Interesting. So if I understand, we start with the assumption that there are males and females, and...?

Force everyone into one category or the other? I don't see why we should do that, and I agree it woudl be wrong to do so.

Only find males and females, because that is all we are looking for? But we can acknowledge that there are many different sexed bodies, yet still point out that most of them fall within two categories.

...to be understood as someone who is properly, female/male, not just a woman/man. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But one cannot perform a vasectomy on a trans man. Still, there is some sense in what you say.

Well, I was dealing with instances in which there were male and females.

You're right. We shouldn't assume there are males and females at all. There could be a moment, for example, where it was a fact no-one was of those categories, even if they had the same biological features as other people called "male" and "female."

In any case, we have to let the truth of an individual do the work here. To have males and females, the people and bodies who have that meaning have to exist. If we just just have a bunch of beings with penises who have "no sex," we will have no males.

(and this is why we mostly find sexed bodies, in most cases, it's a fact of us humans to belong to one. For most of us, it is true we have a sex. We are describing a fact of the people in question, just a fact given by a truth of someone's sex, rather than being a certain body ).

The bigotry isn't a question of specific intention. It's in the very concepts Harry is using. In taking a position trans people are deluded, they's taken a position trans people are mistaken, trans identities aren't real and values they ought to be rejected in favour of "telling the truth."

It's simalir to if I were to say: "Anyone named Pseudonym was deluded in claiming to be a member of The Philosophy Forum. The person targeted is rejected, they are positioned as a danger to trust or respect, they are set-up as a target, etc.

Then again, some (assigned in the usual discourses) males cannot have one either. :smile:

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/congenital-bilateral-absence-of-the-vas-deferens

respecting the interiority of others without compromising your own - or if you want to put it in terms of harm, that treating people like objects is inherently harmful. — angslan

If someone asked what species you were, would you expect me to ask you what species you 'feel like', or would you find it entirely satisfactory for me to answer that you're Homo sapiens? If someone asked what colour your hair was would you expect me to ask what colour you 'feel like' your hair is, or would it be OK to just say the colour it looks like to me? I don't raise these points to argue that gender terms are definitely observable things like species and colour, I'm aware that this is disputed whereas species and colour are not. I raise them to point out that using words which treat people as objects is not in any way inherently bad. For (hopefully) well-meaning purposes such a positive discrimination, we have a description of a person's race based on physiological characteristics. We don't accept a person as part of a black minority group despite the fact that they are white as driven snow just because they 'feel like' a person of colour. It's really important to actual people of colour that membership of that category (as I say for hopefully well-meaning purposes) is strictly based on actual physiological membership, not on what a person 'feels like'. Imagine trying to establish a positive discrimination programme to undo years of pay discrimination but allowing anyone who 'feels black' to join that category. Again, just to re-iterate because I can sense the ease with which this can be taken out of context, I'm not arguing that gender is definitely a physiological thing (in the way the skin colour is), I'm pointing out that labels based on physiological characteristics are not inherently harmful, if they are to exist at all. They can be used to undo the effects of years oppression based on those characteristics,

More importantly though, I think this is the basis of community language. Words are based (insofar as possible) on features available to everyone, because words belong to everyone. It's not that physiological features have primacy because they're more important than how you feel. It's that physiological features have primacy because they are most available to everyone and language is a communal thing. Basing language on private facts undermines it's community nature (more on that later).

1 - The trans claim is not that there is a definitive or necessary connection between chromosomes and gender-identity. The trans claim is not that there is a definitive or necessary connection between outward appearance and gender-identity. If it were, the claim would insinuate that there are no trans people - a self-defeating claim. I think we might both agree on this issue - I am not sure. — angslan

No, we do not agree on this one. The trans claim is implicitly that there is a connection between chromosomes and gender identity. If there were no connection, than a man (who feels like a woman) could still be called a man (based on his chromosomes) because there's nothing 'not man-like' about the way he's feeling. He wants to wear a dress - fine, there's nothing non-manly about wearing a dress. He wants to associate with other women in a platonic way - fine, there's nothing un-man-like about that. Whatever he thinks or feels requires no change to the label 'Man' because all of his thoughts and feelings are perfectly legitimate thoughts and feelings for someone with xy chromosomes to have.

But that's not what's being implied by the need for a new label. The need for a new label implies that there's something wrong with a man thinking and feeling that way. That a person thinking and feeling that way can't be a 'Man' they must be a 'woman', because that's one of the ways 'women' think and feel, not one of the ways 'men' think and feel.

Regardless of future intention. The word 'Woman' was used to describe those people with particular physiological characteristics. That's just an historical fact without any judgement value. A man who thinks and feels a certain way he calls "like a woman" has not chosen the term "woman" as his preferred label at random. He's chosen it because he wants to be considered as being in the same group as all the other people called by the same term. But all the other people called by the same term are those who have physiological characteristics of having two x chromosomes. He's making a very clear statement that he thinks his thoughts and feelings belong in the same group as those of people with two x chromosomes. Now why would he make that claim if he also wishes to make the opposite claim that there is no connection between thoughts/feeling and chromosomes? No connection at all would require a new word, one not previously used to describe those with certain physiological characteristics. A group which everyone could voluntarily join, in accordance with their preferences. But that's not what's being requested. Men who have these thoughts/feelings that they call 'like a woman' have requested that they be labelled by the term currently used as the default label for anyone with breasts and a vagina. This is not random. It's because they think there's a connection.

