when it comes to someone's basic identity that they live with I'd say we take people's word for it almost always — Moliere

Hmmmm. If you want to say that we don't take their word for some things but we do for others, the identity things, then you're back to having to clearly demarcate those identity things even to make your point. Your religion example, for instance -- I could tell you a long story about my second marriage that would undermine claims that self-reported faith is reliable. So maybe sometimes it's an identity thing and sometimes it's not. What are we doing here?

I'm just not sure you can make good on identifying identity such that identity related claims should be treated as incorrigible. I would rather we not even require something that messy become tidy just to make political progress.

Consider this. If I want to be seen as what I feel myself to be, you taking my word for it that I am what I claim to be is just not the same thing, is it? If you truly don't see me as I desire, what does your taking my word for it amount to? Even if you manage to do both, how will you handle the cognitive dissonance?

Seems to me the "taking my word for it" is a cheap substitute for the real thing. And it might be worse than nothing, because one way of handling the cognitive dissonance is to try not to see me at all, so you can continue to endorse my claim without discomfort. That's not what I wanted!

Politically, it looks like the "take my word for it" view is all but openly a stopgap, a kind of expedient compromise. There's something similar in dealing with rape: "Believe women." Well no that's just dumb, but it's a deliberate over-correction to the overwhelming tendency to dismiss women's claims. If there ever comes a day when women's words aren't discounted, no one will think "Believe women" a suitable rallying cry.

I can very much relate to the idea of parents comparing their son to girls as a means to dissuade certain behaviors. My family did that to me all the time.

:roll:

If you want to say that we don't take their word for some things but we do for others, the identity things, then you're back to having to clearly demarcate those identity things even to make your point. Your religion example, for instance -- I could tell you a long story about my second marriage that would undermine claims that self-reported faith is reliable. So maybe sometimes it's an identity thing and sometimes it's not. What are we doing here? — Srap Tasmaner

I think my point can get off the ground insofar that we agree we take people at their word on anything at all.

I thought @Isaac might view religious identification in the same way as gender identification in that there are people who claim these things, they insist they are different, but divinity and gender do not exist. That's why I chose the example.

I'm just not sure you can make good on identifying identity such that identity related claims should be treated as incorrigible. I would rather we not even require something that messy become tidy just to make political progress.

I agree here.

Though this thread is anything but tidy, so I think I've even gone some way to demonstrate my agreement ;)

Consider this. If I want to be seen as what I feel myself to be, you taking my word for it that I am what I claim to be is just not the same thing, is it? If you truly don't see me as I desire, what does your taking my word for it amount to? Even if you manage to do both, how will you handle the cognitive dissonance?

When I think "taking your word" I guess I mean I believe it. So if you have cognitive dissonance the next step would be to ask something, if you have that level of trust, or make a choice, or hold onto it to think about it awhile.

Seems to me the "taking my word for it" is a cheap substitute for the real thing. And it might be worse than nothing, because one way of handling the cognitive dissonance is to try not to see me at all, so you can continue to endorse my claim without discomfort. That's not what I wanted!

True. I think I understand where you're going with this. Hopefully you see this isn't what I'm endorsing?

Politically, it looks like the "take my word for it" view is all but openly a stopgap, a kind of expedient compromise. There's something similar in dealing with rape: "Believe women." Well no that's just dumb, but it's a deliberate over-correction to the overwhelming tendency to dismiss women's claims. If there ever comes a day when women's words aren't discounted, no one will think "Believe women" a suitable rallying cry.

My attempts here are to express it as something more than a stopgap, though I feel it has been inadequate and is still a work in progress.

I think we usually take each other's word for it. We both believe we're expressing our opinions on this site, rather than trolling one another from afar. And language doesn't work without some level of give-and-take, though we find words to disagree upon for various reasons.

I'm not advocating a categorical imperative here as much as saying if you want to be able to theorize gender identity you have to begin with the face-to-face relation to the other. (but without so many words).

Heh. Long-haired men solidarity! :strong:

Right. Although, for me it was far more than just that! The way I stood, talked, expressed myself, played, etc... eventually I ended up with a persona to satisfy them. It wasn't really me, but it worked. Then I had to go through the struggle of shedding the skin later, when it was no longer necessary, and I actually realized that that had happened.

That's uh... very very difficult to do. Well, for me anyway... it was.

And now... very few of them even know me at all. They refused to accept me then... as a youth. I refuse to accept them now... as an adult.

