ANOTHER TRANNY BASHING THREAD

[surreptitious57]

I want you to point out the EXACT thing the exact similarity between you and me that puts us both in the category that you call men

The thing that if it were to be mutated we would STOP being men ( even if that doesnt mean we have become women )

I want you to point out the necessary epistemic criteria for manhood

Biological Human Male / Animal / Mammal / Primate / Ape
Penis / Testicles / Prostrate / Facial Hair / Adams Apple
High Level Of Testosterone [ Relative To Females ]
Low Level Of Oestrogen [ Relative To Females ]
Thin Corpus Callosum [ Relative To Females ]

[FlashDangerpants]

Could you please explain what "essence" means in your arguments.

It's very simple, actually.

For purposes of this particular argument it does not need to refer to anything so ambitious as, say, philosophical essentialism. All it needs to convey is that there is something specific to "being male" that is not reducible to "being a kind of female," and something about "being female" that cannot be reduced to a subcategory of "being a kind of male."

I'm not sure that's enough. In the arg you made, you have this notion that if we reject gender essentialism we are rejecting the possiblity of having genders at all. Unless you can explain whether essence is necessary to gender only, or else applies to all categories including butt plugs, that involves a smuggled essentialist assumption.

In the other thread, you bounced around on that subject with some objects being defined by use not essence, but then they were just mangled instances of their former category whenever changed into a new object in a new category. But then God could change things from category to category, seemingly even when that was, by your argument, logically impossible to do without dissovling that target category. That was confusing, and you weren't very helpful in resolving any of that.

I do not argue that categories are arbitrary as such. I also don't hold with essentialism. By my count we divvy the world up into categories, this is a human activity, not a celestial one, and we only do it because categorisation is a useful way to view and interact with the world in which we live lives and get things done. The categories that can be said to exist are are those which we use - and when we stop using them they stop existing outside of history books. Consider the various agues and fevers that a 700 year old medical text would describe as bilious for instance. So categories - not REAL in an ontological sense, but artifical like the framework of concepts and language, of which they are a feature.

I'm happy to leave the "something" that people want to specify to their better judgments. But I'll tell you what my own view is, so you don't accuse me of being evasive. I think there are essential differences on several levels. For me, it starts at the genetic level...barring genetic abnormalities, a male is XY and a female is XX. That's basic. Then there's broader physiology, reproductive roles, and more contentiously, brain differences...but I don't care what people pick, be it physiological, psychological, sociological, moral or spiritual. I'll hear all arguments. Pick whatever you regard as "essential" to the difference, and let's talk about it.

That's an awful lot like the position I took. There are loads of differences between men and women, which is why we distinguish between those categories at all. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the female line, so with current technology only women carry certain genetic diseases. Women are far more likely than men to shave their legs, and much more likely to pee sitting down. In the technological conditions of our ancestors, only women could have vaginas, in our current state only women can bear children. But not all women can bear children, and some unfortunates are born without vajayjays either.

Whether an object belongs to any complex category is never a simple matter of holding a single specific essential characteristic of that class. If you cut a cancer out of a patient's kidney, it will have the same chromosomes as they do, but that won't make it a woman. A female antelope has XX chromosomes, that's insufficient to make it a woman.

For the avoidance of dount on my part, this applies to the other guys too. Closing your eyes and really really really believing you are a woman also does not make you a woman. A hypnotist who can make you believe you are a chicken cannot make you an actual chicken and the same applies if he makes you believe you are a woman. Some have assumed that I am of the belief that merely asserting womanhood makes for actual womanhood, I do not believe I have written anything to justify that assumption, but to underline the matter, I am comfortable going on record to say that would be entirely incompatible with my position on categorisation.

Entry into a complex class is usually more of a checklist affair. For Mannie and Henry, diagnosing gender dysphoria and proposing a treatment schedule seems like a very simple matter. But clinicians will want to see multiple manifestations from an accepted set of symptoms before they even consider making recommendations. You gotta tick more than one box just to be a tranny, so to be something which so much more variety than that is going to take a lot more boxes, and many ticks. This may not be how it has to be, it's just the common set of rules for this activity of classification.

Such systems can be assumed to be imperfect, and imperfection is therefore no reason to get all angry at me about this. It is standard both for classification of some object to be controversial, and for accepted categories to adopt new criteria simply becuase people agree to change them. Pluto is not a planet today, but it has been in the past and may be so again one day. There's some other object I can't recall and don't care enoguh to google, but some people think it is the Earth's second moon, while others object because it isn't even orbitting this planet, it's just on a similar orbit around the sun so it only goes round in our sky because our world is spinning. It's too dim to see apaprently and the matter therefore doesn't affect me at all, so I don't care about who wins that argument...