Basically when trans people want a label to describe their identity, they've deliberately picked a word which previously described the identity of anyone with the outward appearance of a certain set of chromosomes. They're specifically making the claim that their identity matches most closely that of this group. Essentially, the implicit claim is that identity and chromosomes are, in fact, tightly linked and they (being a rare exception) need to be re-labelled to more 'correctly' match this connection.

2 - The use of gendered language predates critical interrogation of the distinctions between sex, gender identity, gender roles, and the like. There is not one true, physiological etymology or definition of "woman" and "man" in use over the past few hundred years - this word is bound up in the fusing of sex, gender identity and gender roles. Thus, the word today is the child of this "de-fusing". The claim that it historically denoted physical appearance and that this is the "true, correct" or "objective" use of the term is a little blind to the history of sex and gender (and falls foul of the etymological fallacy anyway). I think we might be able to both agree on this - but perhaps we are not there yet. — angslan

Yes, technically, but I'm not sure I agree with the scope, or the focus. I don't think the last few hundred years is at all correct. I'm no historian so I won't stand firmly by this, but I'm pretty sure that there was no sense in which "woman" was used to describe anyone other than a person with (at least some of) the physiological characteristics associated with two x chromosomes until maybe forty or fifty years ago? Nor do I agree with the scope, even today the word is still primarily based on physiological features even though there is a strong movement to de-couple it. When a midwife says "it's a girl" she's not doing a psych analysis.

To (d) the objection is that A has special access to knowledge about themselves. This is two-pronged objection - first, that we believe people who make authentic statements about their identity, and two, that objective comparison of internal identities is impossible. — angslan

That would be fine if we were talking about psychological profiles, but we're not. We're talking about language. I'm guessing (from your presence on this forum) that you're familiar with Wittgenstein's private language argument? The problem is that language is a communal exercise. A private language simply doesn't make any sense, how would you know if you were using the terms correctly? You can't necessarily trust your memory of the last time you used them, and you have no external reference to check. (it's a bit more complex than that, but I'm hoping you're familiar with it already).

So a term within a community language, based on a private feeling is problematic. How can anyone check if they're using the term correctly? This is simply not how any other aspect of language works and you would be asking that we make an absolutely unique exception for gender terms. If I wish to describe myself as 'tall', the way I do it is to experimentally use the word 'tall' in reference to myself and check that other language users understand me. If they do not, I presume I'm using the word incorrectly, maybe I'm not tall enough to be generally considered 'tall'. This is the same for literally all words. Except, apparently, the terms "woman/man" and "him/her". here, you're suggesting. If I want to refer to myself as "woman" I don't have to experimentally do so and check with other language users that I'm using the term correctly. I merely state that I think it's the correct use and therefore everyone else has to agree with me when they talk to me. This is simply not how any other word works. To use words this way undermines the whole community enterprise that language is. There's no consensus seeking, there's no inclusivity.

I think that you have expressed that some feminists feel that applying the word "woman" to someone outside of their conceptual categorisation of "woman" is compromising, or inappropriate to, their identity as women. I think that to make such a claim requires a strict categorisation of "woman". It also requires a protective approach to that categorisation. Such a strict categorisation requires a conceptualisation of (i) how it feels to be a woman, (ii) the experiences and circumstances of women, (iii) the treatment of women, or some combination of more than one. The reason that categorisation needs to be strict is that there is a resistance to permitting new members to the category (in some cases, as you note, the chromosomes you were born with and not even the sexual organs that you currently have - very strict!). — angslan

I don't understand how you are distinguishing the categorisation of the two claims here. Yes, the claim that some feminists are making (that their identity is being undermined by people claiming to 'feel like a woman') requires that the category "women" be defined. But so does that claim "I feel like a woman". There must be something it is like to be a woman in order for someone to feel it. It may not be a tightly defined thing, but it must be a thing otherwise there would be no cause to require a new label than the one given at birth. So it's not about categorisation or not. Both approaches require a category. It's about which characteristics define that category. I'm arguing that because of the communal nature of language, the characteristics which define a term should be widely, and publicly available as far as possible, not private matters which cannot be verified.

The bigotry isn't a question of specific intention. It's in the very concepts Harry is using. In taking a position trans people are deluded, they's taken a position trans people are mistaken, trans identities aren't real and values they ought to be rejected in favour of "telling the truth." — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes. Some people are sometimes deluded. You're begging the question. If you start from a neutral position that it is possible for people to be deluded about things (to believe things which are not the case) then you cannot argue that the possibility of a group being deluded can't be discussed because to do so would be to argue that such a group are mistaken.