When I think "taking your word" I guess I mean I believe it. — Moliere

Oh. That's exactly contrary to my linguistic intuitions. (We don't need to argue about this, but if I take your word for it that you'll be at the restaurant at 8, I agree to set aside my judgment about whether you will be and behave as if you will be.)

Okay so this is exactly analogous to "Believe women". It's not that you can't exhort people to hold some belief, but the basis being offered -- and reasons will be required here -- is essentially that you can't be wrong about this, that identity beliefs are special and incorrigible.

I'd really love to see a different solution.

the simple fact that people will be better able to construct a story about themselves than strangers who know nothing about them. — Moliere

Better how?

As @Srap Tasmaner says...

It's not just the unvarnished truth. — Srap Tasmaner

... so not better as in more accurate. Better, as in, more honest? Doubt it, when was the last time you were honest with yourself? Better, as in more 'authentic'? Can't see why others who know us wouldn't have equally authentic accounts, behaviourally. More data? Maybe, but that depends on the quality of memory, it's perfectly plausible that some third party with a better memory than me remembers my behaviour more clearly than I do.

I'm totally on board with your idea of historical 'knowledge' (though I'd quibble over the term 'knowledge'), but the idea that there's a narrative which is not amenable to science is something I hold to as well. Something, for me, more like Quine's underdetermination, but it amounts to the same thing... We end up in a situation where all the evidence there is still doesn't choose between two interpretations, two stories of how things are.

All good. But to get to the place people want us to be with gender identity, we need that immutably sacred element. It's when our stories clash, create expectations of others, that it becomes an issue, because then you have to argue that being both subject and narrator of a story somehow gives you rights over another, because the issue here is not whether we're entitled to our own stories. The issue is whether we're entitled to, at any time, legally (or morally) demand that other people treat us, not as characters in their story, but as (the correct) protagonists of our own.

If, in my story, I'm 'the funny one', I'm the one who's always telling jokes, cheering everyone up with a bit of humour when the mood gets dark... I can well go through life with that identity, but others might just think me 'the fool', never taking anything seriously, undermining people's emotions by trivialising them... In their story, I'm the fool, in mine I'm the comic relief. Have I got any right to ask them to treat me like the comic relief, not the fool? Can I insist that it's rude not to laugh at my jokes because 'I'm the funny one'? Of course not. I'm the funny one in my story, but I'm someone else in theirs.

I don't see how being 'a woman' is any different (apart from the level of trauma that seems associated with needing to be accepted as one - I'll come back to that). You might be 'a woman' in your story, but you might be 'a man' in mine. As in the example above, what is there about your story being yours that now that compels me, ethically, to ignore you-in-my-story and replace the character with you-in-your-story? I appeared to be under absolutely no obligation to do so with the identity 'the funny one'.

So coming back to the trauma. All I can think of to answer my own question is that it appears to be really traumatic for people not to be treated as 'the woman' in other people's stories in way that not being treated as 'the funny one' doesn't bring. But I don't think there's anything philosophical here, it's psychology. It's partly the importance society places on these roles (and so the effect it has on one's life choices to be misgendered), and part affectation (you can flay me if you like, but there's a hell of a lot of faux offence going on - people love to be the victim and denying that is just naive). I don't think either of those issues are to do with identity. The first is to do with freedom (society seems hellish good at constraining people in ways they don't want to be), the second is to do with our victim culture right now, a lot of rich western guilt being foisted off by claiming victim-hood elsewhere. It's good that we tackle the former, it's not good that we indulge the latter. That's the line I'm trying to tread.

@Moliere - my earlier post (you either missed or ignored) re ethics and 'morality police' was in response to this stand-alone post:

I like this because "should" finally entered the theory -- I really believe this is a topic in ethics more than ontology/epistemology! But it's hard to get there. — Moliere

At the time, I didn't realise it was a follow-up to this: 'should'. See underlined.

Toxic masculinity is an identity of the masculine which identifies itself with power, and the feminine with love, and denies itself the feminine. If you feel love, the feminine, then that is a weakness which the powerful wouldn't need to succumb to, and insofar that you feel love you should act to purge it to become a real man. — Moliere

Well, that is one way of looking at it. But I'm not sure it makes sense. Is 'love' seen as toxic?
Do the powerful and privileged masculine (including women) not feel love?

I think the term 'toxic masculinity' could be explored further together with 'toxic femininity'.
Their origins and what they mean to different people.
Right now, I don't have the time for careful consideration, so here are first found references.
There will be heaps more out there...from all kinds of perspectives...

