We can say more than that. Difficulty of circumstances are defined by the conditions of the individual. In this respect, there's not much required for someone to have greater difficulty than another person.

All it takes is failing to overcome a circumstance in question. The reasons for this could be many: drug addiction, lack of family support, poverty, sexism, racism, personal interests, personal enemies to name but a few. Any one might make a situation unilaterally too difficult to overcome. Belonging to a social group who is favoured or one which is oppressed doesn't prevent this.

White privilege was never a reason to expect any given when person will do better or have less difficulty than someone of another race. It's just a description of a cultural state, that people who are white often have certain social resources.

Being rich doesn't necessarily mean you'll have less difficulty than someone who is poor. A rich person might act in a way which brings them more difficulty than a homeless person, they might be addicted to drugs, roam the street and refuse to use money to help mitigate hardships. Most of the time though, this doesn't happen. The rich person usually used wealth to mitigate hardship or help overcome their circumstance. Despite some rich people having difficulty, there is still a relation to describe.

White privilege is no different. It does not mean any white person will have less difficulty. Rather, it identifies certain distributions of resources, social events and significances, such that white people are less likely to face or do not face certain difficulties. It's never been a reason an individual overcomes their difficulties or not. Privilege is not a causal reason.

The mistake a lot of people make (and one you are making here) is to think privilege is a causal reason. A lack of privilege is not a reason someone has difficulties. Nor is belonging race, sex, gender, etc., a reason someone has difficulty.

Causal reasons for difficulty are far more material. It's illness, lack of community, poverty, actions of other people to exclude people of a race, sex or gender, etc., lack of services, an environment in which people harm each others and a host of other events we could name. Privilege is just description of certain social relations and states formed out of those causes.

We might say it has already progressed the moment God is placed outside the empirical world. Once monotheism leaves behind a being that manifests in reality, atheism has obtained. God no longer does anything, becoming nothing more than a feature of what happens.

The price of monotheism is God's existence. As per analysis of the ontological argument, "God" and "not God" are equivalent. Perfection, omnipotence and omniscience comes with the price tag of everything. God can only be of whatever happens. God cannot be the distinct being enacting some particular states over others.

Atheism is just the apotheosis of monotheism, a moment in which it is realised the infinity of God cannot be the powerful friend who rescues us. The instant someone says: "God does not manifest in the world," we might say they have an atheism with respect to monotheism.

Interestingly, atheism doesn't really conflict with polytheism, at least not in logical definition. The atheist is free to believe any number of polytheist gods are possible. In some cases, the atheist (in a sense opposed to a monotheistic deity) would even have reason to believe a polytheist god existed. All it would take is the existence of the appropriate being. Even YHWH might be possible and believed in this sense: if YHWH manifested, acted in the word, the atheist would have reason to affirm YHWH's existence. Only the monotheism would be false, YHWH being just another being of the world, who might be overpowered, destroyed or beaten at some point.

Monotheism is little strange in that it's very intention is a move to destroy itself. It wants to cite the overwhelming perfection of reality in the face of many horrible possibilities, to hold onto that perfection even when terrible things are happening. Yet, the only way to do this is to include everything of the being of God, to admit everything terrible is of God, rather than the existence which would be prevented or fixed by the appropriate powerful being. The very aim of the monotheistic God is to be outside the question of existing. It maintains no matter what exists.

In that I was referencing what their texts talking about, showing the claim they are relativists to be a contradiction.

I've read Being & Nothingness, Existentialism is a Humanism, The Transcedence of The Ego in full, passages of his other texts and Nausea. Just the other week I was discussing the similarites of his ethics and Kant's with philosophy grad students with background in Kant . How much Sartre you read?

I'm not twisting anything. I'm talking about the content of texts, which you have clearly never examined.

