FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 11:12 am
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 2:18 am
But it does nothing for the suggestion that the question itself is "contingent."
I don't think I said that they are all equally right,
Not the question, really. The question is, "Do we have any reason at all to think some or all of them are completely wrong?" Nothing about there being many views of something suggests that there are no better answers, or that there's no right answer. All it means is that people are confused and disagreeing. No more.
I am unsold on there being a specific categorisation that "must" be correct in each case.
Well, I'm not "selling" that, though I think it's true. The people who are selling that are the trans-lobby. They insist a man must be able to become a woman. So the categories in question are theirs, not just ours.
...it seems to me that gender is merely a complex situation in which the normal rules of categorisation apply, and persons who want that not to be the case will just end up unhappy.
Well, right: the people who want a man to become a woman (i.e. the trans-lobby end up unhappy). That's observable, because of facts like that the suicidal ideation rate among trans-wanters is so very high.
But I think their problem is not their categories. They would not be happier if you said, "There's no difference between a man and a woman," or "There's no substantive difference between the two." That would simply leave them with no part of what they want. They actually want you to say that a man can BE a woman, in every possible sense you can imagine. They want your make-believe, to help theirs.
In the case of gender, it is governed by the expectations of a broad society.
Gender's biological and empirically observable. We won't get anywhere by imagining it's open to "social" reinterpretation. In fact, up to the present day, no society has been so lunatic as not to recognize the distinction between male and female. That sort of absurdity had to await the postmodern period.
In either case, what was known to be the case in your grandad's time is not guaranteed still to be the case now.
Well, that's an attempt to shame by way of antiquity, a rhetorical gesture that actually has nothing to do with truth. Lots of things were known to granddad that are still known today. You mustn't suppose that people of previous generations were all fools, or that all the knowledge they gleaned for us has changed with the years. Some has, some hasn't.
The question I was answering was about "womanhood" and attainability.
Then let's answer that one, instead of merely talking around it. If you suppose that a man can become a woman, outline a few steps by which that would happen.
Let's start with a man putting on a dress. Is he a woman yet? How about false eyelashes? No? How about him growing long hair? Taking hormones? Getting surgery?
At what point has he crossed over, and actually, genuinely become what you mean by "woman"? And if he
never can, what are we discussing?
...the attainability question is contingent on the definition of what needs attainign to fulfil a particular descriptive criterion such as gender.
Right. So now, I'm asking for your "particular criteria" that make a man into a woman. That's all. Yours. Not everybody's. Yours.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 2:18 am
If somebody belongs to one gender, but then sheds aspects of that gender and acquires aspects of an alternative gender, at some point they would be more the latter than the former.
Wait. You haven't even said what these "aspects" would be. We don't even know if they are the sorts of things that CAN be "shed" or "acquired."
For example, DNA will not change, no matter what we do. Body chemistry can be modified temporarily with chemicals, but will continually revert to the original. Size, proportions, etc cannot be changed sufficiently, even by surgery. Can history be excised and rewritten, so that a person who has lived as a man can have the genuine background and experiences of a woman? I know of no method for that. And brains cannot be swapped in bodies...
Those are the contingent details
Well, DNA or brain structure, sexual physiology, or experiential history are not "contingent" because those are all things the man has before he wants to become a woman. So the "contingent" bit is just not so.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 2:18 am
So you should first tell us what "acquired" or "shed" traits would turn a man into a woman. Then we can talk about how many of those it takes for a man to have crossed the line into genuine "womanhood."
Otherwise, you're talking about something that perhaps actually has never even really and genuinely happened.
I might be. That isn't my concern, I don't care.
It's not an avoidable question, in this case. If you simply don't know or "don't care" at what point a man can become a woman, then you cannot rationally advocate that people should be allowed to do it. For all you know, and for all the criteria you have in hand, they may well not even be able to.
None of my business, and none of my concern.
If that were really true, you would not be debating this question. It actually is central to the integrity of any case you present. If you don't even know when/if a man can become a woman, you're advocating for something that you don't even know anything about, you would have to admit.
I don't think that's where you're actually at. I think you just want to avoid the question, because it really would pin you down to truth.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 2:18 am
Why are superficial and profound the only two things this can be?
They're not two separate things. They refer to a scale. Changing one's clothing would rate far on the "superficial" side. If you could change your DNA, then that would be as far on the "profound" side as anybody could go. But everything else can be in the middle, on a sliding scale. It doesn't change the problem.
It leaves us with the very weird idea of 'superficially' chopped off dicks. [/quote]
No, it doesn't. I'm letting you decide whether that step is "superficial" or not. Let's make that one of your criteria: is a man removing his penis sufficient to render him a "woman"? Or does he need to do more than that? How much more?
If you can't figure out the midpoint, start from the extremes and work inward to get as close to it as you feel you can. Start with two extremes: say, "a mere man in a dress is not a woman," (we probably agree on that), and that, on the other side, "a person with female brain, history, DNA, reproductive features, etc. is certainly a woman" (again, we probably agree here). Let's find out where you and I change our views. Move inward from those two, specifying steps, until we get to a smaller range.
For example, is a man with a dress plus a feminine manner of speaking a "woman"? Is a man with a dress, a feminine speech pattern and breasts a "woman"? Keep going until you find what you believe.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 2:18 am
Lots of people need things they cannot possibly have. Everyone who has an incurable disease needs a cure for an incurable disease.
But then he c
annot have a cure, and he cannot expect anyone else to assist him in getting one, since you've defined the disease as incurable already. In fact, all such a person can do is suffer with his present state as best he can. We don't even have the power to do more -- it's "incurable," remember?
This is irrelevant.
Heh. It was
your case!
You raised it, I didn't.
There are needs that can be met, and there are needs that cannot be met. That doesn't imply that needs which cannot be met are therefore not needs.
I know you think so. I could tell from your earlier comments. So I accept your wording. However, what such "needs" cannot be is "legitimate needs," or "morally-obligatory needs." If nobody can possibly make a man into a woman, then whatever feelings of "need" such a person may have, he has zero claim and zero possibility for being helped toward it.
A man may "feel" he wants to be a horse (some people literally do). I cannot help him do that. Neither can you. So you can call him "needing" to be a horse, but it's a moot point -- he simply cannot be. End of story.
So the question is, "Is the desire in a man to be a woman like the desire of a man to be a teacher or doctor -- something plausibly attainable -- or is it like the man's desire to be horse -- something irrational and impossible?"
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 2:18 am
And so his "need" has no moral obligatory implication for anyone else, or even for the incurable man. They
can't cure him, so they can't be
morally obligated to cure him.
Tricky little switcheroo there.[/quote]
No "switcheroo" at all, actually. As I said above, I accepted your definition of "need," but pointed out that it solves nothing anyway.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2020 2:18 am
That may well be the only sense in which a male can "need" to be female...that he wants a thing that is impossible. So he can't ask us to help him with his "need" -- we have no power to give him what he wants.
You have the option of choosing to accomodate the request. [/quote]
No, you don't necessarily have that at all. You may perhaps only join him in empowering his delusion...but if a man cannot become a woman, you're doing him no service at all. You're merely feeding his dysfunction, which is not a nice thing to do.
The most important question here is, "Is what he is requesting possible?" And if it is, and you know it is, you should be able to say exactly how it's possible.
You have recommended therapy, but if the therapist recommends transition, then what?
Then the therapist is making the dysmorphic sufferer statistically MORE suicidal, not less. And if there is no possibility of a man
actually becoming a woman, the therapist is deceiving him as well. So that would be malpractice.
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