Everyday examples of toxic masculinity in relationships, schools and workplaces:

[*] When a boy in school doesn't act in traditionally masculine ways, and he is bullied by the boys in his class for being "too feminine"
[*] When a boy cries and his father tells him to "toughen up" or that "men don't cry"
[*] When a man calls women "sluts" or "whores" for having sex outside of monogamous relationships
[*] When a man tells his partner what they can and cannot wear, and who they are and are not allowed to spend time with
[*] The violence against trans women that occurs every year by men who are threatened by a perceived violation of gender norms
[*] When men criticize other men for being attracted to, or in relationships with, trans women
[*] When a man is afraid to be emotionally vulnerable with his partner for fear of seeming "weak"
[*] When a man who is struggling with his mental health doesn't want to see a therapist because he should "man up" or "power through it" — What is toxic masculinity - verywellmind

***
Toxic femininity

If toxic masculinity encourages violence and domination in order to uphold an unequal power dynamic, then toxic femininity supports silent acceptance of violence and domination in order to survive.
[...]
Like toxic masculinity, toxic femininity is the product of a patriarchal society. These toxic notions of femininity further deny women agency or identity. That said, discussions of the term outside of academic spaces can verge on the antifeminist side. They are used as a reactionary argument against feminist discussions of toxic masculinity. — What is toxic femininity - verywellmind

What I think is interesting is the word 'toxic'. If there is a part of humanity which is deemed 'toxic' as in poisonous, what is the antidote?

Before we can engage students in conversations about “masculinity” or “femininity,” toxic or otherwise, we should begin with a few key ideas about gender. Researchers have shown that there is very little difference between the brains of men and women. While gender identity is a deeply held feeling of being male, female or another gender, people of different genders often act differently, not because of biological characteristics but because of rigid societal norms created around femininity and masculinity. Laying this groundwork requires effort, but in an age when breaking news alerts make us want to look away from our phones, the term “toxic masculinity” provides a useful tool for engaging with students, families and anyone else trying to make sense of the onslaught of news. — Toxic Masculinity - Learning for Justice

First, identify the poison.
Isn't that what a Pragmatist or pragmatist would do? @Ciceronianus @t clark @universeness @unenlightened...?

Let's rejoice with loud Fal la--Fal la la!
That Nature always does contrive--Fal lal la!
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal lal la!
[Enter Fairies, with Celia, Leila, and Fleta. They trip round stage]

W.S. Gilbert. Iolanthe.

The peculiarity of gender and sexual identity in this culture is that what Nature contrives must first be hidden from public gaze, and then indicated by conventional signs of hairstyle, clothing, and behaviour. This invests sex and sexual identity with totemic power that makes this thread significant in a way that a discussion about, say, eye colour is not. Genitals are hidden like The Holy of Holies, and other such religious mysteries. Sex is the religion of modernity, and this thread should belong in the philosophy of religion section, except that no one here is questioning the foundations of practice and belief.

What is a blue-eye, and what makes them better than brown-eyes? And what should we do with those perverts who use coloured contact lenses behind their mandatory sunglasses and then wear the wrong coloured hat?
Fal lal la!
[Enter Fairies, with Celia, Leila, and Fleta. They trip round stage]

First, identify the poison.
Isn't that what a Pragmatist or pragmatist would do? Ciceronianus @t clark @universeness @unenlightened...? — Amity

this thread should belong in the philosophy of religion section, except that no one here is questioning the foundations of practice and belief. — unenlightened

Even if religious practice and belief are viewed as the first identifiable poison, @Moliere's placement of his thread in Ethics is perhaps more appealing.

The continuing patriarchy of religion, rulers and royalty is stamped on currency and postage, God's sake!
The changing guard of Charles III...the numbered list of Popes.
So it goes. Never-ending. Or so it seems...

Stamped on and stumped.

Yeah, that was a little ironic dig, as I am attempting myself to offer a social science/anthropological analysis, from which view it all appears as performance that is then referred back to "Natural kinds" that are posited to really exist and produce the performance which is not a performance but a real difference. A circle of trust, that gender benders of all kinds place themselves outside of. Capitalised Nature is the god of science and everything human is natural by definition. Except religion of course, but this is not religion, it is science! The circle is unbroken.

If the topic was placed in the religion section, much would be made of the fact that it is mandated to cover up the facts of sex in favour of the performance of gender, and this would be called out as deliberate mystification. And anything said thereafter would be dismissed as dogma, brainwashing, and superstition. To be trans is "heretical", as it used to be to be homosexual, and still is in most places.