Anorexics are deluded. They think they're fat when they are not. They are mistaken. They're not 'really' fat such that we should put them on a diet. They're 'really' deluded so we should help then realise a position which is more 'true'. Agrophobics are deluded, they think wide open spaces are threatening when they are not. Depressives are deluded, they think that their circumstances contain more negatives than they do.

I haven't read anything in Harry's comments which suggests that trans people do not have a legitimate feeling. Nor that they do not have a feeling which differentiates them from non-trans people. The issue is with the claim that they 'actually are' the opposite sex in some way. This is unsubstantiated. They might be. We might at some point in time find a set genes which controls certain areas of brain development which would demonstrate that some people in male bodies do in fact have female brains. But until that time, it is perfectly reasonable to hold any rational theory about the facts of the matter. Including the theory that men who think they 'actually are' women, are deluded in the same way anorexics who think they 'actually are' fat are deluded.

At the moment, there are two options for a man who 'feels like' he is a woman to the extent that he wants to change his body. 1) have surgery to make that change, 2) have psychological help to find ways of living with that feeling in the body he has. It's not an unreasonable position to hold that 2) is the better option. It may not be your decision, but it's not bigoted, it's just an evaluation of the situation.

What I do find bigoted (if I may say) is the slightly offensive way you seem to be insinuating that needing psychological help to deal with some delusions is somehow insulting. Lots of people need psychological help with minor or major delusions, many people suffer from depression or anxiety (both of which create delusionary realities) and they seek help with it all the time. There's absolutely nothing wrong with needing a bit of help with delusionary thinking and I'd rather prefer you didn't keep implying that it's some kind of insult.

Words are based (insofar as possible) on features available to everyone, because words belong to everyone. It's not that physiological features have primacy because they're more important than how you feel. It's that physiological features have primacy because they are most available to everyone and language is a communal thing. — Pseudonym

As though we haven't been able to have some sort of discussion regarding what people feel like or who they are? This is another treat people like objects when completely unnecessary. I mean, the point of language is communication, so we might as well accept the utility of communication with other people in regards to their terms of address.

The trans claim is implicitly that there is a connection between chromosomes and gender identity. — Pseudonym

No. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. If this is really the basis of your claims, then you are not doing the listening (or the reflection) that you are asking of others.

If there were no connection, than a man (who feels like a woman) could still be called a man (based on his chromosomes) because there's nothing 'not man-like' about the way he's feeling. — Pseudonym

Only if feeling is external. It's not. You are actually begging the question here - this conclusion of yours is only possible is you necessitate a connection between chromosomes and feeling in the first place.

That a person thinking and feeling that way can't be a 'Man' they must be a 'woman', because that's one of the ways 'women' think and feel, not one of the ways 'men' think and feel. — Pseudonym

You say this as if other people have to label people - what we are talking about is people telling us their authentic feelings. They are not saying, "I can't be called a man because men don't think this way." They are saying, "I feel like a woman."

The word 'Woman' was used to describe those people with particular physiological characteristics. That's just an historical fact without any judgement value. — Pseudonym

This is another fundamental misunderstanding - perhaps you did not read my post, or you haven't looked at the history of sex-gender terms and thinking?

Men who have these thoughts/feelings that they call 'like a woman' have requested that they be labelled by the term currently used as the default label for anyone with breasts and a vagina. — Pseudonym

Not to be nit-picky, but just to point out the fuzziness of these sets - not all people with breasts have a vagina, and not all people with XX chromosomes have either or both.

but I'm pretty sure that there was no sense in which "woman" was used to describe anyone other than a person with (at least some of) the physiological characteristics associated with two x chromosomes until maybe forty or fifty years ago? — Pseudonym

It was also associated with the female gender identity, and when complex situations arose people had difficulty expressing them. But that does not mean that it did not exist. It also does not mean that outward sex characteristics is the "true" etymology of the word and gender identity or gender roles is the "false" etymology. At some point in history these two concepts were critically reviewed and conceived of to be more separate than initially conceived. At this point we could have split up language more thoroughly (as Banno attempts to do in his posts, even if just for some clarity in this thread), but generally we did not.

When a midwife says "it's a girl" she's not doing a psych analysis. — Pseudonym

But she may not be making a commentary on gender as much as on sex.

Yes, the claim that some feminists are making (that their identity is being undermined by people claiming to 'feel like a woman') requires that the category "women" be defined. But so does that claim "I feel like a woman". There must be something it is like to be a woman in order for someone to feel it. It may not be a tightly defined thing — Pseudonym

My argument was that compromising one's own identity by addressing others requires strict categorisation. But two women, with breasts and vaginas and XX chromosomes that they've had since birth and both of whom feel like women can feel completely differently to each other - and yet still feel like women. So I don't think strict categorisation cannot be the case.

A private language simply doesn't make any sense, how would you know if you were using the terms correctly? — Pseudonym

The same way you learn someone's name. How is this harder, or more morally complex, than that?