You clearly aren't reading those comments on askphilosophy. They are drawing the distinction Nietzsche is not a fan of system which premise an "objective morality" that is an abstracted system of rules. With respect to meaning and value of the world, Nietzsche is clearly objective (which is why all those people in the thread, to paraphrase, are saying "It depends what you mean ").

Again, that's just an assertion. You don't go into detail de Beauvoir's thought and show how it is relativist. (We also know she's not because her texts contains postions holding people have objective meaning with respect to each other, with consequences for ethics).

By "big problem" I'm referring to assertions about the deficiencies of athesim or materialism. I'm not speaking about the words you are using.

It's the concepts I'm referring to, the arguments about materialism and athiesm having "a big gaping hole" or secularism having the problem of "no basis." I'm saying you just keep asserting those problems are so rather than supporting the are true.

That's the type of merely assertion I'm talking about. You don't actually show your claims to be truthful.

Their texts show otherwise. Sartre asserts an objective morality based on the objectivity of reason and human freedom. His ethics are somewhat similar to Kant's in this respects. He uses what is essentially the Catergorical Imperative to identify our responsibility to each other as agents of freedom.

de Beauvoir argues we ought to recognise how humans are free agents who make choices. In this space, she talks about the significance of humans actions towards each other, forming a space in which actions have objective significance to each other and a range of ethical consequences.

Nietzsche is dedicated to the objectivity of values. One of the major parts of his analysis is how states and actions of the world are characterised by meaning. His primary target is exactly the sort of nilhism which claims life had no value or meaning.

This is partly why he attacks religions so harshly. He identifies the religious move of saying "God must be there to give the world meaning" is premised on an initial idea that the world is without meaning . God only needs to be there to add meaning to the world if it lacks meaning in the first place. Thus, the malaise of "meaningless" didn't begin with atheism, but actually has far older origins that lie at the base of much religious thought.

It is factually wrong to assert these thinkers are relativists. They hold objectivity to meaning, ethics and value.

It worse than that. To argue morality is "relative" in a sense of outcomes being right for particular people, objectivity is assumed. The circumstances of one individual are understood as a true moral justification. We find that any "realtive" postion defending an individual circumstances is just objectivity.

With respect to to "moral relativism", this leaves two options: either admit to objectivity or deny moral significance entirely.

In any case, the question of God or otherwise is irrelevant because this is a necessary truth of concepts of morality itself. God is not making the difference between the presence of moral turths or not.

I'm saying you've just asserted there is a big problem with materialism. You haven't show why that is true or logical conclusion. Everytime you are challenged, you just return to the initial assertion there is a big problem.

This is what others meant when accusing you of "begging the question." Everytime you are challenged, you return to just the assertion of the "big problem" as you justification for your position. You don't address the objections in terms of how opponents mistaken or logically flawed. You just return to asserting there is a "big problem."

Clearly you haven't read the people you talk about: Sartre, de Beauvoir and even Nietzsche think morality and values are objective... just true on the basis of the meaning of the world itself, rather than granted or added by a realm beyond it.

1) hasn't happened because most of the stuff around "God exists" hasn't defined the state or the evidence we would see if God exists.

We cannot investigate whether an atom exists without the terms of how it appears. The same with (a) God. Before we begin 1), we need understanding how (a) God would appear if (a) God existed.

My point was you don't support that point. You just come along and expect everyone to believe it because you say so. When challenged, you just revert to saying how the "big problem" must be true, rather giving reason why that would need to be the case.

To give you an equivalent opposing argument, it would be like if I announced there was a big problem with religious beliefs: that no religious person could be moral because God didn't know what was moral, then proceeded to just assert this was the case.

It's an argument which tells nothing because I have given no reason as to why God cannot know morality, nor any reason to say why being religious cannot act morally anyway.

I'm not talking about a specific belief unique to one side of an argument. My point is about the use of logic and reasoning to support one's arguments and claims.

In most of your arguments, you don't engage with the question of actually justifying your position with logic. You just repeat some assertion of what athiesm or materialism does. You don't engage in terms of logic to actually justify your claims over oppositions. You don't give us a reason to think your position is correct over others.