When a heresy cannot be suppressed, it results in a schism, and becomes a sect, like, to take a non-random example, Protestantism. This then in turn splits into innumerable factions and one ends up with a sect for every conceivable permutation of the fundamental fiction. How many genders are we up to now? It must be almost as many as the angels dancing on the head of a pin.

my earlier post (you either missed or ignored) re ethics and 'morality police' was in response to this stand-alone post: — Amity

Heh, sorry. The moth is drawn to the light, and the man playing at philosopher is drawn to disagreement.

If there is a part of humanity which is deemed 'toxic' as in poisonous, what is the antidote? — Amity

My thought is that a toxic masculinity is a malformed identity. Now if...

identification is necessarily divisive. No us without them. No male without female. Hence the famous story about the Buddhist visiting N.Ireland being asked insistently, "Yes, but are you a Catholic buddhist of a Protestant buddhist?" The very idea of being both or neither threatens everyone's own identity and the very laws of logic themselves. — unenlightened

this may not work, because I'm contrasting it with what I'd consider a non-divisive identity, at least with respect to itself. A healthy identity leads to a happy life, and an unhealthy one leads to needless pain for itself and others.

I think there is such a thing as an undivided self, I suppose. But it's not in a category -- a healthy identity leads to contentment with life. In a meta-ethical way this can be questioned on the basis of The Good, but I more or less take it for granted that a content life is better and let those who want to be discontent to work out how that works over there in that part of the philosophy jungle.

Getting side-tracked...

"Toxic masculinity is an identity of the masculine which identifies itself with power, and the feminine with love, and denies itself the feminine. If you feel love, the feminine, then that is a weakness which the powerful wouldn't need to succumb to, and insofar that you feel love you should act to purge it to become a real man."

An attempted antidote: a real man feels and acts on love before the pursuit of power, or at least on virtue before the pursuit of power, and does not deny himself his feelings or attack himself for the feelings that he has. A real man is content with his discontentment, and learns to live with himself as he is.

Okay so this is exactly analogous to "Believe women". It's not that you can't exhort people to hold some belief, but the basis being offered -- and reasons will be required here -- is essentially that you can't be wrong about this, that identity beliefs are special and incorrigible.

I'd really love to see a different solution. — Srap Tasmaner

Me too. What do you think I'm doing here? Scratch padding my way to that. I don't think "can't be wrong" or "incorrigible" are the right predicates. Those are obviously fatal in that we can be wrong, and we can improve our own self-understanding. A standpoint, yes, but not incorrigible. And I believe there is something to defending standpoints in other scenarios too -- such as the case of expertise, for instance. And it's not a case of the knowledge being special, but the more mundane part of having more knowledge or being in a better position to not make mistakes (though experts also make mistakes)

But I'm not sure how to articulate it. I'm still unsatisfied with my attempts here.

when was the last time you were honest with yourself? — Isaac

This is a perfect question to get at what I'm trying to get at.

How could I tell if I am honest with myself or not?

One way would be to set up a standard for myself -- the beliefs which make me feel sad about the world and myself are the ones which are more honest, and the beliefs which make me feel happy about the world and myself are the noble lies.

But I'd be lying to myself in setting up that standard since honesty with yourself isn't about sorting yourself into categories but being in tune with who you are.

So another way would be to allow an outside observer have a standard.

The problem there is that the outside observer is in a relationship with me, but is being asked to pretend that they are not in a relationship with me to make objective determinations about whether I am being honest with myself or not. So they'll stop listening to me while listening to me from the analyst's perspective. It's no more honest than the self-determination I started with because the analyst would be lying to themself about what they see, denying the relationship that we're in.

Which is to answer your:

Better how? — Isaac

It's better at building a relationship, which I think is how we come to feel our identities in the first place. The conversation is two-way at all times, even if we are using words slightly differently. We come to learn more about ourselves as we learn more about others, just like with history we come to know about the past just as much as we come to know the storyteller and it matters both the topic and the speaker.

In a relationship it takes two, and identity is found in relationship with others.

For me I always believe we should respect the self-expression of others. I've been in enough situations where I've had to figure out how I'm supposed to act to know how alienating that feels, so I tend to favor self-expression over whatever categories I happen to hold to at the time. But what this has taught me also is that listening to another's story is better for learning more about the world and yourself -- otherwise it's very easy to get trapped in my little web of thoughts.

listening to another's story — Moliere

Clearly at least listening would be a good start.

Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. — Thoreau

Clearly at least listening would be a good start. — Srap Tasmaner

It's the hardest thing to learn and teach and practice, in my opinion.

