And a community of transgenders or non-binary people who report conflicts between the cultural norms they're in, their gender expression, the expectations of their bodies, and the words they need to use to describe them... This doesn't count as a linguistic community? I mean, this isn't a private language. There are commonalities of experience here, shared cultural norms, shared words - just a different embedding in them.

And a community of transgenders or non-binary people who report conflicts between the cultural norms they're in, their gender expression, the expectations of their bodies, and the words they need to use to describe them... This doesn't count as a linguistic community? — fdrake

Of course it does, just as 'sick' means good among the youth (so I'm reliably informed). But that doesn't make it mean good for every user of the word.

There are commonalities of experience here, shared cultural norms, shared words - just a different embedding in them. — fdrake

No, it's not about experience, we could each 'experience' our own beetle and still be none the wiser about the contents of anyone else's box. For a word to mean something there has to be some use it is put to, the rule for which can be corrected by some community of language users. It's not sufficient to simply have a community of language users all using a word. They could all regularly say "piff", but if each means a different thing by it and each has their own private rule as to where it applies, then they each fall foul of the private language argument, simply being a community isn't enough, the word must have some rule which is held communally too, which means (for words used as classification) the measures must be publicly accessible, they cannot be entirely private.

Ok, so why does the way the UN definitions of gender expression/identity and transgender and sex put you in mind that it's a private language? Or analogise to it? I would be extremely surprised if anything which is decided by a committee and put on a public resource for general consumption is anything to do with a private language.

UN definitions of gender expression/identity and transgender and sex put you in mind that it's a private language? — fdrake

But 'gender expression', 'transgender' and 'sex' are not the terms I'm suggesting suffer from the private language problem. The categories within them are. It's like everyone agreeing what 'colour' refers to but claiming a private set of criteria for what is 'blue'.

If you can find me a UN definition of 'woman' that satisfies both feminists and trans-women/trans-men, I'll grant there may not be a private language problem. But the moment the word 'woman' is used to describe how a single individual feels, with no external reference at all (associated behaviours such as with 'pain', 'happiness' etc), then I can't see how we escape the private language problems.

But the moment the word 'woman' is used to describe how a single individual feels, with no external reference at all (associated behaviours such as with 'pain', 'happiness' etc), — Isaac

Right. I can see that. But it completely baffles me how you think gender identity is just what an individual feels, rather than a composition of how someone feels and society's norms... how they identify with them? Their place in them? Can you really not talk about how it feels to take a place in a social role? Society? Culture?

What it feels like to be a Wittgensteinian doing philosophy...

But it completely baffles me how you think gender identity is just what an individual feels, rather than a composition of how someone feels and society's norms... how they identify with them? — fdrake

I don't necessarily. There is a feature of a person which could be something like which social group they "feel" like they belong to. Someone might say, "I feel like I belong, or identify myself as, the societal group labelled 'woman'". They might feasibly say this despite having male genitalia, mixed genitalia, or no genitalia at all. But none of this tells us what the label 'woman' actually refers to. The community of 'woman'-users is the only thing that can tell us that.

Once we accept that, it must follow that someone might say "I feel like I belong to the category 'woman', but the community of language users say back" well, you don't".

Another, simpler aspect of the private language argument is that the rule for applying the word has to be checkable with a community of users, it has to be possible to be wrong about the rule, otherwise it is a private rule.

In what way can the definition of 'woman' being advanced here, be non-privately wrong. Someone must be able to use the word 'woman' (even of themselves) and the language community be able to say "no, you've mis-applied the rule", otherwise it is a private rule. Yet what's being advocated here is that it is impossible for an individual to mis-apply the rule when talking of themselves (yet it is possible to mis-apply the rule when talking of others, which is a whole other problem).

Can you really not talk about how it feels to take a place in a social role? Society? Culture? — fdrake

Talking about it is not the same as using it as a rule to correctly use terms.

One of the things that suggests a rule is in play is that mis-identification can happen. It does. Most of the time gender non-conforming teens stop gender non-conforming and do not feel the need to transition. There is at least tension there.

