Toxic Gender Philosophy

[FlashDangerpants]

You lied. Cambridge agrees with me, not you.

It seems you owe the guy an apology.

Also that you should learn to do very basic due dilignce before accusing others of lies.

[Immanuel Can]

You lied. Cambridge agrees with me, not you.

It seems you owe the guy an apology.

Read the first definition. Then you owe me an apology.

I won't wait around for it.

[FlashDangerpants]

Even when you've made a small reversible lazy error, you always fuck up properly by doubling down instead of fixing it Mannie. You are doing it again.

[Consul]

Indeed, science is dependent upon mathematics, which is unscientific. Is math untrustworthy, because it does not involve the "methodologies" ("methods") of hard science?

(Pure) Mathematics is a "hard", methodologically rigorous science—a rational, non-empirical one, but a science all the same.

[Alexiev]

It's not true that "race" is no longer a viable biological concept, because all that has been disproved is that human races exist as distinct and discrete subspecies of the species homo sapiens; and it doesn't follow therefrom that there are no natural human races at all. Actually, there is an alternative racial (population) naturalism that is scientifically defensible. See: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/

As for gender, if gender ≠ sex, it needs to be clarified first what gender is supposed to be. That there is a sociocultural superstructure of human sex is not in question; and it can certainly be studied scientifically. Moreover, it is certainly legitimate for feminists to analyze and criticize traditional gender/sex norms and roles.

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What DNA testing has demonstrated is that the old theory of four basic races is an inaccurate and misleading description of human genetic diversity. When I was a lad, physical anthropologists thought (based on the scientific study of phenotype) that the four basic race (caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid and aboriginal) were good descriptors of human genetic diversity. We now know this is not the case.

"I will disambiguate four senses of ‘gender’ now. Readers should return to this section if they later come across a use that confuses them. Just as the English word ‘bank’ can refer to the land beside the river, or the institution that looks after your money, the following are four different meanings of the English word ‘gender’ – etymologically related, no doubt, and overlapping in terms of people they apply to, but standing for different things. Here they are.

GENDER1: A polite-sounding word for the division between men and women, understood as a traditional alternative word for biological sex/the division between biological males and females. This word is thought to have the benefit of an absence of embarrassing connotations of sexiness in the copulatory sense. When a passport application, say, asks for ‘gender’, it’s intended in this sense. In Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford, a character refers to the ‘masculine gender’, meaning males/men.

GENDER2: A word for social stereotypes, expectations and norms of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’, originally directed towards biological males and females respectively. These can and do differ from culture to culture, though there are many overlaps too.

GENDER3: A word for the division between men and women, understood, by definition, as a division between two sets of people: those who have the social role of masculinity projected on to them, and those who have the social role of femininity projected on to them. …In the late twentieth century [this view] was enthusiastically endorsed by some feminists as a putative shield against accusations of ‘biological determinism’: the idea that female anatomy is domestic destiny.

GENDER4: A shortened version of the term ‘gender identity’. …[A] common idea is that it is the ‘private experience of gender role’ – roughly, whether you relate to yourself psychologically as a boy or man, girl or woman, or neither, in a way that has nothing directly to do with your sex.

Keeping these different senses in mind is crucial when trying to decipher various claims made by feminists and trans activists."

(Stock, Kathleen. Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism. London: Fleet, 2021.)

"Debates in feminism and trans politics are often framed in terms of a background assumption that "gender" names some particular thing and that the important questions and disagreements are concerned with what it truly is, where it comes from, or whether it is good or bad. In this book, we'll argue that questions posed in these terms are usually confused. "Gender" doesn't pick out any one thing; it equivocates among many. …
To illustrate the problem better, let's consider some oft-repeated claims about what "gender" is:

Problematic Slogan 1: Gender is the social interpretation of sex.

Problematic Slogan 2: Gender is an oppressive system that ties certain behaviors and characteristics to sex.