Levinas' phenomenology is what comes closest to an exposition of listening, but it's also part of the Bad Guy philosophy so it's hard to float with people who prefer the Good Guy philosophy.

A lot of my own personal thoughts revolve around the concept of listening as primary, which means it plays a central role in my thinking but I have no good articulation for it -- which is why I come back to it.

Also Buber's I and Thou, if memory serves.

Yup, definitely in the wheelhouse of where I'm coming from.

First, identify the poison. — Amity

One man's meat is another's poison. In this context one human identity is poisonous to another human identity, so one needs to identify self and poisonous other simultaneously.

When a boy in school doesn't act in traditionally masculine ways, and he is bullied by the boys in his class for being "too feminine" — What is toxic masculinity - verywellmind

Here, for example, the poisoned 'y' to which 'x' is poisonous is laid out very simply. There might be another school where a solitary 'x' is bullied for being "too masculine", but that is less likely because of power itself being associated with masculinity, at least hereabouts.

However. One might consider Margret Mead: https://www.simplypsychology.org/margaret-mead.html

To which rather overly even-handed summary, I should add the following debunking of her debunker: https://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/Shankman-Trashing%20of%20Margaret%20Mead.pdf

Clearly Freeman and Mead were mutual poisons to each other, and so I arrive again back at the conservative liberal divide, that overlays the nature nurture, that overlays the masculine feminine divide...

my earlier post (you either missed or ignored) re ethics and 'morality police' was in response to this stand-alone post:
— Amity

Heh, sorry. The moth is drawn to the light, and the man playing at philosopher is drawn to disagreement. — Moliere

Yes. You are drawn to whatever play delights you.
Of course, not all moths are drawn to the dangerous light.
There are even theories as to the reasons.

Of them all, I think this one: 'artificial lights resemble the frequencies of light emitted by the sex pheromones of female moths' is quite apt with regard to 'the man playing at philosopher'.

My thought is that a toxic masculinity is a malformed identity. — Moliere

What do you mean by 'identity'? In this thread, the discussion has mainly concerned gender identity.
What is the malformation, how does this present and who gets to diagnose it?

So, the characteristic of being 'masculine' in mind, body or spirit can be 'malformed'.
If it means not fitting what is usual, the correct shape or way of being, this could be applied to any person without it necessarily being toxic, ugly or frightening. It depends on perspective and context. A group identity related to ethnicity, culture or country.

An attempted antidote: a real man feels and acts on love before the pursuit of power, or at least on virtue before the pursuit of power, and does not deny himself his feelings or attack himself for the feelings that he has. A real man is content with his discontentment, and learns to live with himself as he is. — Moliere

The undesirability of systemic 'toxic masculinity' concerns more than what a 'real man' is, or is not.

One man's meat is another's poison. — unenlightened

:smile:
Yes indeed. I was going to add: ''Choose your poison!"

In this context one human identity is poisonous to another human identity, so one needs to identify self and poisonous other simultaneously. — unenlightened

Exactly.
Edit: Individuals with a multitude of 'selves' can have many poisons and antidotes.

I read about Margaret Mead in another lifetime. I might just have to refresh my memory.
Thanks for the links.

Clearly Freeman and Mead were mutual poisons to each other, and so I arrive again back at the conservative liberal divide, that overlays the nature nurture, that overlays the masculine feminine divide... — unenlightened

I don't think it's that simple, is it?
Some divisions might be black and white, some like it like that.
However, I think we're more often left with a sludgy grey. Not as sexy.
Perhaps lilac, lavender or royal purple...?

Of them all, I think this one: 'artificial lights resemble the frequencies of light emitted by the sex pheromones of female moths' is quite apt with regard to 'the man playing at philosopher'. — Amity

The origin of philosophy as the artificial satiation of sexual desire?

Or the act of philosophy as mating ritual without an object?

What do you mean by 'identity'? — Amity

Something important to a person which orients them in the world. In particular an identity is not traits-based or behavior-based, in my articulation, but is more akin to being-in-the-world, but I'd rather not rely on that formulation because it concerns itself with equipmentality which seems different to me than identity.

What to mean by "identity" is a more general version of the question, what is a man? Whatever a gender-identity is, an identity is a generalization from even that.

