I’ve sometimes been asked why I’m so interested in gender issues. In large part it’s because it’s fascinating. The notion of gender touches on so many other things that call into question our conception of ourselves.
what things make up our identity?
how important a component of that identity is gender?
is our identity moulded by nurture or nature, or both, and in what proportion?
how stable are the identities we claim for ourselves?
Another factor in this fascination is that much of modern gender ideology is inconsistent, logically incoherent, and bears the hallmarks of a religion rather than a well-grounded and well-evidenced scientific theory or framework.
I find the willingness of humans to believe, quite passionately in some cases, in something that is a bit of a mish-mash of muddled meaning quite intriguing, not to mention entertaining. I’m not excluding myself from such consideration here, either. I’m pretty sure some of my views and positions are based on similarly confused foundations.
I don’t think I’d want to live in a society entirely based upon rational considerations. I’m certain I wouldn’t want to live in one based entirely on emotional considerations, either. Where the ‘correct’, or ‘optimal’, balance between the two lies is anyone’s guess.
One’s starting assumptions, the foundational axioms, can profoundly affect our subsequent thinking.
It’s easy to see this in something like maths. You will have learned in school that the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180° - but it’s (probably) not until later on that you learn this is only true for a certain kind of ‘space’.
If your ‘space’ is curved then sum of internal angles of a triangle in that space will not be 180°. The classic example of this is to think of a triangle drawn on a globe.
You can see here that the internal angles of this triangle add up to 270°. In general, a triangle drawn on the surface of a globe like this will have a sum of internal angles that is greater than 180°.
The foundational axiom, or assumption, here is the kind of space (whether curved or ‘flat’). Which one you ‘choose’ determines the subsequent geometry and can have important consequences.
As Wokal Distance points out in this excellent post
there is a profound difference in foundational axiom between the ‘realists’ and the ‘woke’. Broadly speaking, the realists and the woke operate on a different interpretation of, or approach to, the word ‘truth’.
For the woke, the factual (objective) truth of something is of far less importance than the power implicit in that something. A statement is not (always) analysed in terms of whether it is ‘true’ or ‘false’ but in terms of how it contributes to, or disrupts, a power dynamic.
When you talk about ‘truth’ with one of these woke academics they will respond by asking something like “whose truth?” or “what do you mean by truth?”
For a realist this is akin to being asked to define the word ‘the’ - it evokes an enormous “huh?” response.
But what is fascinating is that the claims of gender ideologists are predicated upon the notion of ‘truth’ as a realist would understand the term.
anyone who identifies as a woman IS a woman
a transwoman IS a woman
gender affirming care is life-saving
trans is innate and not a mental condition or illness
And so on
These are all ‘truth’ claims. But are they true?
There’s no sense in which the gender ideologist would respond to this query by asking “whose truth?”. These statements are taken to be objectively true within the framework of gender ideology in exactly the same way a realist would understand the notion of truth.
The whole ‘woke’ thing is replete with this kind of stuff. On the one hand ‘truth’ is relative (whose truth?) but on the other, there are certain inalienable ‘truths’ that must be accepted as objectively true (the existence of intersecting webs of oppression, similar webs of privilege etc).
The last question on the list above is really a foundational one. How you answer it sets up your foundational axiom from which to draw further conclusions. It’s exactly analogous to starting with a flat space or a curved space in geometry.
If you view trans as some innate, natural, property then any attempt to dissuade, or even question this, is going against an internal nature and can be viewed as a kind of conversion therapy.
If you view trans as a mental ‘illness’ or condition, then something like gender affirming care will be seen as precisely the wrong kind of treatment for it.
Parallels are often drawn with homosexuality. Homosexuality is thought to be an innate orientation.
So far, so good.
The thing is, though, homosexuality (unless you’re of a fundamentalist religious mindset of whatever flavour) does not require any kind of treatment1. Indeed, the last time I read about it, over 450 animal species were known to have a small minority of homosexual couplings within their ‘societies’. Oddly enough, homosexual black swan couples have been found to be better at bringing up cygnets than their heterosexual counterparts (at least according to one throwaway line in a pop science book I read. It’s probably true - but I’m not all that interested in the details, like how the hell did a homosexual swan couple end up with cygnets anyway?).
The curious thing here, from the perspective of trying to understand the gender ideologist’s position is that whether we opt for the ‘flat’ space of trans being a mental disorder, or the ‘curved’ space of trans being some innate property, treatment is required.
In both of these different worldviews, different starting assumptions, something has to be fixed.
We either try to fix the mind, or we try to fix the body (or maybe a bit of both). Either way, the fact that we need to treat ‘trans’ is a recognition that something has gone wrong.
So, even if we accept what is a bio-essentialist position, that ‘trans’ is entirely natural and innate, we still have to treat this entirely natural innate condition.
If ‘trans’ is innate, and not a socially-conditioned phenomenon, then one must ask what were the evolutionary drivers that caused its existence?
I tried asking my daughter’s cat how he identified, but I just got a purr and a headbutt. It’s going to be quite hard to determine whether ‘trans’ is exclusively a human phenomenon in the animal kingdom.
The notion that trans is innate, that there is some innate gendered ‘soul’ or identity, is itself a bio-essentialist position - and one that finds more favour in gender ideologist’s thinking than positing that biology is the prime (and only) determinant of one’s sex.
But, of course, not every trans person needs treatment, they would argue. It is enough to simply declare oneself, to reveal one’s inner reality - and that’s enough.
I feel a bit sorry for this lady. Obviously the police didn’t even allow her to put on the lippy or mascara, or even have a decent shave, before this picture was taken.
This treatment might consist of things like conversion therapy which has a chequered and largely unsuccessful past - or throwing homosexuals off the top of tall buildings which effects a (permanent) cure.
The recent Trans woman ( an actual woman who was claiming to be a man) who murdered 3 children and 3 adults in a “mass” shooting was gunned down by some very brave police officers. The authorities announced her pronouns as “Was and Were”. 🤠😂
You're a married man, right?
So you must have partaken of the marital fun and games known as a bloody row at some point, and experienced the (stereotypical female) response of bringing up unrelated issues sometimes years in the past in order to provoke an emotional response rather than a rational one.
Emotional arguments trumps rational ones, because we are emotional first and rational second (System 1 always beats System 2 in response time, to use Kahneman's reason); rational require pause, metacognition and the ability to consciously "step back" from a situation and try to see it from without.
I guess the equivalent in physics would be to observe both trajectory, position and velocity of an electron or photon without affecting it by the act of observation? (Caveat: I probably know more about fake science fiction physics than real physics, so my analogy might be flawed.)