to the gender they are born with either as they internally don’t align with that gender
I think a lot of this comes back to self-id versus some form of government ID, note this also addresses your enforceability concern (though I tend to agree that bathroom bills are silly and hope the actual reaction is to build bathrooms with appropriately private stalls). If the question is what's on your driver's license and what do you need to do to get that changed, then it suddenly becomes a lot more enforceable, if not necessarily easy and a lot of what I think is the underlying concern (men who are not trans taking advantage of accommodations for trans women on the basis of self ID) mostly goes away (not entirely, there's still concern about prisons for example do to different incentives, but the potential for petty (amount of effort required, not amount of harm done) harassment goes way down).
There's still some hard questions about good faith conflicts between say a mostly physically transitioned trans woman and a rape shelter, or religious students and trans students when it comes to room assignments at college/or on trips, but I think the question of what is required to count as transitioned for the purpose of the state is likely to be a slightly more productive area of discussion.
Yeah, if the requirement was you have to have an ID that says you’re a woman then the issues of misuse by creepy men would go down (assuming it’s not trivial to change legal gender) - but unless you’re going to hire people to guard every bathroom and check ids (which I think would be an absurd use of resources) this will still come down to norms about who should use what bathroom and how well you pass as a woman
Indeed. Though that's more generally true. If I can pass as a Walmart employee I can go into the employee only areas without getting in trouble, or making anyone nervous.
I do think a lot of this conversation got pretty confused as it moved away from a major fracture/discussion point in the UK debate over self-id, but those origins never actually left the discussion, but they usually aren't actually addressed openly.
Now, to be fair, I think this is a bit on both sides, as the trans activists do this, in my mind extremely unwise dance where they assert that their opponents are trying to accuse trans women of faking it in order to access/harm cis women, when the concern seems to have been more focused on men misusing self ID for the purpose of harassment/abuse, but more and more the response to that seems to be 'yep, trans women are men and just lying to force their way into women's spaces' which seems pretty transparently incorrect (outside maybe some fringe cases involving prisons where the incentives/goals are pretty unique).
And the trans exclusionary activists (need a better term for this, as it's definitely not limited to radical feminists) tend to do this dance where they assert/assume that all that's required to change your government ID is to announce it to the world, or maybe just feel it in your heart, which doesn't seem to be true.
I tend to think actually trying to do some sort of joint legislative drafting, what should the requirements be? How should they be proven? What standards of evidence are needed? And what should the effect by on specific sex-segregated governmental and non-governmental spaces? Might be more productive than the more abstract discussions this tends to turn into. It's possible I'm just recreating adversarial collaboration, now that I think about it. Or, you know, the legislative process.
I would say most TERFs are social constructivists who oppose the deconstruction of their gender.
In my country (spain) they passed a law equalizing paternity and maternity leaves so that fathers get more involved with their kids and some of my middle aged coworkers were against it because it dilutes womens role as mothers
Interesting, yeah I think the role of motherhood is something feminists disagree on frequently. But it in some ways brings up the general ambivalence about whether all laws should be sex neutral (e.g. feminists internally disagreed on whether statutory rape laws should be gender neutral back in the 70s/80s and this is a contemporary debate in parts of India). I’d phrase the disagreement as less about deconstruction as it is about replacing a *social* construction with a *personal or individual* construction of gender, self-ID as primarily determining gender rather than how you are treated and perceived by others.
Yes, I would say that pro-trans feminism tend to care more about changing social strucures in a more academic based way while other feminists (mostly middle aged/older ones) prefer to focus on welfare, laws that protect women and quotas.
To be fair to the GC movement, there exists a growing contingent of GCs who reject the idea that intersex male people *or* trans women are women. You probably noticed this with the Imane Khelif controversy; even though Khelif was intersex and not transgender, a lot of GCs, including prominent figures like J.K. Rowling, described Khelif as a man "battering" women. Semenya is frequently described similarly as a "male cheat". These folks might be clearly described as biological essentialists and not social constructivists about the group "women".