It isn't a question of "Enlightenment epistemologies" either. Use of reason and supporting arguments predates the Enlightenment.

At that level, the issue is the reverse: what is it that one believes about existing states ?

Without setting up which states are the presence of a god, the theist doesn't have a belief in an existing being to investigate in the first place.

I'm not on staff, so my comments do not represent there reasons in my comments, but your criticism had been terrible throughout, a series of posts with many unsupported or outright mistaken claims about athiesm and materialism.

You do not engage with ideas on the subjects in most cases. When people try to engage your criticism, you generally do not respond in the space of logic and reasons. You just repeat an assertion of how atheists and materialists must be terrible.

Suffice to say, the reasons your claims attract censure is likely because the break forum rules with regards to giving supported arguments. Most of the time you aren't reasoning about what is true, you are just engaged in a practice of attacking a terrible atheists and materialists. In an environment which is dedicated to reasoning and pursuit of truth, just spewing attacks against you enemies doesn't cut it.

*edit*

Ah, I put this in the wrong thread. Give me a minute to move it to the right one.

*edit*

Heh, nevermind. I mistook the post I was responding to was in the other thread about bias.

Depends what you mean by God. If you mean the notion of a being of the world, who you then try to pass off responsibility of existence to, sure.

On the other hand, if you mean independence of being, which amounts to the definition of truths without reference to representation, no. Sartre outright advocates we accept that-- e.g. our existence as beings is responsible, not any representation (i.e. essence).

Anyway, my point here is not to suggest Descartes didn't also have an existence of God in mind. The baggage of the time and the political context usually mean a God as an existing being is somehow attached. It's just that Descartes' argument about the perfection of God in relation to knowledge is not really talking about whether a being God exists. He's making a logical point of how truth is defined independent of representation.

Descartes postion holds with respect to the imaginary. What he is showing in the argument is not the existence of God, but the self-sufficiency of reason.

God's perfection is an account of reason and knowledge itself. Descartes has a concept of the difference between a truthful experience and a falsehood. How is a truthful experience distinguished from a false one, despite them seemingly being inseperable in appearance?

The truthful reflects the perfection of God (and reason) It's the difference between an experience truthful about the world and"illusion" of the evil demon. In God, Descartes is effectively posing both a conceptual realism and empirical one. Truths are defined on the basis independent from experience or a representation.

Comparing this to Sartre, Descartes God is much like the existence which precedes essence. For Descartes, God is the reason for saying one thing is true rather than another, much like one's own existence and choices are for Sartre.

In this respect, Descartes argument holds even for the context of imaginary things. What am I imagining? In trying to answer this, I am trying to give not just an experience of some imagining, but a description of what I have imagined.

So what makes it true I have imagined something? It cannot be just an experience or representation I imagined it. Anyone might have that experience as an illusion. I need the reason for why it would describe me or not.

For Descartes, this reason is what I imagined is in the perfect mind of God. That's to say, the truth of what I imagined is defined independent of my representation. Or in Sartrian terms: I existed (and chose) imagining this.

A "perfection" which cannot be countered because it would for a contradiction in reason. If concept a reflects what is true in the perfect, all knowing mind, it's a contradiction to say it false. Similarly, if we try to say something than your own choices (and existence) are responsible for your being, we will find a contradiction.

A lawyer says he's representing a third.

https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/1044006928416825344

My point is the question is a category error because no-one can derive morality in that way, be they secular or religious.

Attempting such an derivation involves telling the falsehood that morality isn't defined by the objective truth of morality. It tries to replace the objective truth of morality with some other sort of truth which supposedly defines morality.

In making such a move, there can be no knowledge or understanding of morality because moral truth is denied. It's replaced by whatever the "basis of morality" is supposed to be. If we attempt to derive morality in this way, we are really moral nihilists. We are rejecting objective moral truth in favour of the "basis" which supposedly tells us what is moral.