What is the malformation, how does this present and who gets to diagnose it? — Amity

I'dd say the malformation is at least related to the definition of toxic masculinity offered, the way toxic masculinity presents is violently, and we are the ones who get to diagnose it. I'm not sure the term can be used in terms of self-identification unless someone feels penitent, but for the most part I think it's a diagnosis from the outside rather than a self-identification. It is a kind of violence, as I said earlier to @unenlightened -- but given the violence of the world it's justified. In some ways the psychological-type is an attempt at understanding how someone could come to make the decision of hurting their romantic partner. What's up with the continued violence women are subjected to in our society? One possible explanation is that we have unhealthy identities which makes it feel right (enough, at least) to use violence.

So, the characteristic of being 'masculine' in mind, body or spirit can be 'malformed'.
If it means not fitting what is usual, the correct shape or way of being, this could be applied to any person without it necessarily being toxic, ugly or frightening. It depends on perspective and context. A group identity related to ethnicity, culture or country. — Amity

Right. So the focus is on harm to self and others, not difference. Even if most people are not malformed, in this way, the one who is would be better off -- or at least more content -- if they weren't.

The undesirability of systemic 'toxic masculinity' concerns more than what a 'real man' is, or is not. — Amity

True.

Though I don't think we'll be able to encompass all concerns with a single antidote, right? This answer more in the spirit of answering the original question, or riffing on the notion of real man which I reject at the outset.

What would you propose as antidote?

How could I tell if I am honest with myself or not? — Moliere

My twopenneth; if I make predictions using my model and they turn out relatively unsurprising. If they don't, I've been dishonest (I've told a story which doesn't really fit with the behaviour).

To keep this gender-based. If I wanted everyone to treat me as a woman, then there must exist some set of roles/behaviours/approaches which constitute being a woman (for me), otherwise what could it possibly be that I'm asking others to do? If I too follow those, then I'm honest. If I don't, then I'm not.

But the thing here is that the criteria are public. They have to be otherwise the request "treat me like a woman", makes no sense. The use of term 'she/her' for example. It's a public term, we agree on it as a way of treating women. If someone said "treat me like a woman", but then started listing a whole load of things I don't associate with women (like using the word 'he'), I might quite fairly say "No, that's treating you like a man, you've misunderstood"

So, if there's obligations, behaviourally, on me when interacting with someone who wants to be treated 'like a woman', I think it's perverse to suggest that their own behaviour/attitude has no public component. If the trans woman can say to me "use 'she' that's what you say to women", why I can't I say "wear a dress, that's what women wear". Either we each have our own ideas of what a woman is and everyone else better lump it, or we agree together what one is (in different contexts, of course), and if that's not you, you're not one; end of story.

It's better at building a relationship, — Moliere

Is it? I don't see it. It seems rather one way to me, which is not a good basis for a co-operative relationship. The problem is that these 'identities' are public entities. 'Woman' is something we all share in the creation of as a category, a role, a character in a story... We share that creation so that we can co-operate better, we all know what we're talking about, we all have a more predictable set of interactions which means we can plan together and maybe understand one another a bit better.

That all breaks down when people decide they're going to individually determine what these public entities are; then all we have is fights over the usage (as we have), everyone taking offence, no one co-operating because we've lost sight of the point of these public constructions.

what this has taught me also is that listening to another's story is better for learning more about the world and yourself -- otherwise it's very easy to get trapped in my little web of thoughts. — Moliere

Yes, totally, but to tell that story we have to understand each other, we have to have a shared set of meanings for the words we use, including 'woman'. Otherwise, I can't hear your story because I don't know what you mean by anything you say.

to tell that story we have to understand each other, we have to have a shared set of meanings for the words we use, including 'woman'. Otherwise, I can't hear your story because I don't know what you mean by anything you say. — Isaac

I'll preempt @Joshs saying that we creatively 'extend' or re-determine those meanings through this dialogue, rather than them being external to our practice, fixed, and pre-existing, meanings we just use like hammers and screwdrivers.

On the other hand, we don't start from zero, so while dialogue might change our understanding of a word, it doesn't create that understanding ex nihilo.

And that's the sticking point, the off-the-shelf narratives we bring with us to the discussion. Is there a process for rewriting those scripts, how does it work, what is required for that process, and how robust is it?

And that's the sticking point, the off-the-shelf narratives we bring with us to the discussion. Is there a process for rewriting those scripts, how does it work, what is required for that process, and how robust is it? — Srap Tasmaner

I think our summoned @Joshs answers that. As you rightly suggest he would rightly say. We build these things as we go. But the point here is that it can't be a one-way system where Bob has a fully formed narrative in his head which he'd like other people to act in accordance with, but in interacting with Bob, Alice's own narrative must be discarded. I just don't think that's how social constructions are supposed to work. I think the idea of them (insofar as there is an 'idea', daren't even whisper evo psych's name) is to aid co-operation - reduce surprise really, but we don't need to track all the way back there.