With that said, I do notice that GCs tend to focus on intersex athletes who present as highly masculine or butch women. For example, controversy has focused on Caster Semenya and Khelif and not Dutee Chand, despite the fact Dutee Chand likely has the same intersex disorder as Semenya and Khelif, and therefore likely has the same performance advantage. But Chand just looks a lot more feminine than Khelif or Semenya; she is petite, has long hair, wears makeup, has a feminine speaking voice, etc. It's not clear to me if the GCs who call Khelif a man would also call Chand a man; perhaps they would, but Chand is clearly a much less appealing target.
Regan: “... where Defending Feminism accuses Gender Critical’s (or GCs, also known as TERFs) of being social constructionists (savage!) ...”
LoL. Hoist by their own petards! Pots and kettles! 😉🙂
Regan: “No matter what the law is around sex segregated bathrooms, unless the plan is to install pussy inspectors at the door of every shared bathroom in the nation ...”
🙂 I’m sure that someone (some current or erstwhile-male computer geek) would find a way to hack that system. And dutifully post pics as proof – “achievements unlocked!!” 😉🙂
But thanks muchly for the links to and quotes of that article by “Defending Feminism” – a movement which seems to have fallen on hard times of late, although largely because of that movement’s own ideological dogma and antiscientific claptrap. Not that many devotees and “True Believers” of the various “sects” under that umbrella are all that happy about being confronted with that rather sad state of affairs ...
But this bit from that article kind of nails the crux of the problem which you at least allude to -- even if I think you’re somewhat wide of the mark in dealing with that problem 🙂 :
DF: “I describe the basic problem with the gender critical view this way: GC feminists ( as well as conservatives generally) typically endorse the ‘Woman = Adult Human Female’ view, and they endorse a definition of sex based around gamete size. If some adult human has a body organized around the production of large gametes, that person is a female and therefore a woman; if small gametes, that person is male and therefore a man. This definition of sex is uncontroversially used by biologists across species.”
Except that “organized around gamete size” is also rather wide of the mark, and a large part of the problem, since the standard biological definitions for the sexes make the CURRENT production of either large or small gametes into the sine qua non for sex category membership:
From the first of those links, the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
If there are no gonads or no gametes then no sex category membership cards are issued. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200. Suck it up buttercups.
Something underlined by this tweet – to use Musk’s “dead name” -- from PZ Myers – a “biologist” of some repute, having been responsible for the “Courtier’s Reply”, although the jury is still out on his claims to that professional category:
But as you suggest, though maybe didn’t develop to the extent required, there are some important principles and values hanging in the balance. Not for nothing did Substacker Helen Dale, and Helen Dale, an author (The Economist) of some repute, argue that transgenderism is something of “civilization threatening/ending movement”:
Not sure if that isn't hyperbole or understatement though I tend to the latter.
But while it may be moot exactly where and how the rubber meets the road on that issue, I kind think these posts and quotes more or less define the boundaries of the problem – which you in particular should have some appreciation for:
" 'Nullius in Verba' - Identity Ideology vs. the Scientific Disposition; The Dangers of Self-ID:
.... The dislocations experienced around gender identity ideology have revealed the great threat couched in abnegation of the scientific disposition."
Paul Griffiths: “Sex Is Real: Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other. .... On the other hand, whatever its shortcomings as an institutional definition [e.g., in law], the concept of biological sex remains essential to understand the diversity of life. It shouldn’t be discarded or distorted because of arguments about its use in law, sport or medicine. That would be a tragic mistake."
Which is was my point - this is about passing more than it is about biological sex. But for many people the bathroom they intuit someone should use would mean they’d think McBride should use the women’s room
Regan rare L,you dismissed right wing bigotry that people like Nancy mace promote and shifted the debate to sports.Also some women who might have suffered sexual assault and feel uncomfortable in mixed spaces deserve empathy,especially if they outnumbered trans individuals, and I don't think to show them data and call them paranoid and neurotic is the best strategy for their mental stability
The concept of 'passing' is problematic for feminists because it implies there is a right or wrong (or better or worse) way for women to look and behave. Feminism has always rejected the idea that 'being a woman' can be judged and scored (so to speak), and while this superficially seems like 'progress' and 'liberation' it has created a culture where western women basically have no VALUE any more - and no way to achieve value ..... after all, there are no longer any specific requirements to being a modern woman now that requirements (AKA gender roles and social expectations) have been reclassified as part of 'patriarchal oppression'.
