Alright, finished it. I don't exactly agree with what she's saying. But to answer her question of "Why" it seems enough to me -- from the strictly legal perspective -- that discrimination occurs.

So, for instance, if one is Muslim -- meaning they have a deeply held feeling of being Muslim, and they outwardly express such sentiments -- then we can tell well enough what a Muslim is for legal purposes. And if violence or workplace discrimination takes place based on said identity then we have a reason why to offer legal protections for said identity.

I change to Muslim here because she likens transgender identity to religious identity.


To me it seems less that she is interested in interiority as much as she is interested in the legal protections afforded to personal claims on identity. It's a question of political philosophy more than it is a question of mind or metaphysics or epistemology. yes?

Yeah, I kind of felt like that, though she does address that too. If you modify the claim then she's just not talking to people like that, and believes that in so modifying the claim you undermine any reason why to offer said protections. So to her the claim is necessary in order to justify legal protections.

That's what I'm not so sure about. We do, after all, offer legal protections to religious identities.

I asked them to define homosexuality - what "gay" is. They couldn't do it, and they acknowledged that it couldn't be done. That is, is there a sine qua non either of being or not being gay, or with respect to any aspect of sexuality? — tim wood

I find that ridiculous, as, I can say with confidence, would many others, whether gay, straight, or other. Clearly there is meaning enough to come up with at least a working definition. — Sapientia

The professional social workers were, most likely, "over-thinking" the question, but what is the cause, motivation, or source of "over-thinking"? One source is over-exposure to social theory (soctheo) which, for various reasons, seeks to undermine systems of oppression which, some theorists think, depends on rigid definitions. So, race and gender (two faves of the soctheo types) come in for major dithering operations which fuzz up everything until they can't see anything clearly.

So, male, masculine, men, boys; female, feminine, women, girls; blacks, whites, germans, french, welsh, scot, etc. are all found to be insubstantial in all ways, as are gay and straight. The only thing clear to soctheos is that most people are oppressed by white males, and that point they can analyze with self-declared clarity and certainty (which they do over and over again).

So, how does one "identify" as a homosexual / gay person? Is it possible? Sure, it's possible. For the individual, there is first self-identity: "I know I am gay". They know what they feel (affective axis) and what they think (cognitive axis). They know what gives them an instant hard on, and what doesn't (physical axis). Gay men know they are gay because they fantasize about male bodies and having sex with other men. Gay men have, and like to have sex with other men (performative axis). Gay men may preferentially socialize with other gay men (social axis).

Straight men differ from gay men in how they self-identify, what they feel, what they think bout, what turns them on, how they perform sex, and who and how they socialize. They will be oriented towards heterosexuality.

Do some straight, heterosexual men resemble gay men? Sure -- and visa versa. Some men are bisexual -- they respond sexually to both men and women (usually not equally). That some men are bisexual doesn't invalidate the straight-gay dichotomy that most people experience, since most people are not, in the long run, bisexual. (A gay man having sex with a woman a few times doesn't make him bisexual or straight, anymore than a straight man having sex with another man a few times makes him bisexual or gay.)

What about stereotypical gay behavior, like "swishy" "faggoty" talking and walking? Like dressing up in women's clothes and (usually caricaturing some) women's behavior? Are these stereotypes an essential part of gay identity? No. Well done swish and drag are learned behaviors that require practice. Some men can do backward somersaults in high heels and plant without so much as a wobble. Most people (male or female) can not. Gays have subtle methods of signaling (like eye contact and other secret methods) but sometimes subtleness is just too limited. A faggoty walk is a much more efficient broadcast. They weren't born knowing how to do that.

What about the more feminine gender roles (apart from sex) that some gay men assume; is that an essential part of gayness? No. Sometimes boys are partial to feminine activities because the are excluded from typical male activities by other boys or men. Sometimes feminine activities (like cooking is in traditional families) were more interesting than masculine activities (like auto repair, mowing the lawn, etc.). Many gay men perform jobs which are either typically male gender-identified or are more gender-neutral--like white collar work. Some gay men are interior decorators, hair dressers, or social workers but one is far more likely to come across gay computer programmers, businessmen, technicians, and the like in groups of gay men.

A woman trapped in a man's body. — Banno

What this statement implies is that a woman is a mental state-of-affairs and a man is a physical state-of-affairs and that one can placed inside another.

Someone claiming that they are a man in a woman's body would contradict the previous statement. It would be implying that a man is a mental state of affairs and a woman is a physical state of affairs.