Problematic Slogan 3: Gender is a performance of the role prescribed for one's sex.

Problematic Slogan 4: Sex is female, male, etc.; gender is feminine, masculine, etc.

Problematic Slogan 5: Sex is female, male, etc.; gender is woman, man, etc.

Alongside these claims about what “gender" is, in debates about trans life and trans experience we often encounter claims about what “gender” is like:

Problematic Slogan 6: Gender is between your ears, not between your legs.

Problematic Slogan 7: In transsexualism, biological sex conflicts with psychological gender.

Problematic Slogan 8: A person is cisgender if and only if they identify with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Problematic Slogan 9: Gender is an important, deeply felt aspect of the self, which deserves our respect.

We plan to argue that serious problems arise when we understand all these slogans as claims about one and the same thing, but, to start, let's note that each of them is getting at something worth talking about. Some of them are unnervingly vague, some of them incorporate debatable assumptions or political positions, and some use dated or offensive language, but, in their various more or less clumsy ways, they are all gesturing at important phenomena that deserve our attention.

Problematic Slogans 1-5 are all concerned with contrasting "gender" and "sex". The notion of "sex” is understood in many different ways, and it, the associated notion of distinct "sexes", and the "sex"/"gender" distinction all present their own difficulties."

(Briggs, R. A., and B. R. George. What Even Is Gender? New York: Routledge, 2023. pp. 5-7)
——————
"“Gender Identity” in the Received Narrative

We’ll start by sketching the received understanding of “gender identity” in the collective imagination:

1. People have a more-or-less stable inner trait called “gender identity”.

2. One’s “gender identity” is what disposes one to think of oneself as a “woman” or as a “man” (or, perhaps, as both or as neither).

3. One’s “gender identity” is what disposes one to favor or avoid stereotypically feminine or masculine behaviors (or otherwise gendered behaviors).

4. It is possible for there to be a mismatch between one’s “gender identity” and one’s physiology (in particular one’s “assigned sex” or “natal sex”).

5. The frustration of these dispositions, or the presence of this sort of mismatch, results in a kind of distress known as “gender dysphoria” (or “gender incongruence”).

6. The alleviation of “gender dysphoria” is the legitimate purpose of medical transition.

7. It is one’s “gender identity”, and not one’s physiology, that properly determines whether one is a woman or a man (or both or neither).
Few people would endorse all of 1–7 without qualifcation, or would even regard them all as positions worth taking seriously, and trans theorists like Stone (1987), Spade (2003), and Bettcher (2014) have long criticized many components of this picture. Nevertheless, the prevailing discourse keeps returning to these assumptions, often with disastrous results. Relying on the language of “gender identity” (and the closely related concept of “gender dysphoria”) to describe every aspect of trans subjectivity (and, indeed, of gendered subjectivity) contributes to concrete harms, including the three we sketch here."

(Briggs, R. A., and B. R. George. What Even Is Gender? New York: Routledge, 2023. pp. 21-2)

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All of this seems reasonable. What, then, is the problem? Of course these new, shifting categories of gender assignment are problematic. What is not problematic is basic politeness and decency. Just as calling someone by his or her birth name once they change their name is rude, so is calling someone by his or her birth gender once they (we need a singular neuter pronoun) announce they have changed that. It's basic good manners.

I'll admit that the current obsession with gender identity may cause more harm than good. Acceptance of transgender people doubtless is a huge boon to those few people who clearly identify as a member of the opposite sex. However, encouraging young people to question their biological gender may create problems for others.

[Immanuel Can]

Even when you've made a small reversible lazy error, you always fuck up properly by doubling down instead of fixing it Mannie. You are doing it again.

So let's have a retraction.

It would read, "You dissembled, and misrepresented Cambridge, and hid the truth, and opted to isolate an absurd pseudo-definition while deliberately concealing that the primary definition was the same as mine...all of which Flash thinks does not constitute 'lying,' but I do."