Formally speaking anyway, 'identifying with a gender' isn't a speech act on par with writing down a symbol for a mental sensation, it's a whole social role which is performed; a correlated series of speech acts with bodies and gestures, choices, thinking styles, norms... The image that you have of 'identification' with a gender is very shallow if you think that it resembles writing down a symbol to convey the presence of a sensation in all relevant respects.

One of the things that suggests a rule is in play is that mis-identification can happen. It does. Most of the time gender non-conforming teens stop gender non-conforming and do not feel the need to transition. — fdrake

That would still be self-misidentification. The whole point of the private language argument is that correcting oneself (alone) makes the rule meaningless. The community of rule-users has to be able to say that the rule is being incorrectly applied.

'identifying with a gender' isn't a speech act on par with writing down a symbol for a mental sensation, it's a whole social role which is performed; a correlated series of speech acts with bodies and gestures, choices, thinking styles, norms... The image that you have of 'identification' with a gender is very shallow if you think that it resembles writing down a symbol to convey the presence of a sensation in all relevant respects. — fdrake

Indeed, it would be, if that was what I thought, but it isn't. I'm talking solely about the use of gender terms in language, nothing else.

A headline I read in the paper recently was "man gives birth". They had used the term 'man' on the sole basis of the person concerned claiming to feel like one (their private rule) and they were clearly using to term to function as a means of categorisation (otherwise the headline would not even be newsworthy).

I'm not in any sense saying that people do not have a private view as to what gender role they act out. I'm saying that it makes no sense for them to have a private view as to what referent the gender words are used to pick out.

I'm not in any sense saying that people do not have a private view as to what gender role they act out. I'm saying that it makes no sense for them to have a private view as to what referent the gender words are used to pick out. — Isaac

And why do you think this view is commonplace?

People are labouring under the expectation gender means something other than gender. Gender isn't recognised as itself amongst many people. They think a membership granted by having some other fact.

So what can the trans person mean in this context? The usual accounts of gender membership don't work. Their identity is opposite or other to other gender asserted in these accounts. Something else has to be found. Feelings are usually that. It's both presence of something other and a feature common to instance of trans identity. One of few replacements for genital, chromosomes or long hair to be found.

Feelings become the account of how someone is trans or not in these instances. So terrible confusions will remain until it's realised one is not speaking about something other than gender, but rather a fact of gender itself, set by nothing other than itself. (In which case, one is trans because they have a gender which is other to what is expected under some notion of gender).

one is not speaking about something other than gender, but rather a fact of gender itself, set by nothing other than itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness

:up:

Other than seeing gender as an umbrella term that partakes in lots of social/biological processes, I agree. The content of gender norms is just what we count as part of them collectively, with some influence from statistical properties of bodies changing over the sex difference, but most of what's relevant to gender is history and socialisation.



I guess what grinds my gears here is that trans people have commonalities of experience, as do men and women, so do non-binaries. You can do sociology, anthropology, psychology and medicine on this topic. If discourse on gender and the self reports/gender identifying processes of people were so lacking fixity, like the arbitrariness you suggest in:

I'm saying that it makes no sense for them to have a private view as to what referent the gender words are used to pick out.

I'd think the world would look a lot different. If gender identification actually worked like what W criticises in the private language argument; there could be no articulable commonalities. And there are.

Either Transgenderism/transsexual is false and incoherent, or (a)genderism and/or gender neutralism is false. These two cannot co-exist at the same time while being coherent.

Also,transsexualism is not coherent on it's own. Transsexualism reaffirms gender binarism by default. It is impossible to divorce binary from transsexualism.

Let's assume, "transgenderism and transsexualism" are used synonymously (in my experience, they are). If they are not used synonymously, then performatively requesting hormones or 'surgical augmentation' to address "transgenderism" is incoherent.

P1: All males and females must contain all the necessary biological attributes to be 'male' and female'.
P2: All 'males' and 'females' contain the necessary biological attributes needed "to be" 'male' and female'.
P3: A male that lacks necessary attributes necessary for to be considered 'female' is not a female.
P4: A female that contains both necessary attributes of both 'female' and 'male' is neither male or female, but intersex. QED.


This by default means a-genderism/gender neutralism is incoherent.