Thus I restate the position I gave you before, which you refused me permission to hold. Obviously the categories of male and female are used because they are useful, and this implies there is a difference. There is clearly a mix of biological and social differences, and I see no reason why any particular one or any specific set would qualify as some sort of essence of womanhood.

There is also the possibility of exclusion with cause from a category by the way. So for instance a lawyer who does certain misdeeds will get disbarred. In such a case they have checked enough of the educational and other boxes to become a law spouting dude, but are expelled from that category. Somewhere on this forum (unless it was deleted) there is thread authored by a maniac called Trixie. That guy wanted to be addressed as a woman and I have no intention of doing so, request denied. He started some thread complaining about women and insinuating they deserve rape for rejecting his request to suck his dick. Seriously, he did all of that, he got friendzoned by a girl, didn't get his balls wet, threatened rape. For me, that doesn't seem ladylike.

But there seems to me some hard to define, movable line in the sand where a person is no longer reasonably to be referenced by their original gender. So either they can become their target gender, or there is an intermediate state of being less of one and more of the other, or there's multiple genders. I don't bother taking any opinion on this, the matter simply doesn't animate me. I see no reason why any of our opinions matters. I am cool with whatever gets agreed by people whos lives are actually affected by such matters. That's not me, and I don't think it's any of you either.

Some of you guys are having issues because you are operating according to an inflexible conceptual schema that cannot cope with complexity or uncertainty. I cannot recommend deploying vagueness in arguments to assert supremacy on behalf of a brittle object like that.

[Skepdick]

You said it could not be done. Now you say it's "great."

Yeah, and? Great is not the same as done. You are the one insinuating that it is.

So I am just going to follow your convention...

Things that do not change are not "mutable things," and things that do change are.

Things that are right are not harmful, things are wrong are.

is this great or is it done?

(Shiiit Mannie, I got you wrapped around my finger, now you have to say "neither", "false dichotomy" or come up with some other u-turn to avoid me framing the discussion...)

[Skepdick]

But then God could change things from category to category, seemingly even when that was, by your argument, logically impossible to do without dissovling that target category. That was confusing, and you weren't very helpful in resolving any of that.

This is the eternal conflict between the Declarative and Imperative perspectives.

Mutability is ALWAYS imperative. It's ALWAYS an "ought".

Whether an object belongs to any complex category is never a simple matter of holding a single specific essential characteristic of that class. If you cut a cancer out of a patient's kidney, it will have the same chromosomes as they do, but that won't make it a woman. A female antelope has XX chromosomes, that's insufficient to make it a woman.

So, lets say that we take N number of observations (measurements, readings) from any particular thing before we decide to stick it in category A or category B, there is a statistical measure which is used to determine how many of our original measurements/readings need to change before the thing switches sides.

This measure is called sensitivity. If it takes N number of observations for you to decide whether the thing is in A or B, then (in the worst case) it requires SquareRoot(N) changes to the original observations for the thing to switch sides.

This theorem was recently proven

But an interesting thing to point out is that an algorithm which will not allow for the possibility of things switching sides no matter the changes to the inputs is called "insensitive". Kinda funny when you consider the position Mannie and Harry are defending.

[Immanuel Can]

Could you please explain what "essence" means in your arguments.

It's very simple, actually.

For purposes of this particular argument it does not need to refer to anything so ambitious as, say, philosophical essentialism. All it needs to convey is that there is something specific to "being male" that is not reducible to "being a kind of female," and something about "being female" that cannot be reduced to a subcategory of "being a kind of male."

I'm not sure that's enough.

For this argument, it is.

As I say, I'm content to let my interlocutors have some "light" form of it, if they feel a full, philosophical essentialism is too much to ask. Personally, I think it's not; but I'll let them have all the latitude they like, because at the end of the day, one still has exactly the same problem -- is there anything specially valuable and unique to being female.

There are loads of differences between men and women, which is why we distinguish between those categories at all.

Well, we agree there. But that creates the essential problem for trans-wanters -- namely, are those "loads of differences" available to a man at a wish, at a desire, or even under the surgeon's knife? Or are these things intrinsic to femininity in such a way that no male can genuinely be said to have them, regardless of how we mangle his body, or how fervently we tell him he's become female?

Closing your eyes and really really really believing you are a woman also does not make you a woman.