In a way... yes. Morality doesn't have that sort of "basis." Secular or religious morality does not have such a basis.

We cannot "derive" morality from the mere fact someone speaks because it means there are no grounds to the argument. It doesn't matter if we are talking about ourselves, a tiger to God. The fact someone simply says something doesn't give a moral justification.

Moral justification requires a particular objective truth, not merely someone speech, but an objective truth of morality. One justifies that a particular claim about morality is true. One that even God themselves is subject to, for not even God can alter the objectivity of morality.

When I say morality is "secular", this is what I mean. Since it is objective and enteral itself, no religious tradition or belief can be the reason an action is right or wrong.

Morality is secular precisely because it is objective.

If it were religiously defined, moral character would cease to be defined on the basis of the morality of an action, instead being based upon a whim which religious belief someone belonged to. Since morality is eternal, that's to say it does not depend on belonging to one religion or another, it is of secular character.

Regardless of a person particular religious beliefs or politics, morality holds itself. It cannot morph, present or alter on account of what religion (if any) someone belongs to. One's actions cannot be moral or not simply by belonging to a religion.

A theocratic morality is no better than claiming your actions have moral virtue because you belong to a football team. Or a political group. Or because you like mints.

Apologies, I missed a "not." That second statement should read, "It's not a question of individual preference of feeling."

As for how so many people can be wrong: lots of people sometimes make an error. This is the point: manhood or womenhood is an objective feature itself. To think it is made by the presence of physical or behaviours is an error. We don't have bodies which make us men or women, we are men/women with a body. We have manhood or womanhood not by having a bodily trait, but by having an objective feature of being a man or woman.We can always differentate the two: in itself, one man and the other is women.

Even when two people have similar traits we can tell this. By the objective feature of "a person who is a woman" we know it's different to an objective feature of "a person who is a man." Which, for example, why a man isn't a transwoman or vice versa, even though they both have a penis.

It is hostile to proclaim someone claiming to be the vessel of God is delusional. When we dismiss, scoff, laugh at them, we are discriminationating against them as a group. We are holding a position their understanding of themselves is incoherent, wrong and deserves no place of respect in society.

The difference in this case is not in the fact a discrimination occurs, but in that discrimination in this case is justified.

They are the infinite speaker, one who is an endless series of moments speaking this infinite name. There is no ambiguity to this infinity. It's an endless series of moments of speech.

"Jim..." but without an end, an endless presence of utterances into perpetuity, existing moments of using a sound/letters which never cease.

That's not an issue of the speaker because they are the one taking the action. They're always of the time of their speech.

It's not technically an issue with regards to knowing either, as someone might realise which name someone is going to say prior to them finishing. I could hear someone say "Jim..." and know they were going to end with "my." This example is also not an infinite naming. An infinite naming would not end in "my" to "mi," it would continue forever, endless sounds being spoken.

We are only locked out of hearing the end of an infinite naming or naming with ends after our hearing does (as in the case of JIm... my or Jim...mi" ).

There is an important clarification to make there: it would require infinite moments of stating names.

Someone could do it, they would just have to be an infinite series of moments of speaking a name. The issue isn't actually requiring infinite time, it's living/being the infinite speaker.

I think "the words you say" is equivalent to content here. What we say doesn't have any relevant meaning outside the context of our language. If I am thinking "about what you say," I'm considering the context of your speech, the meaning ("what") as uttered by you ("you say" ). If we agree, it is with the words we say.

The issue is that agreement about content propositions is not really what's at stake in disagreement. We aren't moved to disagree by whether we agree with context of other speech. We are moved to disagree on account of life itself. On the grounds of how the world which is not a language act is reflected or not in the content of our language.

Our world does not speak our language. We speak the language of the world. When speaking a truth, our language reflects the meaning of the world. If we speak falsehood, the language in the world (ours) fails to speak language of the world (the meaning of the things we speak about is missing from our language).