---

P1: "Transition" denotes passing of all necessary attributes from one to another.
P2: All necessary biological attributes are 'fixed' at birth.
P3: Biological attributes cannot be 'changed' without artificial intervention/frequent injections (i.e. lacks necessary attributes) or augmentation (mimicking), therefore static biological sex cannot 'change' if necessary attributes cannot transition.
P4: "Transsexualism" (and 'trans' - genderism) is therefore incoherent. QED.


"Transsexualism" addresses sex-change, almost all "transgenders" use the terms interchangeably and claim to feel 'female' - which presents an incoherent performative contradiction.

--
As a generalization:

P1: "Transgenders" cannot be considered a 'female' without first adopting the 'identity' of a woman (e.g. traditionally 'womanly roles') first.
P2: Determination of biological female sex is not dependent on adopted social identification and castes. (e.g. butch lesbians).
P3: Transgenders claim to have all necessary "female" attributes without surgery, therefore, they are "female" and must augmented to be so.

If not P2, then P3 is inconsistent, and "Transgenderism" is incoherent. If not P3, then transgenderism is incoherent in so far 'transgender' must have augmented necessary attributes to alleviate "dysphoria" (i.e. confusion), not that the transgender is certain they are 'female/male'. Reassignment biological augmentations treat/suppress confusion not "transgenderism/transsexualism".

It is same to say addressing transsexualism with surgery is not consistent with what they claim to be, and not the best method, only practical to alleviate temporary stress. So, yes, it is entirely a 'mental thing'. Whether or not it is an illness is moot, but from what is known of mental illnesses, it is a mental illness, and it is definitely a disorder, in so far as it disrupts daily functioning.

People are labouring under the expectation gender means something other than gender. Gender isn't recognised as itself amongst many people. They think a membership granted by having some other fact. — TheWillowOfDarkness

To start with, 'Gender' is a word. It defines what the language users use it to define. There isn't a thing it is which the whole community must consult before using the term. There's no God-given dictionary we all learnt as children. There is only the thing it is used for. So you're mistaken to suggest there's a thing that 'gender' is that we must find out before using the term. There are just things, we name some of them 'gender'. The things come first, names after. The 'correct' application of the term 'gender' is whatever the community of language users find it useful to use the word for.

So what can the trans person mean in this context? The usual accounts of gender membership don't work. Their identity is opposite or other to other gender asserted in these accounts. Something else has to be found. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Again, you're presuming I'm talking about the trans experience. I'm not denying the trans experience. I'm not denying that people don't feel they fit into the gender roles society assigns them. I'm not denying people feel, they want to belong to a gender other than that which they've been assigned (or perhaps one outside of all the options currently available). None of this is in contention because it is self-evidently the case.

What I'm talking about is language use and language use alone.

I'm talking solely about the meaning of the term 'woman' and the meaning of the term 'man'. To apply terms, there must be some rule as to their 'correct' application. That rule cannot be private, it must be one which is held by society, otherwise the word is meaningless as an assignation in an act of communication. If the meaning of the term 'woman' is held by society to mean anything other than biological appearance, then it creates an imposition to meet those criteria on anyone wanting to claim that term. Hence the feminist issue with trans identity arguments.

one is trans because they have a gender which is other to what is expected under some notion of gender — TheWillowOfDarkness

Absolutely. A fine definition of the word 'trans'. A shame this isn't about the definition of the word 'trans'. It's about the definition of the word 'woman'/'man'.

I guess what grinds my gears here is that trans people have commonalities of experience, as do men and women, so do non-binaries. You can do sociology, anthropology, psychology and medicine on this topic. If discourse on gender and the self reports/gender identifying processes of people were so lacking fixity, like the arbitrariness you suggest in:

I'm saying that it makes no sense for them to have a private view as to what referent the gender words are used to pick out.


I'd think the world would look a lot different. If gender identification actually worked like what W criticises in the private language argument; there could be no articulable commonalities. And there are. — fdrake

That's exactly the problem. The moment there are commonalities attached to the term 'woman' there are expectations created as criteria for the use of that word. There has to be otherwise using the word becomes meaningless as per the private language argument. so if there are 'commonalities' between all the trans people who were born male but feel like a 'woman', if those commonalities are what make their use of the term 'woman' correct among their community of language users, then what is to be made of someone born with female genitalia, who themselves does not chare those commonalities? They are no longer correct in defining themselves as a 'woman' because the term is 'correctly' used to define the commonalities you describe (though I'm at a loss to know what they might be).