Thanks to feminism the modern woman is no longer constrained by social obligations (to stay at home and raise her own children, to be feminine, prepare and cook proper food, run the household, make poor hubby a lousy sandwich to take with him to work etc). There are ZERO requirements to being a modern woman.
This means anyone can do it.
Also let's not forget that it was the feminists who invented the concept of 'identifying' as something (in their case 'oppressed by men') and then demanding everyone else affirm their identity under threat of being labelled a 'phobe'.
The reality is that 99% of feminists do not 'pass' as oppressed. Not the academic feminists enjoying tenure and a fat salary for doing absolutely nothing of worth (while men dig up the road outside in the pouring rain) .... and not the middle class bedroom feminists making videos about the horrors of patriarchy with expensive video and lighting equipment and surrounded by pastel coloured soft furnishings and wardrobes stuffed full of impractical clothing and all manner of trinkets. But we must all affirm their identity and give them free stuff and special treatment or risk being fired, ostracised and accused of misogyny.
The TERFs are tying themselves in knots trying to bring objective reality to bear onto the trans issue, while simultaneously trying to prop up their own feminist ideology which has zero connection to objective reality.
Meanwhile, nobody is talking about the environmental, dietary and drug related factors which might be playing a significant role in the explosion of trans identified (and generally distressed) young people that we are now seeing.
Not of direct immediate relevance, but crucial to understanding trans people is "autogynephilia" (AGP). Men who get aroused by the idea of themselves as women. Often starting with cross-dressing, sometimes staying private, sometimes more public, and sometimes transitioning. There are two kinds of trans-women. Some are very feminine and exclusively attracted to men. The vast majority of the others are AGPs. Most AGPs want to say they are really women inside as their essential nature, but it more has a root in erotic preference (for instance, the gender dysphoria never starts until puberty or after). And some go ballistic at any suggestion they might not actually be in touch with a truly discovered female inside. "Men Trapped in Men's Bodies" is an in-depth look at AGP by Anne Lawrence (herself AGP). Wikipedia says it's part of a debunked theory (Blanchard's) but it's not really debunked -- some AGPs are fanatical in suppressing the idea of AGP. (And then there's ROGD, or Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria in girls, but that's another topic.)
All that said, I figure all trans people deserve respect and acceptance and the ability to present as they wish. I figure if you're over 18, others should as much as practical use their preferred pronouns and so forth. It's only when it clashes with the rights/desires of others that it becomes an issue. And we can reach some conclusions in the aggregate without labeling any particular individual.
I'm wondering if the asymmetry in sports (women's versus "open") maybe should carry over to bathrooms too. I think most people are fine with women using the men's room when (for instance during intermission of some performance) the line for the women's room is long but there is none for the men's room. That's because few men care.
I remember in "My So-called life" that the gay boy hangs out in the girls' bathroom so he won't be harassed there by the homophobic boys, and as portrayed in the show at least the girls don't mind. He'll give them tips on make-up and so forth.
The best rule for bathrooms in practice is, "Use which ever room you want but be respectful and don't be creepy". Should be good enough for locker rooms too. Possible creepiness from men using the women's rooms seems like a small part of the overall universe of potential creepiness.
Excellent piece. I would add only one point—while passability works almost all the time, the presence of the penis is the fundamental issue for most women. Passability is a good metric for genital surgery That’s usually not an issue in bathrooms, but locker rooms are a different matter. With self-ID male crossdressers out in public, it’s estimated they outnumber transsexual women 40:1, and that’s a big problem. Few pass. And if the number of women who have suffered sexual assault is anywhere near the reported 20-30%, then the concerns of those women far outnumber those of non-operative transsexuals or cross dressing men.