I don't think there's anything stopping us each having our own narratives and just thrashing it out when they clash. I just don't think it's a very good idea, and that requires a little stability, some predictability (oh God, I'm turning into a conservative... I may have to be put out of my misery)

it can't be a one-way system where Bob has a fully formed narrative in his head which he'd like other people to act in accordance with, but in interacting with Bob, Alice's own narrative must be discarded — Isaac

I have the same concerns, and I have additional concern about defining Alice's speech as per se harmful and dangerous. (I've even argued to my ex, who's an anti-fascist activist, that if you tried advocating Nazism in Tel Aviv, it wouldn't be dangerous to anyone but you.)

But if Alice's narrative is racist, we want her to discard it, right?

Or at least presumably Bob does, there being no Arbiter of All Narratives who settles these disputes for us.

And there absolutely are cases of hardcore racists changing their views, but none of those are from somebody just demanding they do so because they're wrong.

This is supposed to be different because what someone is denying is not your views, possibly not even your value as a human being, but your identity -- they don't even see you as what you are. In pushing back against that demand, we are in effect treating this as just another view of yours, maybe one you're very attached to in a number of ways, but still a view. That's going to bother a lot of people, and maybe they have a point that the rules of this sort of game are different.

I'm thinking of Philip Roth's telling his parents not to be drawn into defending him against charges that he's anti-semitic. "That's a losing game," he said, which I took to mean, treating the proposition as possibly true is already giving ground. (Aha! You admit he might be...)

Similar thing here. Maybe it puts the whole discussion on the wrong footing to think of these expressions of gender identity as, you know, opinions more or less. @Moliere for instance does not want discussion about whether someone's expression of their gender identity is "accurate" or something, and I think there's something to do that.

The trouble I have is that I want to get there by seeing those expressions as performance, but the people using these expressions keep talking like they're supposed to be taken as incontrovertible fact, or as witness -- however you do that you're opening yourself to the same types of skepticism and critique as any other expression.

No one would consider 'racist' an identity worthy of the same deference. Why gender specifically?

I'm still caught up in these meta issues, but I hope to write something about the use of words like "man" and "woman" in these conversations. Maybe soon.

I don't think there's anything stopping us each having our own narratives and just thrashing it out when they clash. I just don't think it's a very good idea, and that requires a little stability, some predictability — Isaac

I'll come back to this.

if I make predictions using my model and they turn out relatively unsurprising. If they don't, I've been dishonest — Isaac

So this is different than I'd think -- the predictions are beforehand, and if it feels right to break your predictions then I'd say that's more honest than trying to predict ahead of time if I'm going to do this or that.

Though I'm a creature of habit and am certainly predictable in many ways -- I just think honesty with self has more to do with being in tune and less to do with predicting yourself. I'd say when we're honest with ourselves that's when we're most likely to find out what's different from our predictions about ourself.

If the trans woman can say to me "use 'she' that's what you say to women", why I can't I say "wear a dress, that's what women wear". — Isaac

Because men and women and all the others can and do wear dresses -- and women also don't wear dresses. That is, the behavior doesn't define the identity, nor do traits. Whatever identity is, it's not those (though some identities identify with those). There are some roles which are slotted for the genders which people are attached to, but people also overcome these along with traits-based views while maintaining their gender identity: Think here not of trans but of cis -- how many cis people have you known who undergo physical and occupational changes which don't align with their self-picture, but still manage to identify as their gender? Does a man cease to be a man if he doesn't have a job? Does a man cease to be a man if he has erectile dysfunction? Does a man cease to be a man if he has feminine feelings?

Who is best to decide these things other than the person whose identity it is? How could you possibly answer these questions for someone else ahead of time without talking to them? Remember the scenario posited was a stranger -- there's something to a point of view being important to a person's identity. It'd be awfully odd to conclude about a person's identity without ever talking to them, but instead making predictions from afar? If not then functionally I'd say the algorithms know us better than we know ourselves -- but there's a sense in which measurement of a person changes how they are. The very presence of a standard changes how we think and act.


I'll go back to the Morman's as a community with a public notion of gender which at least was strictly binary: publicly "I'm not that" is an available locution, even there. If the public is ignorant of how I am, which they certainly were, then I can always reach for that publicly known meaning. And when given the option between two choices I can always say "neither" -- even if it leads to contradiction in the concepts in play, the option is available. In a way I'm asking the community to shift how they use words to accommodate me, sure. And when it comes to something basic like my own identity the ask is on pain of rejecting the community -- I may not have a lot of power, but I can at least leave and make my own community with other people who agree with me.

