Is this woman a transphobe?

[Athos]

Whilst I appreciate your taking the time to reply, my experience of you has been of someone who likes to fuck around with a version of the truth. So thanks but no thanks.

You still smarting from the other thread? The one in which I called you out for your decision to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with bigoted religious authoritarians?

 

[bmd]

You still smarting from the other thread?

Exactly.

 

[Border Reiver]

I have read this most often, recently, with regards to trans rights. I always wonder what a natural category is? Please imagine Google doesn't exist btw, it's really hard to find a succinct answer that I can question (sorry). I have been taught, all my life, that there are 2 sexes. That being born with certain chromosomes means that you are one or the other. That seems natural to me. Why isn't it?

A natural category is something that would exist without human intervention or interpretation. Such as mass, extension, time, velocity, hardness, reactivity. Everything that requires have man definition is a construct. Not a social construct, but a scientific construct. The former matters exist without science- they would still exist if there was no observer; they are universal and timeless. The latter are culturally dependent in time and place.

 

[bmd]

A natural category is something that would exist without human intervention or interpretation. Such as mass, extension, time, velocity, hardness, reactivity. Everything that requires have man definition is a construct. Not a social construct, but a scientific construct. The former matters exist without science- they would still exist if there was no observer; they are universal and timeless. The latter are culturally dependent in time and place.

So, we expect definitions to be allowed to change and this one, gender, is being forced to stay the same because some of us buy into it for our own reasons and therefore won't allow Trans people because of those reasons?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A natural category is something that would exist without human intervention or interpretation. Such as mass, extension, time, velocity, hardness, reactivity. Everything that requires have man definition is a construct. Not a social construct, but a scientific construct. The former matters exist without science- they would still exist if there was no observer; they are universal and timeless. The latter are culturally dependent in time and place.

Sexual reproduction happened long before humans existed, and no doubt will for long after humans cease existing.

'hardness' is a very good example of a quality that isn't 'out there' in quite the way we might think it is. That concept is our construct.

 

[Border Reiver]

Without reading most of the thread, the tweet quoted in the OP says 'outed as a T*RF' which puts 'TERF' on a level with terms of racist abuse etc which are too upsetting to quote in full.

Which is bullshit. Puts my heckles up straight away. If you really believe that word is too heinous to be written down, then don't write it at all.

It is a toxic term as is transphobia. As with terms used in the abortion debate, neutral terms create better discussion.

 

[Border Reiver]

Sexual reproduction happened long before humans existed, and no doubt will for long after humans cease existing.

'hardness' is a very good example of a quality that isn't 'out there' in quite the way we might think it is. That concept is our construct.

Tell that to rocks undergoing erosion.

Reproduction is natural, "sex" as a concept is not.

 

[bmd]

Sexual reproduction happened long before humans existed, and no doubt will for long after humans cease existing.

'hardness' is a very good example of a quality that isn't 'out there' in quite the way we might think it is. That concept is our construct.

So some people argue that Gender is natural?

 

[Border Reiver]

So, we expect definitions to be allowed to change and this one, gender, is being forced to stay the same because some of us buy into it for our own reasons and therefore won't allow Trans people because of those reasons?

That is the social effect of it.

Almost every philosophical discussion founders on failure to agree common ground. Little common ground is available for non-natural categories.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Tell that to rocks undergoing erosion.

Reproduction is natural, "sex" as a concept is not.

Tell that to the rabbits reproducing.

'sex' as a concept is there to explain the workings of sexual reproduction. It's not really on a different level from the concept 'photon' that is there to explain the workings of light.

If you think I'm wrong, explain how sexual reproduction works without reference to the concept 'sex'.

 

[bmd]

That is the social effect of it.

Almost every philosophical discussion founders on failure to agree common ground. Little common ground is available for non-natural categories.

So Trans people are like early settlers in a hostile country?

I really appreciate you taking the time to say this.

eta: last post of mine that starts with fucking 'so'.

 

[Knotted]

I like a good discussion about scientific realism and developmental biology as much as anyone. But doing it here prolongs the life of a thread that may be causing upset anyway.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I like a good discussion about scientific realism and developmental biology as much as anyone. But doing it here prolongs the life of a thread that may be causing upset anyway.

Ok, I'll try to leave it. This does matter, though, I think, because this is pretty much exactly the kind of thing some people mean when they say there is an attempt to 'erase' sex. At the very least, it is an attempt to place sex and gender next to one another as equivalently culturally determined concepts. And it is the product of hopelessly muddled thinking, thinking that in this instance combines naive realism with extreme Bishop Berkeleyism.

So what, you see someone saying stupid shit and you don't challenge it?

 

[kabbes]

Depends a bit on how "incorrigible" was being used. A person's reflection on their experiences, and subsequent experience of them, is culturally malleable, though.