Yes. Some people are sometimes deluded. You're begging the question. If you start from a neutral position that it is possible for people to be deluded about things (to believe things which are not the case) then you cannot argue that the possibility of a group being deluded can't be discussed because to do so would be to argue that such a group are mistaken.

Anorexics are deluded. They think they're fat when they are not. They are mistaken. They're not 'really' fat such that we should put them on a diet. They're 'really' deluded so we should help then realise a position which is more 'true'. Agrophobics are deluded, they think wide open spaces are threatening when they are not. Depressives are deluded, they think that their circumstances contain more negatives than they do. — Pseudonym

All of which is manifestly untrue of trans people: were they to mistake for their body for something it was not, they wouldn't have a problem. If they were deluded about there body in the way, they would encounter it and think it of a form they sensed. This is not the case. A trans persons dysphoric about their body knows how it exists. The trans woman does not mistake her penis for a vagina like they anorexic mistakes their healthy body for fat. She knows she has a penis. In this respect, their experiences is defined in not being deluded, in recognising their body is different to the one they sense.

I'm not begging any sort of question. I'm coming form a position which recognises the trans person cannot possibly be deluded in this way because their experience is defined in recognising the bodily states they have.

As though we haven't been able to have some sort of discussion regarding what people feel like or who they are? — angslan

No, we clearly haven't. If anything certain can be said of this discussion (and the wider debate in society) it is that no one is certain about the meaning of the terms used and no one quite understands what the others are saying. I'd say this type of discussion was an absolutely classic example of the sort of mess that occurs when terms whose correct application should be public are made private.

Only if feeling is external. It's not. You are actually begging the question here - this conclusion of yours is only possible is you necessitate a connection between chromosomes and feeling in the first place. — angslan

Explain how this is only the case if feelings are external. You haven't provided an argument here, just a bare assertion.

If this is really the basis of your claims, then you are not doing the listening (or the reflection) that you are asking of others. — angslan

Really, after the analysis you've put in so far the best you've got is "if you don't agree with me you must not be trying hard enough"? I obviously think that such a claim is implied. That's why I used the word 'implicit'. Therefore it's not about listening, it's about analysis. If you disagree with my analysis hen by all means present your argument. "that's not their claim because that's not what they say their claim is" is not an argument.

You say this as if other people have to label people - what we are talking about is people telling us their authentic feelings. They are not saying, "I can't be called a man because men don't think this way." They are saying, "I feel like a woman." — angslan

No, what we're talking about is absolutely and explicitly labels. I have never argued that a person should be somehow prevented from making the statement "I feel like a woman", have I? The entirety of my discussion on the matter has been about what label to apply to those making such a statement. Where are my comments about the value or otherwise of people telling us their authentic feelings. If you can quote me anything I've said on the matter then maybe I can understand why you think that's what we're talking about, but a cursory glance over that last dozen posts seems to reveal an awful lot of references on both sides to the correct terms of reference. I think it's pretty obvious that is what we're talking about.

The word 'Woman' was used to describe those people with particular physiological characteristics. That's just an historical fact without any judgement value. — Pseudonym


This is another fundamental misunderstanding - perhaps you did not read my post, or you haven't looked at the history of sex-gender terms and thinking? — angslan

Are you suggesting it's not true that the word "woman" was not, in the past, used to describe those people with particular physiological characteristics? As I said, I'm no historian, but I think such a eccentric claim should have at least some evidence presented. Can you provide me with your source material showing that two hundred years ago (or more) the word "woman" was being applied as a proper term of reference to people based on something other than their physiological characteristics.

Not to be nit-picky, but just to point out the fuzziness of these sets - not all people with breasts have a vagina, and not all people with XX chromosomes have either or both. — angslan

Did I not say the exact same thing in my recent post. Why do you feel I need to have the fuzziness of these sets pointed out to me given that I wrote;

The problem with simply using a list of physiological features is capturing the fuzziness. Someone with a penis would not be called a woman, but someone born, for some genetic reasons, without a uterus, but with breasts and a vagina would be. It's not that anything goes, just that the definition is not a simple list. — Pseudonym

But she may not be making a commentary on gender as much as on sex. — angslan

So if a girl (who thinks she is a boy) is addressed as "girl", that would be fine because 'girl' is a sex distinguishing term?

two women, with breasts and vaginas and XX chromosomes that they've had since birth and both of whom feel like women can feel completely differently to each other - and yet still feel like women. — angslan

No, they cannot, not according to the trans definition. According to the trans definition they cannot feel completely different to each other and still be categorised as "women", because if one of then feels a certain set of feelings they are a "man" and must be labelled as such.

The same way you learn someone's name. How is this harder, or more morally complex, than that? — angslan

A personal name is not a category. People called Bill are not claiming to be similar to other people called Bill. They're not claiming, based on private feelings to be part of the set {all people called Bill}, the only criteria for membership of the set {all people called Bill} is being called Bill.