Agree mostly except with the argument that GCs are social constructionists.
I'm not sure conflating secondary sex characteristics (even ones that are entirely artificial) with sex itself makes one a social constructionist in any way (especially if that's the only information available). It's the only available selection mechanism just like with evolution. Selection works on genes through traits. In this case we define sex through the normal traits of a sex. The more info with get on these we eventually arrive at the biological reality.
Also, very curious to the extent we have data on passing. Given that adult mtf are the most common version of trans presentation (I think), I'd guess that 100% passing is pretty low for these cases.
I would propose that there has been notable amounts of coevolution of between social gender roles and genetic predisposition propagated both by survival and sexual selection. Basically the Baldwin effect ties genetics and learned behavior in the area of gender differentiation in a wide variety of definitive ways. The expression of sex through gender are impactful at a biological and instinctual level. This is why passing is so hard; people read gender unconsciously and instinctually, so people get an uncanny vibe when the read is off.
There are exceptional cases where people have ambiguous genders. The overwhelming typical case is genotype, phenotype alignment with biological male or biological female. While there are clear cultural questions about gender in industrial and post industrial society, we have not undone hundreds of generations of human evolution and dozens of generations of agarian evolution. While I don't love the reduction to genotype, it's better than a subjective mind state. Really the crux is social acceptance of being of motherhood or of fatherhood. This has emerged biologically/socially as being tightly associated with genotype.
One of the most under-represented social groups in the modern West are those millions who could not give a flying f*** about 'trans' issues. Until a few years ago, few ordinary people, living their largely apolitical lives, were even vaguely aware (if at all) of the 'trans',‘cis-gender’, ‘non-binary’ etc pseudo intellectual mind games that emerged from the ivory towers of our elite academic institutions and then ran riot through our MSM media/social media ecosystems. And that’s the way it should have stayed.
It is our Western tragedy that - because of the inherent click-baityness of the ‘trans’ fad - its politico-obsessives have won the day nevertheless. So, on this Thanksgiving Day, let's give thanks for the vast majoity of men and women who just have a normal sexuality. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance
lol very true, it’s probably bad for most people to have seriously pondered “what is a woman” and “what is my gender”. I think this gets to Sowell’s ideas about process costs. The idea that everyone should think about gender raises process costs for everyone while only benefiting a small minority
Sowell was right! The collective brain power and mindshare that humanity has thus far devoted to this subject (yourself included) is staggering. It’s quite sad considering the big issues that still exist in the world that need fixing. If for nothing else, this should be the biggest reason to never forgive the activists and cosplay or actual cultural marxists who kept pushing this subject until it became mainstream!
I mean, you can not be against trans people or believe everyone should fit gender roles from the 1950s but also not believe the whole Judith Butler position about how gender is a social construct completely unmoored from any sort of biological basis or support this weird fake 'sex-positive' construction where all sexuality is OK except for heterosexual male. A pox on both your houses.
Elite sports is as you note of much greater interest than bathrooms. But note that at its very heart, the idea of "women's sports" is based on discrimination. That's fine with me, but I think it's worth a moment to think about that. I'm not sure but I think most men's competitions are actually "open" in that women/females are allowed. I think that's true of all the "men's" pro sports leagues. So if you have to discriminate somewhere, it seems just where to draw the line is up for debate. People note that elite athletes are highly unusual in relevant ways. So if a male puberty gives an advantage, that's just an unusual thing? I'd say no. One way of defining elite women's sports would be "no one with any evidence or trace of maleness of any kind". It's not as if anyone's saying the others can't compete, it's just that they can only compete in the open leagues instead. And we don't need to say that defines who's a "woman" or "female". It's a specific definition for use in women's -- I mean "no one with any trace of maleness" -- sports.
Bart: "But note that at its very heart, the idea of 'women's sports' is based on discrimination."
Indeed. Somewhat amused to note that the suffragettes of the 1930s were up-in-arms over discrimination in the case of voting rights, but now apparently want the same thing in the case of sports, though with far more justification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Bart: "One way of defining elite women's sports would be 'no one with any evidence or trace of maleness of any kind'. ...."