I would go further, actually, and suggest that their experiences are mediated through their cultural tools, such that how they experience and what meaning they assign to it is directly determined by their culture.

In turn, this means that experience can be debated. It isn’t something essential.

 

[bmd]

I like a good discussion about scientific realism and developmental biology as much as anyone. But doing it here prolongs the life of a thread that may be causing upset anyway.

How do we talk about this then? I am not trying to get in your face. I just want to understand this and I really felt like I was starting to. But then I also do not want to upset anyone.

 

[Border Reiver]

Tell that to the rabbits reproducing.

'sex' as a concept is there to explain the workings of sexual reproduction. It's not really on a different level from the concept 'photon' that is there to explain the workings of light.

If you think I'm wrong, explain how sexual reproduction works without reference to the concept 'sex'.

Reproduction is an event. "Sex" is a category. Sex as a concept did not exist until it was conceptualised by early folk scientists. Reproduction (sexual or asexual) has existed since single celled organisms evolved.

 

[19force8]

I have read this most often, recently, with regards to trans rights. I always wonder what a natural category is? Please imagine Google doesn't exist btw, it's really hard to find a succinct answer that I can question (sorry). I have been taught, all my life, that there are 2 sexes. That being born with certain chromosomes means that you are one or the other. That seems natural to me. Why isn't it?

There's a scientific, philosophical and mathematical debate about natural sets. I don't understand it, but that's not really what's being talked about here, which is the idea that there's a natural order to things and when we choose to put them into groups it isn't just a whim, it's their proper place in "nature."

The problem is that nature isn't just black and white, there are shades of grey and exceptions.

To recap, you were taught there are two distinct and immutable sexes determined by chromosomes. Yes?

And yet there exist men with XX chromosomes and women with XY. Then there are intersex people. There are also animals that can switch between male and female. Clearly, the world is more complex than you were taught. Maybe time for a readjustment.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Reproduction is an event. "Sex" is a category. Sex as a concept did not exist until it was conceptualised by early folk scientists. Reproduction (sexual or asexual) has existed since single celled organisms evolved.

Perhaps mercifully, I really don't have time for this today. But you are hopelessly confused.

 

[Border Reiver]

I like a good discussion about scientific realism and developmental biology as much as anyone. But doing it here prolongs the life of a thread that may be causing upset anyway.

Two old women on a bus

I like a good discussion about scientific realism and developmental biology as much as anyone. But doing it here prolongs the life of a thread that may be causing upset anyway.

Old philosophers' joke

Two old women on a bus.
One says "Isn't that news dreadful"
The other replies "Just be philosophical, don't think about it".

 

[Border Reiver]

Perhaps mercifully, I really don't have time for this today. But you are hopelessly confused.

Either that or I understand matters somewhat better than you do. My beliefs are firmly anchored in Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science. Are you aware of the concepts "Universals" and "Particulars".

 

[Border Reiver]

Perhaps mercifully, I really don't have time for this today. But you are hopelessly confused.

I do tend to ignore people who use abuse in debate. You not understanding a complex subject does not mean that anyone else is confused.

 

[Knotted]

Ok, I'll try to leave it. This does matter, though, I think, because this is pretty much exactly the kind of thing some people mean when they say there is an attempt to 'erase' sex. At the very least, it is an attempt to place sex and gender next to one another as equivalently culturally determined concepts. And it is the product of hopelessly muddled thinking, thinking that in this instance combines naive realism with extreme Bishop Berkeleyism.

So what, you see someone saying stupid shit and you don't challenge it?

Does it matter politically? Suppose we discover a long lost tribe whose hermaphrodite tendencies blow apart all fixed notions of sex. Would that spell the end of feminism, or would that be the key discovery that confirms the necessity for the gender recognition act? Surely not, both have firmer ground than this! Politically it's a non issue, except perhaps as it relates to intersex people. Scientifically, it could be very interesting though.

You could always start a thread on the science of sex if you want. Surely a better place for it, away from all the heat.

 

[Knotted]

How do we talk about this then? I am not trying to get in your face. I just want to understand this and I really felt like I was starting to. But then I also do not want to upset anyone.

If we're talking about scientific matters, I think that would best done on its own thread.

 

[co-op]

You're under no obligation to tell anyone your gender identity, but a lot of posts refer to you as male, to which you haven't objected, and blokes telling women how to do feminism is not on imo. I'm a woman btw.

My gender identity and sexuality are as complex as the next persons & not things I have discussed in any meaningful way on these boards, that's just not my thing. But I am biologically male, a man, and it is through that physical prism that my GI and sexuality are expressed. But as Kevbad the Bad has said; if I can simply identify into womanhood, who are you or anyone to tell me that I'm a "man telling women how to do feminism"? Or maybe - like Eddie Izzard - I have a girl mode and a boy mode and I flip between them and some of my posts are by a woman, some by a man?