To remove the contradiction we could say that being a man or woman is a combination of a mental and physical state of affairs. When someone says that they are a man in a woman's body or a woman in a man's body what they are really saying is that they are a man or a woman, respectively, with a mental illness, or raised in a way to diverge their mental and physical synchronization (parents raising their son to dress like a girl and play with girl toys).

When someone says that they are a man in a woman's body or a woman in a man's body what they are really saying is that they are a man or a woman, respectively, with a mental illness, — Harry Hindu

I would only say it has negative psychological implications if this state of mind is expressed, by the person, as "trapped".

'Trapped" expresses a problem.

Otherwise, if it causes no harm then "illness" is unnecessary.

That is, the whole what it is like to be... is logically fraught. — Banno

I have long thought the "what it is to be like" is kind of wrongheaded. Nagel says there is something it is like to be a bat. I would say there is nothing (else) it is like to be a bat, but that it is something to be a bat, just as it is something to be you, or me, or gay, or a policeman, to play golf, or drink beer, or anything at all that has an experiential dimension.

But maybe this is just being pedantic. It's normal parlance to ask questions such as "What's it like to play golf" or "what's it like to visit China" or "what's it like to be heterosexual". It's just that if we take that kind of question literally it seems kind of nonsensical. If I ask "what's it like to be you", you could rightly answer "it's not like anything else at all", because what it is to be you cannot be compared with what it is to be anything else. On the other hand being you is presumably more like being me than it is like being a stone. Just the usual imprecisions of language.

That's what might be claimed. And the point is the incoherence of claiming the mental state-of-affairs of a man.

way it is like to play golf is not a deeply held experience that you share with other golfers.

What it is to play golf as an experience is not something you share with others, but an experience you have in kind with other golfers. You cannot know what it is (in the sense of what it is like) to play golf (except perhaps "by analogy", by imagining other experiences you have had which might be similar in some ways) unless you have actually played golf.

Why not? You don't think professional golfers can talk about that for hours together over a beer?

The professional social workers were, most likely, "over-thinking" the question, — Bitter Crank

They were "overthinking" it because I asked them to. The question, which I think you have resolved to any reasonable person's satisfaction, was if there was any absolute criteria or standard by which a male, on the basis of the standard, could be reckoned gay or not gay. I challenged them with it because I was persuaded that existing "criteria" as I know of them were a) misused and b) not real criteria in any case. I figured if anyone knew, these guys would.

Your answer, as I understand it, is that there is no such test, and further that there cannot be such a test, because homosexuality or gayness is neither understood nor defined is such a way as to make any such test possible.

But is there such a thing as a homosexual? is there such a thing as a heterosexual? As a practical matter, of course! Beyond that? Well, you'd need a test of some sort, wouldn't you, and self-identification wouldn't do, would it.

If anyone thinks the question of such a test/criteria/standard is foolish, let him be reminded that there are many places in the world where people think they have such tests, and if you fail such a test, they will kill you. And there are many other places in the world where, again, people think they know, and will hurt you in some way if they think you're gay.

It's a situation analogous to that with race. Are there white people, black people, yellow people, brown people, etc.? Are there people who readily self-identify as being members of one (or more!) of these groups? Of course there are! And by a number of criteria it makes for differences. But at the same time it's well and long recognized that if you look at race closely enough, it just disappears. There is no such thing. Indeed, if you accept theories about a mitochondrial Eve, which works out to be more likely and reasonable than you might think, then we're all, everyone, cousins.

To me it seems less that she is interested in interiority as much as she is interested in the legal protections afforded to personal claims on identity. It's a question of political philosophy more than it is a question of mind or metaphysics or epistemology. yes? — Moliere

The possible political consequences to her are negative. She says early on that that is the reason she's arguing against this particular notion of gender identity, and she argues for the problematic consequences at the end...

Her argumentative 'style' is akin to my own... criterion... criterion... criterion...

But is there such a thing as a homosexual? is there such a thing as a heterosexual? As a practical matter, of course! Beyond that? Well, you'd need a test of some sort, wouldn't you, and self-identification wouldn't do, would it. — tim wood

Self-identification would not alone be sufficient as a test. Anyone can say they are gay or straight. Backing it up with behavior is much more compelling.

Your answer, as I understand it, is that there is no such test — tim wood

I did not intend to give you the impression that there was no "test". If you rate sexual behaviors on the various axes I listed (affective, cognitive, physical, performative, social) most individuals will report or display feelings, ideas, physical responses (erections, intense interest...) sexual activity, and social activity that will place them as exclusively or primarily heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual.