'm not begging any sort of question. I'm coming form a position which recognises the trans person cannot possibly be deluded in this way because their experience is defined in recognising the bodily states they have. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The begging of the question is in presuming that position when it is not a given. It is not a brute fact that people correctly report their feelings and identity. You may believe that, but others believe differently. So a person who reports that they 'feel like a woman' (despite being biologically a man) could be considered to be reporting in error. That the feeling they are experiencing is not correctly categorised as 'like a woman' and should instead be categorised as 'like a transgender person'.

We do not all share your world-view I'm afraid, no matter how much simpler that would make your ethics.

We already know people can fail to correctly report themselves and their identity. It even happens with sexuality and gender stuff. Some people realise what they thought were was something they were not.

My point is the delusion argument does not make sense. Trans people to not mistake their bodies for something they are not. If people are going to be wrong about their identity category, it not on the basis of misunderstanding the biological states they have. If someone is going to be wrong about being a man or woman, it has to be on the basis of a given category itself. It has nothing to do with facing to understand what body they have or being "deluded" into think they have biological states they do not.

I also never claimed whether or not someone's feelings were accurate in the context of this point. My point is outside that context: that, regardless of whether their feelings are accurate or not, to describe them as deluded about their bodies is inaccurate.

My point is the delusion story has nothing to do with bodies. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't think anyone is suggesting it does are they? As far as I read it, Harry is stating his belief that people who think they feel like the opposite gender to the one traditionally associated with their body are incorrectly reporting this feeling. His argument for this is that the feeling of a gender is not a categorisable thing. People feel all sorts of different ways and it is false to categorise those feelings into two groups. Therefore anyone reporting that their feelings belong in one of these categories is doing so incorrectly.

Maybe I've misread Harry's argument, but that's what I got from it.

...after the analysis you've put in so far the best you've got is "if you don't agree with me you must not be trying hard enough"? — Pseudonym

I mean, you're really not representing trans claims accurately at all. No matter what I've said to you, you've gone back to the same set of misinformation regarding trans claims. How do you expect to have a genuinely engaging discussion about it?

So if a girl (who thinks she is a boy) is addressed as "girl", that would be fine because 'girl' is a sex distinguishing term? — Pseudonym

I'm not sure babies have such complex thoughts that they can clearly communicate to a midwife (which is the context of this statement).

Are you suggesting it's not true that the word "woman" was not, in the past, used to describe those people with particular physiological characteristics? — Pseudonym

I feel that there is a clear decision here to ignore the things said in posts - you've heard my answer on this twice now. I don't know why, given this repetition, and the repeated inaccurate formulation of trans claims, we are expecting to get anywhere.

A personal name is not a category. People called Bill are not claiming to be similar to other people called Bill. They're not claiming, based on private feelings to be part of the set {all people called Bill}, the only criteria for membership of the set {all people called Bill} is being called Bill. — Pseudonym

This doesn't present to me why it would be more difficult or more morally complex to learn someone's gender from them than it is to learn their name, however. This is a pity, because I thought this area might be one where we get some traction.

The issue is about bodies because that's where the charge of delusion is brought. That's why it's identified as "false" and a "delusion." Trans people are supposed mistaking their feelings of a certain body for how their body exists (and so defining which sex/gender) they belong to.

Without reference to the bodies in this way, there is no longer a standard for their feelings being false in the claimed sense of delusion. They could be wrong about an identity category, but it would amount to no error in recognising their biological form. A delusion it is not.

Obviously, one can claim they are are mistaken about an identity category itself (hence my earlier point of how the bigotry/rejection/discrimination is within the very conceptual terms of this position), but it is entirely unclear as to why that would be or why you would assume that in the first instance. If a mistake about the body is not at stake, we no longer have a clear reason for saying someone feelings "are false."

One can pose it directly. We don't even need to consider trans identity to do this. I could walk up to anyone who feels they are a man and claim: "You're mistaken. You're feelings don't show the truth. You actually belong to the category of woman," a claim which is true on its own terms (i.e. the fact of whether this person was a man or woman), but the arguments here were couched in the context of being mistaken about biology.

A personal name is not a category. People called Bill are not claiming to be similar to other people called Bill. They're not claiming, based on private feelings to be part of the set {all people called Bill}, the only criteria for membership of the set {all people called Bill} is being called Bill. — Pseudonym

Sex and gender identities aren't claiming to be part of that sort of set either. When someone sets out such an identity, they are only speaking for themselves. They are only talking about their feelings of sex and gender. If someone has feelings claiming to be a woman, said feelings don't act to report how anyone else is a women. Each woman has their own feelings which report (or do not report) the fact of their identity.

I conflate sex/gender precisely because you have yet to establish a real, objective distinction between them. — Harry Hindu

What ruler would you accept with respect to determining anyone's identity?

As for Nagel -- Eh, it's just a manner of speaking. There are more tools in the toolbox than hammers, and not everything is a nail. My world-view is not architectonic, but piece-meal and always changing.

What I'm arguing about is very simply that the effect on your identity of having a word used about you. . . is no greater than the effect of using a word about someone on the identity of the speaker. — Pseudonym

So to call someone a woman is equivelant to saying I am a woman? There is not a difference between the third and first person uses? Is that what you're saying?