We know we are rejecting the "illusion" claim of BIV logically. Our world and its interactions present to us. Whether we are caused by a brain in a vat or not, these events, RL, obtain. We are not living an unreality in experiencing RL when a BIV is involved in causality.

It's wrong to call it a speculation. We know what's going on with respect to RL whether it is caused by a BIV or not.

The objective feature is being a man or woman, that someone is of womanhood or manhood. My point issuing a man or woman is itself a feature of a person, a property of them as an existing being. We can pick it out and describe the presence like anything else-- e.g. just as we understood the presence of red hair, someone with six fingers, which one of us is John, that I belong to The Philosophy Forum, we understand the feature of belonging to manhood or womanhood through the concept which understands its a future of a person (e.g. "John is a man/has manhood). It is not a feature granted by others (e.g. have certain genitals, behave the right way, etc.), bur rather a fact of a person giving in itself ("X is a man/woman"). Being man/women is the objective fact referred to.

Preferring a certain sort of ice cream does not fall under manhood/womanhood. In any case, since you are a man, you will always be a man who likes the given flavour of ice cream. You will be a man no matter which flavour of ice cream you like, until such time (if any) it no longer a fact you are a man.

This is this a question of individual preference or feeling. So long as you are man, anyone who thinks you are not a man will be factually wrong.

In terms of bigotry, that is given on the basis of how an act is discriminatory, devalues and expresses power over a certain group, trans people in this case.

When you get up and claim their identities are nonsense, it forms a social environment hostile to them. It claims those expressing trans identity out not be valued has having a genuine position, that there is something inherently wrong with being a trans person who exists, like they aren't meeting the standard of what consists a proper human. This is defined in terms of how your actions affect the group. In this respect, the issue of bigotry doesn't actually depend on trans claims being accurate. Even if we were to consider a world in which trans claims are mistaken, your position still has this discriminatory effect upon them and would be identified as such.

I'm not talking about just individual preferences. I'm talking about a feature of a person that is womanhood or manhood. This is an objective feature which will defy the preferences of some individuals.

If you want to use an "umbrella term" to look people into one particular notion of what manhood or womanhood might be, they objective feature of their manhood or womanhood will defy you. When you get up up spluttering: "Buuuutttt, they cannot have womanhood/manhood. They don't have these genitals/chromosomes/hormones/behave in the right way....," the objective fact of their womanhood or manhood will not care one iota for you preference for womanhood/manhood to be restricted to your preferred set of traits. The truth of womanhood or manhood itself will always win.

Why call it manhood or womanhood? It's the feature of the person we are describing. A woman, whatever her traits. A man, whatever his traits. We don't call it manhood or woman because we get told the specific traits someone (we have the precise descriptions of body part, behaviour, etc. for that) has, we do so because we are talking about the specific feature of belonging to manhood and womanhood.

Neither have ever been "umbrella terms." In the context of describing as belonging manhood or womanhood, they are descriptions that an individual has the trait of being a man or being a women.

The so called "umbrella term" has only ever been used by those who are interested in declaring men and woman have to be one thing or another, an attempt to institute their preference for men and women over the objective feature of being a man or woman. It's never what is referenced when someone is described as being a man or a woman.

Finding a new answer out of question always steps beyond speculation. People ahem to commit to a position. The new answer involves taking: "XYZ is the case" rather than being impaled on the face crying out: "It might so. I might not be so" ad nauseam. Baseless speculation doesn't even get is to the point of holding a truth. It just praying to a possibility of being wrong, like it would save you from some terrible life circumstance.

There is no coincidence in baseless speculation having almost exactly the same form as the God of Gaps.

You're missing the point. We could also tell; we just need the right concept of whether the BIV was there or not.

My point is RL is still present in the BIV context. There is no "illusion" or "simulation." The person really does still exist in their experiential world. So it's not a case of "not being able to tell" but rather that we are the same person we know whether there is a BIV or not.