Agreed, again. And this raises a further criterion: can a person who has grown up as a man, having a man's body, a man's perspectives, a man's role within the social patterns around him, and so on, suddenly leap into the role of a woman? Indeed, can a man even know what "being a woman" is like, so that he can rationally want it? Or are woman's perspectives, experiences, perceptions, and so on unique in such a way that no man can do more than imagine something illusorily "feminish" in his head, and want that unreal "feminish" experience, rather than genuine femininity?

In other words, is what the trans-wanter wants even possible? Is it genuine femaleness?

Entry into a complex class is usually more of a checklist affair. For Mannie and Henry, diagnosing gender dysphoria and proposing a treatment schedule seems like a very simple matter.

Actually, I don't think it just "seems" it. In all but those very rare cases of genetic mutation, it's as clear as XX and XY.

It's not the diagnosis that's difficult; it's the treatment.

Thus I restate the position I gave you before, which you refused me permission to hold. Obviously the categories of male and female are used because they are useful, and this implies there is a difference. There is clearly a mix of biological and social differences, and I see no reason why any particular one or any specific set would qualify as some sort of essence of womanhood.

It makes no difference, really.

If there is any set of "biological and social differences," whatever they may be, then we are faced with the question, "Can these differences be overcome so as to turn a man into a woman?"

If womanhood is a superficial quality, something relatively easily reproduced, then perhaps it's possible to make a man into one; but if the experience of being a woman is complex, profound, nuanced, special and unique then the problems with the idea that a man can ever be a woman multiply according to that complexity, profundity and uniqueness...and we can stop well short of calling it "essentialism" and still have the same problem.

[FlashDangerpants]

It's very simple, actually.

For purposes of this particular argument it does not need to refer to anything so ambitious as, say, philosophical essentialism. All it needs to convey is that there is something specific to "being male" that is not reducible to "being a kind of female," and something about "being female" that cannot be reduced to a subcategory of "being a kind of male."

I'm not sure that's enough.

For this argument, it is.

So for this argument you will definitely not be deploying any assertion that if gender swappery is deemed real then gender cannot be real and so on? Because that stuff requires things you have failed to be declare in a forthright manner so far.

As I say, I'm content to let my interlocutors have some "light" form of it, if they feel a full, philosophical essentialism is too much to ask. Personally, I think it's not; but I'll let them have all the latitude they like, because at the end of the day, one still has exactly the same problem -- is there anything specially valuable and unique to being female.

I'm out and out rejecting it though. I don't want the lo-calorie edition of the thing that is nonsense, and I don't need it, so no thank you.

So where does that leave us? I've given you my accounting of how categorisation works as an activity, but you skipped that. Instead you offer some watered down version of essentialism as, what, a compromise?

[Immanuel Can]

I'm not sure that's enough.

For this argument, it is.

So for this argument you will definitely not be deploying any assertion that if gender swappery is deemed real...

I'm saying it's only possible to imagine it's "real" is being a woman is something superficial. If it's not, if it's profound, complicated, nuanced, special or unique, then males can imagine they can get it, but they can't.

And I'm just posing the problem, and leaving the determination of whether it's profound, unique, and so on, to be answered by others first, before we look at any implications of that.

So who is doing the "deeming" there (you used passive voice, with no specific doer of the action), and what do they "deem"?

As I say, I'm content to let my interlocutors have some "light" form of it, if they feel a full, philosophical essentialism is too much to ask. Personally, I think it's not; but I'll let them have all the latitude they like, because at the end of the day, one still has exactly the same problem -- is there anything specially valuable and unique to being female.

I'm out and out rejecting it though. I don't want the lo-calorie edition of the thing that is nonsense, and I don't need it, so no thank you.

That's fine for you. Others may differ. It won't matter to the question, but I'll leave them the latitude, even if you don't want it.

You should be aware, though, that the high-calorie version you are attracted to is certain to be closer to full essentialism than the low-calorie version. As long as you don't mind, we can proceed.

[FlashDangerpants]

For this argument, it is.

So for this argument you will definitely not be deploying any assertion that if gender swappery is deemed real...

I'm saying it's only possible to imagine it's "real" is being a woman is something superficial. If it's not, if it's profound, complicated, nuanced, special or unique, then males can imagine they can get it, but they can't.

And I'm just posing the problem, and leaving the determination of whether it's profound, unique, and so on, to be answered by others first, before we look at any implications of that.

So who is doing the "deeming" there (you used passive voice, with no specific doer of the action), and what do they "deem"?

As I say, I'm content to let my interlocutors have some "light" form of it, if they feel a full, philosophical essentialism is too much to ask. Personally, I think it's not; but I'll let them have all the latitude they like, because at the end of the day, one still has exactly the same problem -- is there anything specially valuable and unique to being female.