Kinda think that that is just moving the goalposts downfield if not out into the parking lots. ICYMI, you might note that more than a few States -- mostly Red ones for some unfathomable reason ... -- are trying to define "man" and "woman" in law, though with varying degrees of usefulness. The better ones don't use "male" and "female" at all, possibly because they recognize the problematic consequences:
"The Kansas law legally defines a woman as someone whose reproductive system is designed to produce ova, and a man as someone whose reproductive systems are designed to fertilize ova."
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/03/1172821119/kansas-montana-tennessee-narrowly-define-sex-female-male-transgender-intersex
Anecdotally, I have heard hard-line TERFs bite the bullet and say that anyone with XY chromosomes is a man.
Being a chromosomal truther about biological sex is dumb imo (let alone about gender). I think the cases of XX/XY mosaicism serve as a sort of reductio ad absurdum of that position (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46,XX/46,XY).
Agreed! I’ve noticed a shift from a sole focus on chromosomes to phrases like “oriented to produce large/small gametes”, but whatever you choose comes with edge cases, there is no getting around it.
Oh actually the discussion is strange. Like it’s obvious trans women don’t have all the characteristics that cis women have, can’t get pregnant for example, but at the same time they are not ordinary males. But trans people aren’t claiming anything like that either. Like trans people never can completely transition, because of their genetics but that doesn’t make them to the gender they are born with either as they internally don’t align with that gender
I think a lot of this comes back to self-id versus some form of government ID, note this also addresses your enforceability concern (though I tend to agree that bathroom bills are silly and hope the actual reaction is to build bathrooms with appropriately private stalls). If the question is what's on your driver's license and what do you need to do to get that changed, then it suddenly becomes a lot more enforceable, if not necessarily easy and a lot of what I think is the underlying concern (men who are not trans taking advantage of accommodations for trans women on the basis of self ID) mostly goes away (not entirely, there's still concern about prisons for example do to different incentives, but the potential for petty (amount of effort required, not amount of harm done) harassment goes way down).
There's still some hard questions about good faith conflicts between say a mostly physically transitioned trans woman and a rape shelter, or religious students and trans students when it comes to room assignments at college/or on trips, but I think the question of what is required to count as transitioned for the purpose of the state is likely to be a slightly more productive area of discussion.
Yeah, if the requirement was you have to have an ID that says you’re a woman then the issues of misuse by creepy men would go down (assuming it’s not trivial to change legal gender) - but unless you’re going to hire people to guard every bathroom and check ids (which I think would be an absurd use of resources) this will still come down to norms about who should use what bathroom and how well you pass as a woman
Indeed. Though that's more generally true. If I can pass as a Walmart employee I can go into the employee only areas without getting in trouble, or making anyone nervous.
I do think a lot of this conversation got pretty confused as it moved away from a major fracture/discussion point in the UK debate over self-id, but those origins never actually left the discussion, but they usually aren't actually addressed openly.
Now, to be fair, I think this is a bit on both sides, as the trans activists do this, in my mind extremely unwise dance where they assert that their opponents are trying to accuse trans women of faking it in order to access/harm cis women, when the concern seems to have been more focused on men misusing self ID for the purpose of harassment/abuse, but more and more the response to that seems to be 'yep, trans women are men and just lying to force their way into women's spaces' which seems pretty transparently incorrect (outside maybe some fringe cases involving prisons where the incentives/goals are pretty unique).
And the trans exclusionary activists (need a better term for this, as it's definitely not limited to radical feminists) tend to do this dance where they assert/assume that all that's required to change your government ID is to announce it to the world, or maybe just feel it in your heart, which doesn't seem to be true.
I tend to think actually trying to do some sort of joint legislative drafting, what should the requirements be? How should they be proven? What standards of evidence are needed? And what should the effect by on specific sex-segregated governmental and non-governmental spaces? Might be more productive than the more abstract discussions this tends to turn into. It's possible I'm just recreating adversarial collaboration, now that I think about it. Or, you know, the legislative process.