Again, you're arguing against something of a straw man and I'm having to repeat myself a quite unreasonable number of times here such that I starting to feel there's some disingenuousness to your responses. I am not talking about whether trans people really exist, I'm not talking about whether they have an experience worthy of some term to describe it. I'm talking about the means by which society holds the rule for the correct use of the terms 'woman' and 'man'.

Let me try this for simplicity. In your view, how does a two/three year old begin to learn they way in which to use the term 'woman'? Under what circumstances would a member of their language community say they had used the word wrongly, to describe themselves?

Say you're born into a family where your parents used ivf with donor sperm and eggs. They also had already adopted two other kids. They raise you and love you your whole life.

According to you, these would not be your family? — Artemis

Sure, I'll grant that, but what does that have to do with what frdake said, or this topic?

you can very much legally disown children and parents. — Artemis

You're talking about legalities. I'm talking about genetics.

I guess what grinds my gears here is that trans people have commonalities of experience, as do men and women, so do non-binaries. — fdrake

So trans people aren't men or women, they are trans. You can't say that trans have a commonality of experience with men or women, only other trans.

There are commonalities of experience between people with mental disorders. What does it mean to diagnose someone with a mental disorder? It means that they share common thoughts and behaviors with others that are abnormal.

Sure, I'll grant that, but what does that have to do with what frdake said, or this topic? — Harry Hindu

The whole point was, if you don't recall, that family is based on actions and social roles rather than just genetics.

If we can assert that I can become part of a family without being genetically related to them, and if I can stop being part of a family I am genetically related to, then it's an action and choice-based social role.

Same could be said of gender then. I might genetically be male, but if I act and live like a woman, it seems one could argue that a person could thus become a woman.

Btw, a better rebuke to fdrake's example of family would have been that familial relations are, well, relational. As in, not only does another person have to exist for me to be related to them, they have to either implicitly or explicitly agree to be my son, father, brother, etc.

What I'm talking about is language use and language use alone. — Isaac

What form of life underpins the uses of the word 'woman', 'man', 'gender' etc? Come on, words are never just words alone. We have the benefit of a social background to look at here.

What form of life underpins the uses of the word 'woman', 'man', 'gender' etc? Come on, words are never just words alone. We have the benefit of a social background to look at here. — fdrake

As I've already said, I'm focusing on the use of those words to assign to categories, to label. Of course those same words could be used in other contexts to do any number of other jobs, but I'm not talking about those. So the form of life would be that of assigning people in our community to sub-groups. The purpose of such assignation varies wildly and I couldn't possibly list them all here.

I'm not sure how this links to the issue of private language?

So the form of life would be that of assigning people in our community to sub-groups. — Isaac

Can you describe how this works to me? Like, give me an example.

Can you describe how this works to me? Like, give me an example — fdrake

So, if someone puts a sign on a toilet door which says 'women only' they're intending that it has a certain effect on the world. Probably, in this case, that it eliminates anyone with male genetalia. If I create a 'women only' safe space, the effect I'm looking for might be slightly different, but ultimately, it is still to eliminate some sub-group with a good degree of predictability. When a shop has a section labelled 'women's clothing' it's aiming to help those people looking for a certain style of clothing to find what they're after.

All of these different uses rely absolutely on public meanings of the word.

If the toilet attendant intended to eliminate people with female genetalia we would say he'd used the wrong word, if the clothes shop intended to direct people to the trousers and three-piece suits, we'd say they'd used the wrong word.

We'd say this because the word would not carry out the function they intended for it. It would fail to carry out that function because it was being used contrary to the expectations of the other language users.

So you imagine a sorting procedure.

Person -label> Gender

And it's important that -label> is done 'publicly', whatever that means here. What I'm guessing you mean is that the information about each person which is used to label them with a gender is done 'publicly', so it's something which has a social-behavioural-biological component which everyone has access to.