Happy now?

[FlashDangerpants]

But it wouldn't even matter if it didn't, and if the definition your fraudulently presented as Cambridge's was really theirs, because it's question-begging and circular anyway. "An adult who lives and identifies as female," it says. But what does it mean to "live and identify as a female"? What is that? How does it differ from "living and identifying as a male"? Your definition does not say. So it doesn't really "define" at all. It's circular: essentially, it's "a female is somebody who identifies as a female." But what they're identifying AS remains totally obscure. Nothing is actually being defined.

No mate, you owe him a proper retraction. You are being sinfully prideful in ther face of your own clear failure.

ProperRetractionRequired.JPG

[Alexiev]

Indeed, science is dependent upon mathematics, which is unscientific. Is math untrustworthy, because it does not involve the "methodologies" ("methods") of hard science?

(Pure) Mathematics is a "hard", methodologically rigorous science—a rational, non-empirical one, but a science all the same.

Science: the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained:

Clearly, math is not a science, despite being rigorous. This is not my idea. I'm borrowing it from Timothy Williamson, Cambridge Philosophy professor. Not only is math not a science, but neither are history, philosophy, literary theory, and many other fields of knowledge. Only when we broaden the definition of "science" to all investigations leading to knowledge can we call math or history (or cultural anthropology, in general) a science. That does not suggest that they cannot add to our understanding. Indeed, without math, scientific understanding would be significantly reduced.

[Consul]

woman:
1. "an adult female human being"
2. "an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth"

Source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... lish/woman

The second definition is part of (trans)gender newspeak, which I reject.
As for the first one, I think women needn't be human beings. What's wrong with calling an adult female chimpanzee/gorilla/orangutan a woman? Moreover, there may be extraterrestrial adult female persons, who would naturally be called women, wouldn't they?

[Immanuel Can]

No mate, you owe him a proper retraction.

Too bad you can't read the first definition. You now have the only "retraction" you're going to get on that, and it's absolutely fair.

[Immanuel Can]

What's wrong with calling an adult female chimpanzee/gorilla/orangutan a woman?

Well, because they're not human. And the word "woman" ordinarily signifies an adult human female.

Moreover, there may be extraterrestrial adult female persons, who would naturally be called women, wouldn't they?

We can reconsider the normal definition when they appear.

[Alexiev]

Click on your link, and read the second definition therein, which I copied and pasted.

Did you bother to notice what I said?

But it wouldn't even matter if it didn't, and if the definition your fraudulently presented as Cambridge's was really theirs, because it's question-begging and circular anyway. "An adult who lives and identifies as female," it says. But what does it mean to "live and identify as a female"? What is that? How does it differ from "living and identifying as a male"? Your definition does not say. So it doesn't really "define" at all. It's circular: essentially, it's "a female is somebody who identifies as a female." But what they're identifying AS remains totally obscure. Nothing is actually being defined.

I asked you for a non-circular definition. You tried to hide behind a circular one. But if you have a non-circular one, then you can try again.

By the way, that second definition you selected out in exclusion of the first clearly illustrates the point. Here it is:

an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth:
She was the first trans woman elected to a national office.
Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth.

If "Mary was "assigned" something at birth, something different from what she "is," according to the example given, then what was it she was "assigned," and what was it she was "being" before? You see? These ideologically-possessed idiots can't even get their own story straight.

Heck, they even have to couch it in the passive voice, so they don't have to say who did the "saying" in the second part of the sentence. Talk about lack of frankness...

All labels are "assigned". That's how language works. If we didn't have language, there would be no "men" or "women". This is obvious and inarguable.

[FlashDangerpants]

No mate, you owe him a proper retraction.

Too bad you can't read the first definition. You now have the only "retraction" you're going to get on that, and it's absolutely fair.

You accused him of a fraud which he definitely didn't commit. Of lies he didn't tell. Your own conscience should force you to deal with it like an honest man.