I would say most TERFs are social constructivists who oppose the deconstruction of their gender.
In my country (spain) they passed a law equalizing paternity and maternity leaves so that fathers get more involved with their kids and some of my middle aged coworkers were against it because it dilutes womens role as mothers
Interesting, yeah I think the role of motherhood is something feminists disagree on frequently. But it in some ways brings up the general ambivalence about whether all laws should be sex neutral (e.g. feminists internally disagreed on whether statutory rape laws should be gender neutral back in the 70s/80s and this is a contemporary debate in parts of India). I’d phrase the disagreement as less about deconstruction as it is about replacing a *social* construction with a *personal or individual* construction of gender, self-ID as primarily determining gender rather than how you are treated and perceived by others.
Yes, I would say that pro-trans feminism tend to care more about changing social strucures in a more academic based way while other feminists (mostly middle aged/older ones) prefer to focus on welfare, laws that protect women and quotas.
Thanks for the reply! (And Happy Thanksgiving!)
To be fair to the GC movement, there exists a growing contingent of GCs who reject the idea that intersex male people *or* trans women are women. You probably noticed this with the Imane Khelif controversy; even though Khelif was intersex and not transgender, a lot of GCs, including prominent figures like J.K. Rowling, described Khelif as a man "battering" women. Semenya is frequently described similarly as a "male cheat". These folks might be clearly described as biological essentialists and not social constructivists about the group "women".
With that said, I do notice that GCs tend to focus on intersex athletes who present as highly masculine or butch women. For example, controversy has focused on Caster Semenya and Khelif and not Dutee Chand, despite the fact Dutee Chand likely has the same intersex disorder as Semenya and Khelif, and therefore likely has the same performance advantage. But Chand just looks a lot more feminine than Khelif or Semenya; she is petite, has long hair, wears makeup, has a feminine speaking voice, etc. It's not clear to me if the GCs who call Khelif a man would also call Chand a man; perhaps they would, but Chand is clearly a much less appealing target.
A rather brilliant bit of analysis. 👍🙂 More or less, with a few caveats ... 😉🙂
But the balance of my response in a Note since Substack is still rather remarkably buggy:
https://substack.com/profile/21792752-steersman/note/c-79286870
Regan: “... where Defending Feminism accuses Gender Critical’s (or GCs, also known as TERFs) of being social constructionists (savage!) ...”
LoL. Hoist by their own petards! Pots and kettles! 😉🙂
Regan: “No matter what the law is around sex segregated bathrooms, unless the plan is to install pussy inspectors at the door of every shared bathroom in the nation ...”
🙂 I’m sure that someone (some current or erstwhile-male computer geek) would find a way to hack that system. And dutifully post pics as proof – “achievements unlocked!!” 😉🙂
But thanks muchly for the links to and quotes of that article by “Defending Feminism” – a movement which seems to have fallen on hard times of late, although largely because of that movement’s own ideological dogma and antiscientific claptrap. Not that many devotees and “True Believers” of the various “sects” under that umbrella are all that happy about being confronted with that rather sad state of affairs ...
https://substack.com/@humanuseofhumanbeings/note/c-79143409
But this bit from that article kind of nails the crux of the problem which you at least allude to -- even if I think you’re somewhat wide of the mark in dealing with that problem 🙂 :
DF: “I describe the basic problem with the gender critical view this way: GC feminists ( as well as conservatives generally) typically endorse the ‘Woman = Adult Human Female’ view, and they endorse a definition of sex based around gamete size. If some adult human has a body organized around the production of large gametes, that person is a female and therefore a woman; if small gametes, that person is male and therefore a man. This definition of sex is uncontroversially used by biologists across species.”
Except that “organized around gamete size” is also rather wide of the mark, and a large part of the problem, since the standard biological definitions for the sexes make the CURRENT production of either large or small gametes into the sine qua non for sex category membership:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
From the first of those links, the Journal of Molecular Human Reproduction:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
If there are no gonads or no gametes then no sex category membership cards are issued. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200. Suck it up buttercups.