So when someone says they feel like a different gender, I imagine you imagine that they're taking their feeling 'I'm not this gender, I'm that one', and they're trying to put this feeling through the sorting machine above, and voila they're now whatever gender they desired as a result of their feelings. IE, their feelings suffice for the correct application of the identity label.

This sound about right?

Without even touching the whole gender thing, Issac is badly misemploying the 'private language argument'. The PIA doesn't say that 'a private language has no meaning', as though there are private languages and that, where they exist, they have no meaning. The PIA is an argument that the very idea of a private language is incoherent - that there could be no such thing, in principle, let alone in fact, as a private language. To say 'X use of language is a private language' misudnerstands the fact that if you're using language at all, it's not private - that's 'analytically' entailed by the very idea of a use of language. The idea of a 'private rule' is an oxymoron: if there is a rule, then is it not private, by definition.

The whole point was, if you don't recall, that family is based on actions and social roles rather than just genetics.

If we can assert that I can become part of a family without being genetically related to them, and if I can stop being part of a family I am genetically related to, then it's an action and choice-based social role. — Artemis

We're talking about two different kinds of familial relationships. My point was that you don't need a government or culture to create the biological family relationship that is inherent in nature. You can only disown the socially constructed version.

You can only disown the socially constructed version. — Harry Hindu

But how can you disown the socially constructed version? I thought there wasn't one!

You can't disown genetics. I did use that term, right - "genetics"? Yep, so either you're not paying attention, or you're building straw-men.

But how can you disown the socially constructed version? I thought there wasn't one! — fdrake

I never said there wasn't one. I said that they're different types of relationships - genetic and social - and that we're not talking about the same one. Why do you think that is?

Again, it goes back to how you define gender as being biological or social. We've already shown that "man" and "woman" are terms that refer to one's biology. So that makes "gender" a biological term, not a social one.

When a naked woman says she feels like a woman, is she referring to her social role, or her biological state?

When a naked man says that he feels like a woman, is he referring to his social role, or his biological state?

If he only feels like a woman when wearing a dress, then how is it that the naked woman and man with a dress feel the same thing? Are they referring to two different things? Why the discrepancy?

Now, let's imagine a world where we have this mystical new word called 'gender_H', which refers to the socially constructed aspects of gender. We're going to forget the bits and bodies and look at what people do with them and how the words come out of their mouths. Can we do that? Can we forget the bits and bodies for 'gender_H' like we could for family? Or are you not prepared to enter into the mystical magical world of socially constructed aspects of gender?

Now, let's imagine a world where we have this mystical new word called 'gender_H', — fdrake

Your use of "mystical" says it all. Is gender some supernatural, magical thing now? I can reject mystical things simply based on the fact that there is no proof of such things.

No, social constructions aren't magic. They're just like being able to disown a family you're born into. You don't disown the hereditary mechanism, that'd be a category error, but you don't belong in a family just because you're born into it; otherwise disowning would be impossible. If you can bend your mind to accept a dictionary definition, or Google's, or the UN's, where gender has socially constructed aspects, I'd be very happy to continue trying to explain word meanings to you.

Otherwise, I hope the low hanging fruit is tasty where you're from.

No, social constructions aren't magic. They're just like being able to disown a family you're born into. You don't disown the hereditary mechanism, that'd be a category error, but you don't belong in a family just because you're born into it; otherwise disowning would be impossible. If you can bend your mind to accept a dictionary definition, or Google's, or the UN's, where gender has socially constructed aspects, I'd be very happy to continue trying to explain word meanings to you. — fdrake

We already went over Google's definition of "man" and "woman" which refers to biological states, not social constructions. So I'm using the same sources as you, so it seems that it is you that can't bend your mind to accept a Google definition.

A social construction can't be rejected by an individual feeling, or else it's not a social construction.

Wikipedia, which Google puts up at the top of the search page when searching "social construction", so Google is promoting Wiki's definitions:

Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality. — Wikipedia

So a social construction is jointly constructed and form the basis for shared assumptions about reality. I don't see any room here for a social construction to be rejected. I can see how you can not participate in a social construction, and abandoning one's socially constructed family would effectively leave you without a family - of you not participating in the social construction any longer, so why would you still call yourself a son/daughter? Why do transgenders insist on using the socially constructed terms if they are rejecting it?