The reason for starting this thread wasn't to lecture anyone about feminism and how to do it properly but a rush of blood to the head at seeing that Vicky Hubble had been banned off twitter for "transphobia" for the saying what's quoted in the OP and just being completely baffled at how large sections of the left can look at what she wrote and think "ah yes, that's the enemy, she's obviously motivated by hatred and bigotry".

I am just baffled and depressed more than I can say about this. I know serious left wing people who are seriously talking about voting tory over this. WTAF?

Probably the thread should have gone in the direction that Edie pointed it, trying to work out why this has happened and what we can do about it except just have this awful fucking death battle until some split is made real or the next Big Thing comes along and eclipses this but I never know how that can happen without rehashing all the issues yet again.

What a nightmare.

 

[bmd]

There's a scientific, philosophical and mathematical debate about natural sets. I don't understand it, but that's not really what's being talked about here, which is the idea that there's a natural order to things and when we choose to put them into groups it isn't just a whim, it's their proper place in "nature."

The problem is that nature isn't just black and white, there are shades of grey and exceptions.

To recap, you were taught there are two distinct and immutable sexes determined by chromosomes. Yes?

And yet there exist men with XX chromosomes and women with XY. Then there are intersex people. There are also animals that can switch between male and female. Clearly, the world is more complex than you were taught. Maybe time for a readjustment.

Some things aren't black and white. Got it. Many thanks.

 

[kabbes]

The reason that it matters to consider the reproductive categories associated with sex is nothing to do with personal feelings or self-definition. The reason these categories matter is because this particular issue of self-identity happens to cross over with a much larger and ongoing cultural and political battle about the power inequality that derives from control over reproductivivity (both in the sexual sense and also in the sense of the reproduction of capital). To this end, it doesn't really matter whether sex categories are "natural" or socially constructed, actually. Either way, they have the same concrete reality in terms of the way other people see you and this has real-world consequences in terms of the opportunities given to you, the threats you face and the subjectivity you are directed towards. What strikes me again and again in these debates is that this two-way nature of identity construction tends to be ignored, as if identity is something purely personal or atomised or individual rather than embedded in the context of social and power relations.

 

[Looby]

I keep seeing ‘the left’. It’s ‘the left’ to blame etc etc
Who the fuck are you talking about? It’s not some united harmonious group, I see very little consensus between factions and groups that apparently make up ‘the left’.
So who is being lumped into this because they’re getting blamed for a whole lot of shit they seem to have zero control or influence over?

 

[Border Reiver]

My gender identity and sexuality are as complex as the next persons & not things I have discussed in any meaningful way on these boards, that's just not my thing. But I am biologically male, a man, and it is through that physical prism that my GI and sexuality are expressed. But as Kevbad the Bad has said; if I can simply identify into womanhood, who are you or anyone to tell me that I'm a "man telling women how to do feminism"? Or maybe - like Eddie Izzard - I have a girl mode and a boy mode and I flip between them and some of my posts are by a woman, some by a man?

The reason for starting this thread wasn't to lecture anyone about feminism and how to do it properly but a rush of blood to the head at seeing that Vicky Hubble had been banned off twitter for "transphobia" for the saying what's quoted in the OP and just being completely baffled at how large sections of the left can look at what she wrote and think "ah yes, that's the enemy, she's obviously motivated by hatred and bigotry".

I am just baffled and depressed more than I can say about this. I know serious left wing people who are seriously talking about voting tory over this. WTAF?

Probably the thread should have gone in the direction that Edie pointed it, trying to work out why this has happened and what we can do about it except just have this awful fucking death battle until some split is made real or the next Big Thing comes along and eclipses this but I never know how that can happen without rehashing all the issues yet again.

What a nightmare.

Having read the actual words she used I note that she claims that she supports the "single sex exemptions" in the law. With one small exception there are no single sex exemptions that do not apply to persons with a Gender Recognition Certificate. There is also an understanding that people transitioning have access to female places if they are fulfilling the requirement to live in the target gender for two years.

Whether unwittingly or not she is refusing to recognise the clear legal rights of certain persons with a Y chromosome to occupy female areas. This is unlawful; as unlawful as excluding people on the grounds of race, gender or sexuality.

 

[Santino]

I would go further, actually, and suggest that their experiences are mediated through their cultural tools, such that how they experience and what meaning they assign to it is directly determined by their culture.

In turn, this means that experience can be debated. It isn’t something essential.

We are all being-with-others.

 

[Santino]

Either that or I understand matters somewhat better than you do. My beliefs are firmly anchored in Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science. Are you aware of the concepts "Universals" and "Particulars".

Phil?