As for feminism:

If "born as" is the condition of womanhood, then aren't the trans individual and the cis individual actually the same then? If it's not even up to chromosomes, or sex characteristics, or some such but rather simply being treated differently because of who you were born as then there is even more similarity than what I was saying. "Trans", as a category, may be novel (at least relative to the history of patriarchy) but the basis for said category isn't. And patriarchy punishes trans women just as it punishes women for nothing other than how they are born.

Mary was born as a woman and is treated differently because of this, and yet she feels she should not be treated differently. She identifies with people who have been similarly discriminated against. But she does not recognize Jane as a woman, as someone who is discriminated against on the basis of being born a woman.

But why? If sex characteristics are set to one side, and being born a woman is all that is to be considered, then what includes Mary but excludes Jane? Shouldn't they actually identify with one another, given that both were born in circumstances against their choosing yet they are discriminated against for it?

I recognize that for some feminists it does not work this way, though I'd like to know why. But it's worth noting that for some feminists it does.

I mean, you're really not representing trans claims accurately at all. No matter what I've said to you, you've gone back to the same set of misinformation regarding trans claims. — angslan

I'm making an argument about what is logically implied by trans claims. I'm not trying to accurately represent the claim itself, nor am I presenting any empirical information that could even be 'misinformation'. It's an argument in logic (roughly), it's either valid or it's not. The only empirical information I'm basing it on is the claim that "it is proper courtesy for you to address me as a man because I feel like a man". If that is not the claim being discussed then my argument is not sound. If that is the claim being discussed then you have only to question the validity of my argument, further 'information' doesn't enter into it.

'm not sure babies have such complex thoughts that they can clearly communicate to a midwife (which is the context of this statement). — angslan

No, the point is that the midwife is using a term based on physiological features which, later on in life, you like us to use based solely on psychological features. Why on earth would you want to go through this rigmarole rather than just have two different words?

I feel that there is a clear decision here to ignore the things said in posts - you've heard my answer on this twice now. — angslan

Yes, only this time I'm asking you for some evidence to back it up (a request you have conveniently ignored). You're making an empirical claim here. That the word was used a certain way hundreds of years ago. You can't just say we're not going to get anywhere unless I simply believe you.

This doesn't present to me why it would be more difficult or more morally complex to learn someone's gender from them than it is to learn their name, however. — angslan

It is more morally complex because a category name implies other members of that category, a non-category name carries no such implication. I can say "bill is an idiot" and be referring only to a particular person called Bill. This is because although there are other people called Bill, Bill is not a category, the other people are called Bill entirely incidentally. There's is no equivalent with the term "woman" I can't say anything of women without implying that the same applies to all women. This is because 'women' (unlike 'bill') is a category name. Other people called 'women' are not called so incidentally (as other people called 'bill' are) they are called so because they are deemed somehow to share characteristics of others in that group. What is said to about that group therefore is deemed to apply to all in that group. If I said "giraffes are tall" you would not immediately presume I'm only talking about one particular giraffe. If I said Bill is tall, you would not presume I was talking about all people called Bill.

Without reference to the bodies in this way, there is no longer a standard for their feelings being false in the claimed sense of delusion. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't follow why you're assuming that only the physical can be a delusion. Agrophobics feel threatened by large spaces. The threat is a delusion it is not a rational response. I don't see why delusions have to result from a false belief about something physical.

If a mistake about the body is not at stake, we no longer have a clear reason for saying someone feelings "are false." — TheWillowOfDarkness

Again I can't quite see how you've got here. 2+2=5 is 'false' by common usage of the term. Someone convinced that 2+2=5 might well be suffering from a delusion. No physical object need be involved.

When someone sets out such an identity, they are only speaking for themselves. They are only talking about their feelings of sex and gender. If someone has feelings claiming to be a woman, said feelings don't act to report how anyone else is a women. Each woman has their own feelings which report (or do not report) the fact of their identity. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is just bare assertion. Do you have an argument demonstrating how this is the case, or is it just a statement of what you would like to be the case?

So to call someone a woman is equivelant to saying I am a woman? There is not a difference between the third and first person uses? Is that what you're saying? — Moliere

No, I said that if one effect was no greater than the other, not one effect is identical to the other.

I recognize that for some feminists it does not work this way, though I'd like to know why. But it's worth noting that for some feminists it does. — Moliere

Yes, I wouldn't claim to be speaking for all feminists, nor even the majority. I'm not trying to make a democratic argument, but a rational one.

Delusion usually implies some sort or misread phenomenological presence in the world. Seeing something which isn't there. Supposing threats which will impact upon you which aren't there. In this case, it also specifically mentioning in the context of supposedly not recognising the present body in some way.

If we are only talking about being mistaking about meaning or a concept, it loses this force. Since there is no longer something seen at stake, a person cannot be seeing what's not there. They are just wrong about some concept. Their error is outside the context of thinking an empirical manifestation "is what it is not."