[Consul]

Clearly, math is not a science, despite being rigorous. This is not my idea. I'm borrowing it from Timothy Williamson, Cambridge Philosophy professor. Not only is math not a science, but neither are history, philosophy, literary theory, and many other fields of knowledge. Only when we broaden the definition of "science" to all investigations leading to knowledge can we call math or history (or cultural anthropology, in general) a science. That does not suggest that they cannot add to our understanding. Indeed, without math, scientific understanding would be significantly reduced.

You seem to have misread Williamson (Emeritus Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford):

"In my view, the supposed opposition between philosophy and science assumes an overly narrow, one-size-fits-all conception of science. After all, mathematics is just as scientific as natural sciences like physics, chemistry, and biology, all of which constantly rely on it, yet mathematicians don’t do experiments. Like philosophers, they can work by thinking in an armchair. This book explains how the methods philosophers use are the appropriate scientific methods for answering their questions, which are questions of the traditional ambitious kind. Like mathematics, philosophy is a non-natural science. Unlike mathematics, it is not yet a fully mature science.“

(Williamson, Timothy. Philosophical Method: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. p. 4)

Yes, (pure) mathematics is a non-natural science, but a science all the same. It's a non-empirical, rational science, but a science all the same.

[Immanuel Can]

Click on your link, and read the second definition therein, which I copied and pasted.

Did you bother to notice what I said?

But it wouldn't even matter if it didn't, and if the definition your fraudulently presented as Cambridge's was really theirs, because it's question-begging and circular anyway. "An adult who lives and identifies as female," it says. But what does it mean to "live and identify as a female"? What is that? How does it differ from "living and identifying as a male"? Your definition does not say. So it doesn't really "define" at all. It's circular: essentially, it's "a female is somebody who identifies as a female." But what they're identifying AS remains totally obscure. Nothing is actually being defined.

I asked you for a non-circular definition. You tried to hide behind a circular one. But if you have a non-circular one, then you can try again.

By the way, that second definition you selected out in exclusion of the first clearly illustrates the point. Here it is:

an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth:
She was the first trans woman elected to a national office.
Mary is a woman who was assigned male at birth.

If "Mary was "assigned" something at birth, something different from what she "is," according to the example given, then what was it she was "assigned," and what was it she was "being" before? You see? These ideologically-possessed idiots can't even get their own story straight.

Heck, they even have to couch it in the passive voice, so they don't have to say who did the "saying" in the second part of the sentence. Talk about lack of frankness...

All labels are "assigned". That's how language works.

But some are falsely "assigned," and some rightly...the difference being whether or not the label properly identifies realities. And there is always an "assigner," of course.

However, in the case of the definition you suggest, there is no named "assigner," and no grounds for the assigning of the label. In fact, there isn't even a non-circular explanation of what the signified concept is.

Inquirer: "What is a 'woman'?"

PC Ideologue: "Somebody who identifies as a woman."

Inquirer: "What is that? What are they identifying as?"

PC Ideologue: "It's a woman."

Inquirer: "Yes, that's what I'm asking: what's a 'woman'?"

PC Ideologue: "You're a bigot, a sexist, a homophobe..."

That's how the dialogue goes, every time. And it's because the "gender" lobby doesn't actually have a single answer they can defend. They can't say a woman is "an adult human female," because that's "essentialist" and "binary," and they don't want to be "essentialist" or "binary." But at the same time, they have to believe with total conviction that the version of "woman" that the man wants to "trans" into being is 100% real, authentic and essential to him, or it cannot be advocated for: he could much more easily simply stop wanting to be it, since gender is said to be a "construct" and not "essential" anyway.

So they can't even make sense on their own terms: and, not surprisingly, that why they lapse into the ad hominem immediately. Being utterly defeated if the game is limited to their own logic, or any logic at all, they abandon logic and resort to abusing the messenger. And that tells you that it's all they've got.