BIV Hypothesis (BIV): I have lived a normal life on earth for many years. Last week I was, without realizing it, removed from my body. My brain was placed in a vat of chemicals and hooked up to various electrodes which produce in me sensory experiences just like those I would have if I were still in the ordinary world. For example, I have sensory experiences as if I am in my apartment; as if I am in my office; as if I am eating by the lake. But really, I am never in any of the places my sensory experiences show me to be in. I am a brain-in-a-vat, and I have been for a week, but I never noticed it.

Real Life Hypothesis (RL): I am now in my apartment having sensory experiences of my apartment. In general, my sensory experiences as a fairly accurate guide to my present surroundings. I have never been en-vatted. — PossibleAaran

To contextualise what I was saying earlier, everything stated to happen in RL here also happens in BIV account. The measure of "I am in my apartment, etc." is given by the BIV world too (that is, my body in the experiential world in my apartment of the experiential world). In this BIV, the person is still in the ordinary world. They have been all those places (there body, as experienced was there). Being BIV would just be an extra fact they might not know about.

...because recognising truth is a question of understanding what is so rather than giving arguments form evidence. Evidence is used for making specific justifications. You don't need it to know something per se. Even for empirical contexts, someone can just have an idea (e.g. yesterday X,Y,Z happened) without observing what's occurred.

Entirely poisonous. It precludes such awareness by denying us knowledge.

For us to lack knowledge, that supposes there is something we don't know, some sort of distinction we are unaware of in the present, something that we could (and should,since we are worried about the negative effects of not knowing and want to prevent that) learn. If we are going about proclaiming "We don't know anything. We cannot know anything.", we are rejecting such learning.

Being aware of how you might be wrong, in the context of knowledge, is only as useful as you can learn what missing and avoid the problem.

I would just see one colour. Red and green remained distinguished to the world, others and even, in various conceptual senses, to me. They are distinguished all they way up and down. That's why I'm colourblind-- there is a distinction, a colour, which I do not see.

Yes, really. BIV is a truth known by direct access to objective reality, like anything else.

Of course, we could avoid having any concern for correctness, but if we do so, we render our statements meaningless. There is no point to a position which leaves us without nay sort of knowledge. It's just a waste of our time. Nothing is what it offers. We cannot even trust it as a path to avoid error, for the right answer doesn't disappear just because we haven't been told its true by something else.

Such thought is neither reason nor philosophy because it offers exactly no insight. We don't learn anything from it. It doesn't clarify our reasoning. All it does is trick us into thinking "mystery" is profound and get us to ignore what we do know.

If it's indistinguishable, then it is the same: the experiential world is present, the brain of my body is still there. Someone in my experience could take it right out of my head. In this respect, it doesn't matter whether my brain in my skull is present by a BIV or not. Either way, there is a brain in my skull.

BIV claims direct access to objective reality: our experiential world is caused by a brain in a vat and we can know about it. If it were true, there would be BIVs people could observe, including us, had we observation of the room. It's works the same way any other claim about empirical reality does-- if you want to confirm it, you observe. You might know it without observation (e.g. forming a correct theory before its tested).

You could be a brain in a vat. There is no way you can tell. — Pattern-chaser

We already know by our experiential lives we are not BIV. The events of my life, my experiences, my body, the interactions I have with other and everything around me, etc., these are not a Brain in a Vat-- I mean, my brain is in my skull.

In this context, the "illusion" or "simulation" argument doesn't help because you are the content of the illusion or simulation. Our experiential lives might be caused by a BIV, but that doesn't make our lives any less ours. We are not BIV. The BIV is just some distance cause which is not us at all.

Nor, might I add, is the BIV any sort of "theory" in regards to who we are, what we do or what will happen to us. At best, it could be a proposed account of a prior cause of our experiential lives and world, but even this wouldn't account for us as the illusion claim tries to. It would just be talk of some event which happened prior to our experiential world, a sort of Big Bang for the Big Bang. It no more accounts for us than saying the Big Bang happened, Earth formed, life evolved or you were conceived by your parents.