Something underlined by this tweet – to use Musk’s “dead name” -- from PZ Myers – a “biologist” of some repute, having been responsible for the “Courtier’s Reply”, although the jury is still out on his claims to that professional category:
PZM: " 'female' is not applicable -- it refers to individuals that produce ova. By the technical definition, many cis women are not female." https://x.com/pzmyers/status/1466458067491598342
But as you suggest, though maybe didn’t develop to the extent required, there are some important principles and values hanging in the balance. Not for nothing did Substacker Helen Dale, and Helen Dale, an author (The Economist) of some repute, argue that transgenderism is something of “civilization threatening/ending movement”:
https://lawliberty.org/podcast/when-does-sex-matter/
Not sure if that isn't hyperbole or understatement though I tend to the latter.
But while it may be moot exactly where and how the rubber meets the road on that issue, I kind think these posts and quotes more or less define the boundaries of the problem – which you in particular should have some appreciation for:
" 'Nullius in Verba' - Identity Ideology vs. the Scientific Disposition; The Dangers of Self-ID:
.... The dislocations experienced around gender identity ideology have revealed the great threat couched in abnegation of the scientific disposition."
https://thetransatlantic.substack.com/p/self-id-or-nullius-in-verba-between/comment/47238283
Paul Griffiths: “Sex Is Real: Yes, there are just two biological sexes. No, this doesn’t mean every living thing is either one or the other. .... On the other hand, whatever its shortcomings as an institutional definition [e.g., in law], the concept of biological sex remains essential to understand the diversity of life. It shouldn’t be discarded or distorted because of arguments about its use in law, sport or medicine. That would be a tragic mistake."
https://aeon.co/essays/the-existence-of-biological-sex-is-no-constraint-on-human-diversity
Here's how enforcement could work without any genital inspectors:
We know that "transwomen" like McBride are trans because they openly tell us that they are trans.
And what about in shared public bathrooms? What about people who aren’t openly trans?
Trans people like McBride should not be allowed to use shared public bathrooms.
If someone is actually able to pass as the opposite sex (very rare) then there's no way to enforce the policy against them.
Which is was my point - this is about passing more than it is about biological sex. But for many people the bathroom they intuit someone should use would mean they’d think McBride should use the women’s room
Regan rare L,you dismissed right wing bigotry that people like Nancy mace promote and shifted the debate to sports.Also some women who might have suffered sexual assault and feel uncomfortable in mixed spaces deserve empathy,especially if they outnumbered trans individuals, and I don't think to show them data and call them paranoid and neurotic is the best strategy for their mental stability
The concept of 'passing' is problematic for feminists because it implies there is a right or wrong (or better or worse) way for women to look and behave. Feminism has always rejected the idea that 'being a woman' can be judged and scored (so to speak), and while this superficially seems like 'progress' and 'liberation' it has created a culture where western women basically have no VALUE any more - and no way to achieve value ..... after all, there are no longer any specific requirements to being a modern woman now that requirements (AKA gender roles and social expectations) have been reclassified as part of 'patriarchal oppression'.
Thanks to feminism the modern woman is no longer constrained by social obligations (to stay at home and raise her own children, to be feminine, prepare and cook proper food, run the household, make poor hubby a lousy sandwich to take with him to work etc). There are ZERO requirements to being a modern woman.
This means anyone can do it.
Also let's not forget that it was the feminists who invented the concept of 'identifying' as something (in their case 'oppressed by men') and then demanding everyone else affirm their identity under threat of being labelled a 'phobe'.
The reality is that 99% of feminists do not 'pass' as oppressed. Not the academic feminists enjoying tenure and a fat salary for doing absolutely nothing of worth (while men dig up the road outside in the pouring rain) .... and not the middle class bedroom feminists making videos about the horrors of patriarchy with expensive video and lighting equipment and surrounded by pastel coloured soft furnishings and wardrobes stuffed full of impractical clothing and all manner of trinkets. But we must all affirm their identity and give them free stuff and special treatment or risk being fired, ostracised and accused of misogyny.