This is just bare assertion. Do you have an argument demonstrating how this is the case, or is it just a statement of what you would like to be the case? — Pseudonym

I would have thought the logical inference at play was obvious... we are speaking about an individual's feelings about their own identity. The very concept we are using is limited to a feeling about her own identity. She not feeling about other women's identity in this instance. The feeling is a sense of her own.

No, I said that if one effect was no greater than the other, not one effect is identical to the other — Pseudonym

Alright, then I'm still not following. Bring it down a little for me, if you don't mind.

the effect on your identity of having a word used about you — Pseudonym

Which speaker are we talking about here? Jane or Mary?

is no greater than the effect of using a word about someone on the identity of the speaker. — Pseudonym

And here?

Sorry, I'm just getting lost in parsing this sentence.

I'm not trying to make a democratic argument, but a rational one. — Pseudonym

That's cool. Then what is the rational distinction to be made that includes Mary but excludes Jane?

Delusion usually implies some sort or misread phenomenological presence in the world. Seeing something which isn't there. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, you're thinking of hallucinations. Delusions are false beliefs which persist despite evidence to the contrary but which cannot be explained by predominant social influences or low intelligence.

At least, that's the textbook definition.

I can't find the relevant section of Harry's argument which claims that trans people are hallucinating a body which isn't actually there. Perhaps you could help me out with the bit you're getting that impression from.

I would have thought the logical inference at play was obvious... we are speaking about an individual's feelings about their own identity. The very concept we are using is limited to a feeling about her own identity. She not feeling about other women's identity in this instance. The feeling is a sense of her own. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, this is where the problem arises, with this idea that an entirely private definition of a word can exist. A private definition of a word is meaningless. Read Wittgenstein (if you haven’t already), or any modern philosopher of language really. To have the word "woman" defined by a private feeling, not observable by any other language speaker is a nonsense. How would a person be able to tell that the feeling which one day they consider attaches to the word "woman" is the same feeling they experienced yesterday? How would they ever know they were applying the term correctly? And even if they did, if the meaning of the word is entirely private, what would be the point in using it in discourse. What would be the point in the phrase "I'm a woman" if the definition of 'woman' being used was not within the public domain but contained privately in the mind of the person using the term. It is literally nonsense. What possible information could the expression transmit, if the meaning of the term is known only to the one speaking it?

No problem.

Mary, when she uses the term "woman" means by it those with physiological attributes usually associated with two X chromosomes. She may not know this, to her it might just be a fuzzy collection of visual cues, she might not have even given any thought to moot cases in rare genetic circumstances. The important thing is that it means other people like her in a way that does not restrict what she can do. There's no chance of her being chucked out of the group {women} nor can anyone claim to know anything psychological about her simply because she has this label.

John (now Jane), when he uses the term "woman" is describing a feeling he has, at least a large part of which is the desire to look and behave like the people he sees in his community with two X chromosomes. He has a slight dichotomy to balance in that the type of people he's referencing when describing how he feels he wants to behave are (in the overwhelming majority) those with two X chromosomes, but he wants his definition to be about the feeling not any likely biological precursor to it.

So, when Mary and John/Jane have conversation, every time Mary refers to him as a 'man' it hurts him because it makes him feel like he is not 'really' part of the group to which he wishes to belong (my major thesis was on group dynamics so I apologise in advance for bringing everything down to that).

I think we're in agreement thus far (except perhaps my armchair psych evaluation).

What I'm trying to say is that if Mary were to use the word 'woman' to refer to John/Jane. She too would feel pain. She'd feel the anxiety that the more a word gets used one way the more it's standard definition becomes that. She'd feel anxious that, should the term come to mean {people who feel a certain way} by repeated use, people might consider they know how she feels when she refers to herself as a 'woman'. She's concerned that it's frequent use this way might lead to people considering that she is not really a 'woman' if she doesn't behave that way.

Remember, John's definition is not random, it's not personal to him with other trans men/women have a completely different definition. Almost all trans women behave like stereotypical women in their community. They wear dresses, make-up, have other female friends etc. This is not stereotyping, it's intrinsic. If a trans woman behaved exactly like a stereotypical man, he would not have anything to transition to would he?

So Mary's concerns are not outrageous. If she agrees to use the term 'woman' of trans women on the basis of how they feel, she will not be applying for the term to a random and diverse set of feelings. She will be applying the term almost exclusively to feelings about wanting to wear dresses, make-up, have female friends etc.

So how might people start referring to her (as a default) if she likes to wear trousers, no make-up, short hair and enjoys football and beer. She doesn't want people to start thinking she's not a woman because they have gotten used to using the term to describe people's feelings which, in reality, are by and large not about those things.
So using the term that way makes her anxious. Using the term her way makes John anxious.

It's a very difficult dilemma, but personally the only way out of it I can see is for each community to use the term as they see fit and just try and be tough enough to handle the anxiety when someone from one community tries to have a conversation with the other. Like I do when I try to talk to young people.