The issue is basically no situations qualify for the "no evidence" context.

If we are having "theories" some sort of context of evidence is proposed. We are posing some sort of event or phenomena and then developing description which reflects it. These cannot be outside evidence because they are evidential claims. Each poses something happens and the which events would occur of an account to be accurate.

"I don't know" is an ever present feature... but it has nothing to do with theorising. Properly stated, "I don't know" applies to every theory we might involve, since future events are yet to come and we might be mistaken. The only time "I don't know" doesn't rate a mention as a potential is in the very limited context of describing meanings of events that have already appeared.

Theories work in spite of this spectre. The threat of "I don't know" doesn't ever suppose lack knowledge, it's just a reference to a possibility. When we deal with theories, we are taking the step of accepting we see how things work/they repeat, such that we can draw inferences of how things work and what's going to happen. They do nothing to eliminate the possibility of "I don't know." Theories don't need to though, for they are just meant to be an account the world we do know. Eliminating a possibility of being wrong is not required.

Someone's "manhood" could be someone's "womanhood" and then where do those definitions that you and Banno seem so fond of stand? Doesn't that mean that gender is undefinable - non-existent? It's meaningless. Nonsense. Your own definitions and explanations defeat themselves. — Harry Hindu

The "manhood" or "womanhood" (or the "manhood and womanhood") is never going to be another's. In any case, it's a feature of an individual. I can no more have another's "manhood" or "womanhood" than I can be another person. Each person's "manhood" or "womanhood" is only ever their own. No "manhood" or "womanhood" is ever the same.

They aren't made arbitrary by this feature either. In any case, the "manhood" or "womanhood" is its own unique feature of the world (and can be understood by others; I can know who is a man, who is a woman, that the manhood and womanhood of each are different, how they are different, etc.), a feature which stands on its own as a presence in world ("the manhood/womanhood of..."), rather than being some sort of membership granted by having some sort of organs or behaving the right way.

Rather than "manhood" and "womanhood" being traits achieved by following a rule, they are a primary feature of individuals themselves, a significance of the given individual which occurs with their various traits (whatever those might be).

One is a man/women not because of specific biological or behavioural traits, but rather because they are a man/woman in the first instance.

The "arbitrariness" is a misunderstanding drawn from thinking that womanhood or manhood is granted in conforming to some rule of traits which make someone a man/woman. For any man or woman, we are already past any "arbitrariness" because their manhood or womanhood is already who they are.

It's not a fair point because the intolerance is defined within the very concepts being used.

The moment we understand trans identity be mistaken or non-existent, we are engaged in the discrimination and intolerance against trans people. In our very concepts, we deny their meaning is part of reality which is valuable and respected. An effect which is not limited to instance in which trans identity is genuine. Even people were correct to reject trans identity in this way, they would be just as discriminatory and intolerant of trans people. Treatment of other people isn't defined by whether their identity claims are accurate its about how you treatment. It about how they are valued and treated.

Even posing the "alternative" is a form of intolerance because it doesn't respect there is a reason to respect trans identity. It's tries to consider a "neutral" position when the one which is absent intolerance understands there is reason not to reject trans identity..

In this respect, it like getting up and saying: "Well, it might be the case that children aren't valuable Perhaps we don't need to take care or them. Maybe."

The supposed "neutrality" of the position is just a rejection of a reason for taking an action. In the face of something we have a reason for accepting or enacting, it claims we have none.

Such "neutrality" only feeds the intolerant positions. When a position which identifies we have a reason for not being intolerant, "neutrality" supposes this isn't present. It takes no-one has a good reason for rejecting intolerance and the intolerance is just as viable of a position. It the definition of pouring cold water on those trying to point out we have a reason to reject intolerance.