The TERFs are tying themselves in knots trying to bring objective reality to bear onto the trans issue, while simultaneously trying to prop up their own feminist ideology which has zero connection to objective reality.
Meanwhile, nobody is talking about the environmental, dietary and drug related factors which might be playing a significant role in the explosion of trans identified (and generally distressed) young people that we are now seeing.
Not of direct immediate relevance, but crucial to understanding trans people is "autogynephilia" (AGP). Men who get aroused by the idea of themselves as women. Often starting with cross-dressing, sometimes staying private, sometimes more public, and sometimes transitioning. There are two kinds of trans-women. Some are very feminine and exclusively attracted to men. The vast majority of the others are AGPs. Most AGPs want to say they are really women inside as their essential nature, but it more has a root in erotic preference (for instance, the gender dysphoria never starts until puberty or after). And some go ballistic at any suggestion they might not actually be in touch with a truly discovered female inside. "Men Trapped in Men's Bodies" is an in-depth look at AGP by Anne Lawrence (herself AGP). Wikipedia says it's part of a debunked theory (Blanchard's) but it's not really debunked -- some AGPs are fanatical in suppressing the idea of AGP. (And then there's ROGD, or Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria in girls, but that's another topic.)
All that said, I figure all trans people deserve respect and acceptance and the ability to present as they wish. I figure if you're over 18, others should as much as practical use their preferred pronouns and so forth. It's only when it clashes with the rights/desires of others that it becomes an issue. And we can reach some conclusions in the aggregate without labeling any particular individual.
I'm wondering if the asymmetry in sports (women's versus "open") maybe should carry over to bathrooms too. I think most people are fine with women using the men's room when (for instance during intermission of some performance) the line for the women's room is long but there is none for the men's room. That's because few men care.
I remember in "My So-called life" that the gay boy hangs out in the girls' bathroom so he won't be harassed there by the homophobic boys, and as portrayed in the show at least the girls don't mind. He'll give them tips on make-up and so forth.
The best rule for bathrooms in practice is, "Use which ever room you want but be respectful and don't be creepy". Should be good enough for locker rooms too. Possible creepiness from men using the women's rooms seems like a small part of the overall universe of potential creepiness.
Excellent piece. I would add only one point—while passability works almost all the time, the presence of the penis is the fundamental issue for most women. Passability is a good metric for genital surgery That’s usually not an issue in bathrooms, but locker rooms are a different matter. With self-ID male crossdressers out in public, it’s estimated they outnumber transsexual women 40:1, and that’s a big problem. Few pass. And if the number of women who have suffered sexual assault is anywhere near the reported 20-30%, then the concerns of those women far outnumber those of non-operative transsexuals or cross dressing men.
Agree mostly except with the argument that GCs are social constructionists.
I'm not sure conflating secondary sex characteristics (even ones that are entirely artificial) with sex itself makes one a social constructionist in any way (especially if that's the only information available). It's the only available selection mechanism just like with evolution. Selection works on genes through traits. In this case we define sex through the normal traits of a sex. The more info with get on these we eventually arrive at the biological reality.
Also, very curious to the extent we have data on passing. Given that adult mtf are the most common version of trans presentation (I think), I'd guess that 100% passing is pretty low for these cases.
I would propose that there has been notable amounts of coevolution of between social gender roles and genetic predisposition propagated both by survival and sexual selection. Basically the Baldwin effect ties genetics and learned behavior in the area of gender differentiation in a wide variety of definitive ways. The expression of sex through gender are impactful at a biological and instinctual level. This is why passing is so hard; people read gender unconsciously and instinctually, so people get an uncanny vibe when the read is off.
There are exceptional cases where people have ambiguous genders. The overwhelming typical case is genotype, phenotype alignment with biological male or biological female. While there are clear cultural questions about gender in industrial and post industrial society, we have not undone hundreds of generations of human evolution and dozens of generations of agarian evolution. While I don't love the reduction to genotype, it's better than a subjective mind state. Really the crux is social acceptance of being of motherhood or of fatherhood. This has emerged biologically/socially as being tightly associated with genotype.