The objectively observable axes (physical and observable emotional responses, sexual performance, and social behavior) are, I think, reasonably reliable indicators of what and how much sexual interest one has in someone else. If a guy does not get an erection while kissing and fondling an attractive, willing, and available woman, what would that indicate? It strongly suggests he is not interested in women--not heterosexual. You would buy that much of a test, wouldn't you?

If a man who is kissing and fondling an attractive man gets an erection, and further professes and demonstrates strong interest in having sex, wouldn't that indicate he was homosexual? Especially if the social setting where the encounter is taking place is exclusive to homosexuals (like a park or a gay bar). If in conversation the man offered additional information on the affective and cognitive axes that backed up the observable behavior, wouldn't that further strengthen the test results?

From my experience, if someone in a gay environment acts like they are interested in gay sex, and says the sort of thing that gay men say in conversations about being gay, then they are gay -- until proven otherwise. And they aren't proven otherwise very often. Yes, I have met a few people who seemed to be gay for all practical purposes, but who couldn't or wouldn't perform sexually in an appropriate setting. In 40 years of looking for and having sex with hundred of men, and talking with hundreds more men about being gay (some in encounter groups) very few -- less than... 10? failed to deliver.

So I ask you: do you really think the gay social workers are unable to define what a homosexual is? How, for instance, do they find sexual partners? How do they assess whether someone they have had sex with all night is a one night stand or a potential for a longer relationship? I submit they go by the sorts of tests I provided.

A heterosexual is what a heterosexual does. Heterosexual men court and have sex with women--again and again. Is there some mystery still lurking here?

because it also involves the playing of golf.

If you are not going to get on the page by listening to the podcast, your posts will remain unhelpful.

part of why I found her interesting is that most of the feminist stuff around is not analytic. Her style is refreshingly direct.

So being a golfer involves shared experience, but being a woman doesn't?

playing golf is something we can both experience. The mooted gender identity does not have any outward qualities that might be shared. It is simply the gender you feel that you are.

listen to the podcast.

I did – I don't know what you want.

When men or women sit around talking about their shared experiences as men/women, what are they talking about? Incredibly, it must be an experience they do not share. It must be that there is nothing it is like to be a man or a woman – these incredibly salient features have no effect on one's experience of the world.

But being a golfer does. Playing golf is something people can have a shared experience of – not being a man or a woman.

Is this a plausible thing to think?

so did you notice the part about gender identity only being known by how one feels?

That’s what makes it different.

Let’s put the question that is asked towards the end of the talk:

Can one be wrong about ones gender identity?

I've never met anyone who claimed otherwise. Many trans people come to realize that they are trans.

Yes, one can be wrong about one's gender identity.

Further, I'd say Rebecca does not necessarily have a gender identity. Why go so far as to call it a universal phenomena? For her the only reason to do so is for political purposes -- that without the three main characteristics she is arguing against then there is no reason to give gender identity legal or political weight, that doing so undermines what trans activists are asking for.

That's why it seems to me that her aim is mainly political.

So she has three things that she thinks gender identity must have:

Universality: It needs to be a phenomena that all persons have.
Stability: It needs to be a relatively fixed or essential property.
Independence: It must be independent of both sex-body, and upbringing.

And she argues how these cannot all hold. So the original claim is something that cannot be true, on pain of incoherence.


She does offer some mid-way concessions. She even seems to believe that we all have individual access to ourselves -- I cannot know what it is like to be someone else, but I can know what it is like to be me. On that basis I cannot know what it is like to be a man, because I do not share experiences with other men. She also seems fine with the notion of preference for artifacts associated with words. She's mostly concerned with the claim she introduces.

But why would interiority need any of these things to make sense? There is the fact that people do bond over identities -- so men bond over man-like experiences, and women do the same. Rebecca can very well be a woman and not feel like there is some bond there. There is nothing contradictory in this. Experience is very particular. But we can know what someone is talking about, and know what they mean, and know they have experienced such-and-such when they give an outward expression of such. This is especially so over time. So one claim all by itself is just one claim. But sharing an experience comes down to a relationship -- it comes down to what a person is like over time.

We can come to know another through a relationship, through sharing. We do so by listening, which can only happen if we trust them.

Also to note -- I think that the politics of gender abolition are simpler. But they are too simple -- I think the facts forced me to reconsider another way. My intuitions are more in alignment with the notion that there is nothing it is like to be a man or woman, that gender is performative. But I think I was wrong.

Yes, one can be wrong about one's gender identity. — Moliere

Then you have rejected the notion of gender identity as Rebecca sets it out, and we are pretty much in agreement. That's fine.