I guess I would say to this proverbial Mary that there's nothing lost in including Jane. Mary is also included. And she doesn't need to adopt any behavior to be included, either, or even feel the same way that Jane does. It's not like all men feel the same about their masculinity, after all. Yet we still include them in the group "men" in spite of the large diversity of personal feelings, and social structures, surrounding masculinity.

That's the curious thing about gender and gender-identity: there is no essence that defines gender at all, nor something so simple as necessary and sufficient conditions. Yet people still feel like they belong to a group, or bond over said identity, or share similar experiences though there is nothing that moors gender (and not all people do, just large enough groups that it is a phenomena). Sometimes that is because of a collective sense of oppression, but not always and not exclusively.

So if that's the case -- what's lost by including Jane? The meaning of the term "woman"? But Mary is a woman. How do I know? I ask her, and she told me. The feelings are not identical between the two, but that's OK because feelings are rarely identical in such a large set as "woman". They are family resemblances, to use a bit of Witt. And even if Mary adopts all the stereotypical characteristics of a man, she may just be a non-stereotypical woman. But I treat both Jane and Mary the same -- I listen to what they have to say about themselves, and in most circumstances that's good enough for me.


EDIT: It might be worth noting that the violence experienced by women and trans individuals are both related and caused by patriarchy, too. So the oppression, though different in certain respects, is also similar in others in that the root social structure causing oppression is the same, and generally people feel like they are "born into" the group they belong to rather than feel like it's a choice they make. At least so I've gathered thus far.

Well, I was using both the contexts of references to bodies in earlier discussion and the examples of both anorexia and phobias you raised. The definition of "just being wrong" doesn't fit with the terms people have been using. The use of delusion I was referring to also differs from hallucination. It doesn't necessarily pose a phenomenalogical appearance. Sometimes the delusional idea about the empirical context which will happen (e.g. some phobias).

My point about the individual had nothing against the publicity of language.

Firstly, the truth of an identity isn't defined by a feeling. Feelings just report or do not report a turth of identity. Someone doesn't belong to an identity because they feel something, they have an identity and have feelings which reflect it or not.

Secondly, the point I was making about the individual was descriptive of a state of a person feelings, not a claim about if their feelings were right. It's point about who their feeling is about about, not whether it's accurate or not.

This point is defined by the publicity of concepts. A persons feelings about their identity reference them, not other people. In any case a person's feelings about their own identity only reference them. The feeling in question is only about them.

They are feeling they are a woman , not anyone else. This remains to whether their feeling is accurate or not. Like a name, their feeling they are a woman is only about them. The point isn't being made on them being right about their identity, it's about who their feeling is about.

I gather, from conversation, that telling a trans person that they are wrong would be on a par with telling someone with a phantom limb that they are "just wrong".

In a sense, both (assuming we are talking about trans people with dsyphoria) a sensation of a body and a realisation their body doesn't reflect this sensation.

I want to be a bit careful in such a comparison because phantom limbs is more focused just on a body state (a somewhat comparable concern would be someone with just a sensation of different genitals than they had).

Once sex and gender become involved, it's about more than just a sensation of body. It also about a specific order of social recognition and meaning.

I'm making an argument about what is logically implied by trans claims. — Pseudonym

Except, as has been pointed out, your argument is incompatible with trans claims. So it doesn't seem to be based on trans claims at all. Yet you persist with it, apparently in good faith.

No, the point is that the midwife is using a term based on physiological features which, later on in life, you like us to use based solely on psychological features. Why on earth would you want to go through this rigmarole rather than just have two different words? — Pseudonym

The only problem I can see is determining which definition to restrict the existing words to (this may or may not be a similar debate to whether gay marriage is 'marriage'). But at the moment we don't have two different words, and I don't see that being problematic either.

No, the point is that the midwife is using a term based on physiological features which, later on in life, you like us to use based solely on psychological features. — Pseudonym

No. This is a continual confusion of sex and gender. I'm not advocating people use physiological or psychological features, I'm advocating that people address others according to their own wishes on the subject, regardless of whether they even consider a distinction between the two.

Yes, only this time I'm asking you for some evidence to back it up (a request you have conveniently ignored). You're making an empirical claim here. That the word was used a certain way hundreds of years ago. — Pseudonym

Because you have provided so much evidence that the term was only applied to outward secondary sex characteristics historically? At least if you are going to ask for evidence you would think that you would also provide some information on the historical use of the term. Or is your assertion some sort of 'common sense'? Sex and gender were typically fused before feminist critique, especially that of the 1950s and 60s. There is a lot of literature on this critique.

It is more morally complex because a category name implies other members of that category, a non-category name carries no such implication. I can say "bill is an idiot" and be referring only to a particular person called Bill. This is because although there are other people called Bill, Bill is not a category, the other people are called Bill entirely incidentally. There's is no equivalent with the term "woman" I can't say anything of women without implying that the same applies to all women. — Pseudonym

Yes you can. Not all women feel the same. Not all women are the same. This is fundamentally, and trivially, true.

To use your example, if I say "she is an idiot", I am not calling all women idiots.