I'm out and out rejecting it though. I don't want the lo-calorie edition of the thing that is nonsense, and I don't need it, so no thank you.

That's fine for you. Others may differ. It won't matter to the question, but I'll leave them the latitude, even if you don't want it.

You should be aware, though, that the high-calorie version you are attracted to is certain to be closer to full essentialism than the low-calorie version. As long as you don't mind, we can proceed.

Are you just intent on railroading me? I've explicitly rejected essentialism, and I've rejected "light" essentialism, and you haven't paid a single bit of attention.

I think you hit reply with quote before you actuall read what other people write, and as you carve up our posts so much as you go, you have no real grasp of what you are responding to.

[Immanuel Can]

Are you just intent on railroading me? I've explicitly rejected essentialism, and I've rejected "light" essentialism, and you haven't paid a single bit of attention.

Don't be so silly. I haven't "railroaded" you in any way. I've never even tried to commit you to essentialism. I've said you can hold to your view, but others may not -- did you want me not to be fair to others, or did you want me to deny you the right to hold your view?

I said it won't matter either way. Both views face the same question: is whatever constitutes 'being a woman' something superficial or profound?

And if the answer is "superficial," then a trans-wanter can't "need" something superficial. If it's "profound," (as in unique, irreducible to some version of maleness, nuanced, special, and so on) then a trans-wanter can't just have what he wants by wanting it.

So, either way, and regardless of whether we take your view or that of others, the trans-wanter is beaten. He can't get what he thinks he wants.

[FlashDangerpants]

Explain how you chose to use the terms superficial and profound in this context. It certainly looks like an attempt to keep the essential vs non-existent false dichotomy in place via trickery.

I don't even know where to start with what "irreducible to some version of maleness" was supposed to mean. And it's far from obvious what you are trying to do to the word nuanced in that sentence either.

[Immanuel Can]

Explain how you chose to use the terms superficial and profound in this context. It certainly looks like an attempt to keep the essential vs non-existent false dichotomy in place via trickery.

No, it's not that. I don't care if you're an essentialist or not. It makes me no never mind.

But I'll respond one more time. For example, a "superficial" change might be something like buying a dress and some heels, or taking hormones, or getting other people to call you "ma'am," instead of "sir."

A "profound" change would be changing your actual DNA, or getting a complete surgical remake plus taking on the genuine experience, history and life-perspectives of a female (if you've never so far been one), or actually even knowing what it would be like to be a female, if you've been a male all your life and can only imagine it, or having an actual female brain installed (if such a thing were possible).

But I didn't insist that such changes were possible. I don't think they are, as a matter of fact. I only said that if all the necessary changes were of the superficial order, no more consequential than a change of dress or a change of public pronoun, then a man could not genuinely "need" to "become a woman," since the change would be superficial, by definition.

And if they were profound, then what was our assurance that the expressed desire to "become a female" was even possible?

I don't think you're actually misunderstanding this argument, and I'm getting bored with circulating it. So this will be my last time bothering here.

[FlashDangerpants]

Erm, ok. Well they've already the perspectives and the life experience of the intersex or whatever, an experience which you obviously cannot share so are logically unable to interrogate. So I guess they must have something "profound" going on right from the get go.

The choice of the term superficial was obviously intended to inspire an assumption of frivolity but carrying that over to making those things something you cannot need by definition seems presumptive. Skin is superficial, try getting by without any.

[FlashDangerpants]

oopsie double posties

[henry quirk]

...the question in this thread (and a couple or three others) is...

Can a man turn into a woman?

The dominant, opposin' positions are...

Yes, a man can turn into a woman cuz gender is fluid, mutable, interchangeable, just a social construct. (the slippery fish position)

No, a man cannot turn into a woman cuz gender is fixed, immutable, not subject to change, sumthin' concretely intrinsic to the person. (the block of granite position)

you're welcome

[Immanuel Can]

...the question in this thread (and a couple or three others) is...

Can a man turn into a woman?

The dominant, opposin' positions are...

Yes, a man can turn into a woman cuz gender is fluid, mutable, interchangeable, just a social construct. (the slippery fish position)

No, a man cannot turn into a woman cuz gender is fixed, immutable, not subject to change, sumthin' concretely intrinsic to the person. (the block of granite position)

you're welcome

Flash understands. Flash just finds it serviceable to pretend not to, because logically, following the argument creates a defeater for trans-wanters either way.

I'm not buying the posture of misunderstanding; don't worry.