My intuitions are more in alignment with the notion that there is nothing it is like to be a man or woman, that gender is performative. — Moliere

Hmm. At one stage Rebecca points out that it would be far simpler to refer to one's genitals than a brain scan to determine one's gender. I have to agree with her that gender is not completely performative. It's not just a social construct, because there are observable physical differences between men and women. But the social superstructure built on the basis of these differences is absurd. One's genitals ought play no part in one's income, for example - yet the evidence shows that it does.

So I ask you: do you really think the gay social workers are unable to define what a homosexual is? — Bitter Crank

To their own satisfaction for practical purposes, absolutely. But let us forget about them and let you stand in for them. I credit you with being as knowledgeable on this as they were.

The sticking point seems to be the quality of the test. I'm looking for an absolute test (on the assumption there is no such test). You return with preponderance of practice - behaviour.

I concede all of these as a practical matter. But still these are behaviors. If a person changes his behavior, refrains from gay behavior, does that mean he is no longer gay?

So I ask you: do you really think the gay social workers are unable to define what a homosexual is? How, for instance, do they find sexual partners? How do they assess whether someone they have had sex with all night is a one night stand or a potential for a longer relationship? I submit they go by the sorts of tests I provided.

A heterosexual is what a heterosexual does. Heterosexual men court and have sex with women--again and again. Is there some mystery still lurking here? — Bitter Crank

(Small point. On your definition, are married men heterosexual? With "court and have sex with - again and again" is a strong implication of multiplicity of partners.)

Agreed. And you even have reliability - but reliability for what? Continued behavior? Perhaps this. If a something walk, talks, and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck. The "probably" makes all the difference. It leaves the question, is it a duck? The duckness of a candidate duck can be resolved. Of course it is contingent until resolved - it's probably a duck. If a man walks, talks, and acts gay, apparently you would have it settled that he's gay. But is that what he is? Or is your classification based on behaviour. (I do not have a problem with self-identity, only that it not be identified with other-identity.)

So the only mystery is in just what exactly the labels mean. It's the "exactly" I'm focused on, that buffaloed the social workers.

Once you allow person A to decide what person B is, absent any absolute test, that's trouble. If you want to outlaw or control certain behaviors, then usually the behaviors are defined - that's absolute; they did or didn't happen.

Then you have rejected the notion of gender identity as Rebecca sets it out, and we are pretty much in agreement. That's fine — Banno

I suppose I take it that she draws a lot more from said rejection than I do, though. The details of the rejection seem important to me, which is why I felt like I needed to say more than just that.

Though for you this is just an illustrative example, I think.

Hmm. At one stage Rebecca points out that it would be far simpler to refer to one's genitals than a brain scan to determine one's gender. I have to agree with her that gender is not completely performative. It's not just a social construct, because there are observable physical differences between men and women. But the social superstructure built on the basis of these differences is absurd. One's genitals ought play no part in one's income, for example - yet the evidence shows that it does. — Banno

Even more simple would be to ask, and determine if the person is trustworthy or not. Gender, so I'd put it, is a possible aspect of identity. Identity has both a personal and social side -- so the radical feminist distinction between sex and gender points out that the physical facts determine sex, whereas the social performance, expectations, rules, and roles create gender. So the physical facts and differences between men and women don't have a bearing on gender. I think I could go along with that. The part I'd say is more complicated is on the side of identity. Where I certainly agree is that sex, and gender, should not result in income disparity or generally speaking in discrimination or violence -- which evidence shows sex and gender to result in both.

The part I disagree on is with respect to personal identification.

Now I could say, "I am irascible" -- I am talking about a part of my identity in so doing. The sentence "I am irascible" is truth-apt. You can determine whether I am or not irascible not really from my stating so, checking a part of my body, doing a brain scan, or anything like that -- far better to simply take is as true and see where it goes. If you find that my disposition in action doesn't match up, you might start to question the statement. But if I find me becoming angry at many slights you'd say that I know something about myself.

There is that internal part, where I have a deep feeling about my personality, and there are outward expressions of what I feel deeply about myself. And however that plays out, within our relationship with one another, will allow you to determine whether such is true or false.

So we might have a person who says "I am femme" -- expressing her gender identity. She responds to feminine pronouns, associates parts of her identity with feminity, and even bonds with other femme persons over said identity. There are feelings associated with the identity that are shared, as well as other aspects. But how they know such is the case is simply by being such. How we might know such is the case is if we have a relationship with them, they are trustworthy, and their outward expressions confirm what they say about themself through time. It is an assymetric relationship -- we might have reason to call such into question, but our reasons for justification are based upon what someone else tells us, feels, and is. They have priority in marking that boundary.