And the people who disagreed? Well, now that we have a publicly available meaning, we can say -- as they did -- that they're just wrong. If it's your safety that's at stake, then "they're just wrong" is a remarkably easy justification.

But that's exactly what I want to avoid. I don't think we're incommensurable, in principle -- though we like to put up our barriers in practice, I believe we'll be able to weather the tide of gender changes and find ways to communicate again (while, of course, capital will try and use any identity conflicts or differences to split us up)

The trouble I have is that I want to get there by seeing those expressions as performance, but the people using these expressions keep talking like they're supposed to be taken as incontrovertible fact, or as witness -- however you do that you're opening yourself to the same types of skepticism and critique as any other expression. — Srap Tasmaner

I guess we could talk about correctness conditions for claiming an identity, and what they'd look like. We do have precedents for that in social roles. If I want to write "someone is", like "Sally is a woman", I'm going to treat that as "Sally can correctly claim to be a woman". I'll also stipulate that if there are any identities, social roles would count as them. Like a job. Or a profession.

Claiming a job has a clear correctness condition. I can correctly claim to be a builder in the employ of B.S Brick and Son's if and only if I am a builder in the employ of B.S Brick and Sons.

A profession is a bit more difficult. If I have worked as a builder for 10 years, and currently work as a builder, then I can correctly claim to be a builder. So it seems a sufficient condition exists for claiming professional roles. A necessary condition would be having helped build something at some point in your life. Addressing this with complete specificity seems impossible.

I might also be able to count as a builder if I have a certificate from a legally recognised organisation. Having such a certificate allows you to claim to be one and becomes a correctness condition for it. Perhaps correct in a different sense than we're after though.

We do have gender recognition certificates. Those might work operationally as correctness conditions in their society of issue. But they might not say anything about the normative but not-legal correctness condition for counting as that gender.

There's probably a constructive dilemma hereabouts, if we require a relatively sharp set of correctness conditions in order to claim that a social role can be correctly claimed, then we might end up committing ourselves to the claim that no one can correctly identify as a builder (while maintaining a non-legal sense of identity) or that identities cannot have non-legal correctness conditions in this sense. I'd personally want to treat that as a modus tollens, that since we have practical uses for identity categories, we can't require relatively sharp sets of correctness conditions for claiming social roles.

That would leave us in a space where social roles either have only operationally definable content - so you're a builder if you have the builder boiler plate, regardless of if you have ever built anything in your life - or that one can correctly claim to have an identity when that identity claim has largely unarticulated correctness conditions.

I stress "unarticulated" there, in contrast to the private language argument reference, since we've not established that perceived correctness conditions are unarticulable, or "private". We simply haven't established what they are yet.

I'd be willing to bet that counting as a man is similar to counting as round, semantically. Fuzzy boundaries, but with the ability to rule out some cases in some contexts.

correctness conditions — fdrake

If you mean something that could conceivably be negotiated, even if only implicitly, I don't know. Obviously there's something like that going on with words in general, but the problem here is that there seems to be no basis for negotiation: one side says the correctness condition for my claiming womanhood is that I know (feel??) myself to be a woman; the other side scrambles to find something else because whatever the criteria are that's not it. How will negotiation proceed?

If you dial the clock back a hundred years, say, and someone born a woman claims, without being metaphorical or something, to be a man, not to have a preference for presenting as a man, in the culturally standard way, though a woman, but to be a man full-stop, then the likely conclusion would be that this woman is suffering from a delusion.

I would even find that possibility tempting today except it just doesn't look delusional, or not like any delusion I'm at all familiar with. I literally do not know what it's supposed to mean, which suggests to me that people making such identity claims are up to something completely different.

What's not clear is whether my understanding is expected or required. Usually with words people say to me, it is, but I'm honestly not sure here, which is odd. I can think of two explanations for this: it is not a message, say, but a signal; or language is being used in some new way, and I don't just mean in a Humpty Dumpty way.

If it's the latter then the world has changed and maybe this is *real* postmodernism, not the piddly warmups we've been living through but the real thing, a through-the-looking-glass kind of change. All of us on the forum here are suddenly dinosaurs no matter how cool we thought we were.

Either way, negotiating assertibility conditions doesn't seem to be on the table.

[ Feel now I shouldn't have posted this at all, so if you missed it, it's too late. ]