The gap between theoretical arguments and lived reality

[kabbes]

Sorry no, not boring. Provocative. And by implication, therefore not worth mentioning.

My post wasn't only directed at you anyway, but everyone who has rocked up on this thread to say nothing besides, 'why are you talking about this?'

The OP is literally labelling a specific and specified group of people as fantasists as the very core of its premise. There’s therefore no way to take issue with anything in the OP without it becoming an argument about whether or not those specified people are indeed fantasists. Provocative is exactly the word for it, because any attempt to tackle anything in the OP becomes de facto about that specified and specific group and thus will devolve into the kind of thing that has already hurt so many people already.

 

[A380]

Locked by this evening.

 

[Knotted]

The OP is literally labelling a specific and specified group of people as fantasists as the very core of its premise. There’s therefore no way to take issue with anything in the OP without it becoming an argument about whether or not those specified people are indeed fantasists. Provocative is exactly the word for it, because any attempt to tackle anything in the OP becomes de facto about that specified and specific group and thus will devolve into the kind of thing that has already hurt so many people already.

It probably needs a #tag not all TERFs.

 

[LDC]

Here's a lovely example of a statement that seems reasonable but which bears zero scrutiny. The last time you met someone and they told you their name, did you demand to see some ID? Have you recently been called upon to prove your own name, sex, gender, home town, occupation, favourite colour or shoe size? No, because people self-identify all those things as a matter of course.

Do you really think people 'self identify' when they say home town they have, or for their occupation, or give their favourite colour or shoe size? Isn't that using self identify in a way that becomes totally meaningless?

 

[SpookyFrank]

To be fair it didnt really seem a reasonable statement

No it didn't but I was playing along for comic effect.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

No it didn't but I was playing along for comic effect.

It didn't work.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Do you really think people 'self identify' when they say home town they have, or for their occupation, or give their favourite colour or shoe size? Isn't that using self identify in a way that becomes totally meaningless?

OK let's return to the original context. Sex/gender. I have been called upon to provide evidence of my sex precisely zero times in my life. To all intents and purposes, I self-identify as male. The issue is clearly not self-identification in itself but the wrong people identifying as the wrong things. Which, well it's fine if that's your position but it's a very long way from 'self identification for anything at all serves no social purpose and is always indefensible' or whatever it was.

And in the spirit of the OP, I should state that the position of, 'people should self-identify for everything in all situations' doesn't work any better. I work in education, I'm glad there's a robust system in place for ensuring that people I work with are all who they say they are and that they've all provided some evidence that they are not a known threat to children or other vulnerable persons. The difference is that nobody has claimed that self-identification should be limitless and universal, but the claim has been made that it should never be allowed in any circumstances and serves no purpose. Of course there's a purpose in operating on the assumption that people are who they say they are. The purpose being that society wouldn't work at all if we didn't.

 

[LDC]

OK let's return to the original context. Sex/gender. I have been called upon to provide evidence of my sex precisely zero times in my life. To all intents and purposes, I self-identify as male.

I think when someone checks your passport they're in some part checking your sex as part of your ID really aren't they? I also check patient's sex as part of checking their ID before anything medical even if that checking is kind of hard to define as different from the more 'holistic' checking they are the right person that I'm supposed to be dealing with. Like I don't ask a question, but I think I do notice that it matches the patient details, and might have to do something if it didn't.

 

[baldrick]

I don't think it's a coincidence that your standard TERF is middle class and possibly not that well acquainted with the concept of 'real problems'.

Most people don't need to invent these spurious existential threats because they have so many real ones. Picking an example at random, trans folk face an existential threat in the form of TERFs themselves.

What? 'Real problems' like male violence and abuse? No, we have no experience of that at all.

But as usual women are the ones getting the blame for a situation not of our own making.

 

[editor]

Note: I'm still painfully aware of the real lasting damage this topic has caused urban in the past and I'm really, really wary of hosting another bitter debate where people get hurt.

I can see that some people have posted up considered responses so far, I fear that it's going to remain a divisive topic that is truly toxic and leaves the urban community the worst off for it.

Given our recent losses, that's something I can't allow so this thread may well end up locked at some point.

 

[SpookyFrank]

But as usual women are the ones getting the blame for a situation not of our own making.

Not unlike trans women somehow footing the bill for male violence.

 

[Cloo]

I'm a bit sorry I started it but it was literally about the scenario in which I noted this thing, I couldn't start it about a different argument, because I haven't observed it in other arguments, and there was therefore no way for me to get this thought out of my head but to talk about some of those arguments advanced by TERFs. Incidentally, when I say TERFs I mean TERFs. I don't mean 'women'. I don't mean 'middle class mums'. I don't mean 'anyone who has ever said anything that trans people or allies have taken issue with'. These are different things. That's probably another thread, that also shouldn't happen.

 

[cesare]

Perhaps OP is seeing this lived reality starting to play out for themself/their family and needing to work it out so their family can live their lives in reality.

Sorry, cross posted. Will edit if you like OP.

 

[JimW]

The difference is that nobody has claimed that self-identification should be limitless and universal, but the claim has been made that it should never be allowed in any circumstances and serves no purpose.

That's not my claim Frank, I'm saying that no identity is purely an act of self-will because everything is socially negotiated, and certainly "allowed" or otherwise is no part of my point. That is abstruse and theoretical, which is why I never bother making it on actual threads about trans issues because I think it's besides the point, but since this thread is primarily about theory, I mentioned it in that light.

 

[hitmouse]

The connection/conflict/whatever between theory and lived reality - experience - is a tricky one, and I think it's at the heart of a lot of the debate about identity politics. It's one of those things that I find it really hard to come up with a solid rule of thumb on, like on one hand we all appeal to identity/lived reality/experience from time to time, I think it's uncontroversial on here to say "Rishi Sunak (or whoever) has no experience or understanding of how most people live" and make political arguments on those grounds. But also of course people who do have lived experience of whatever we're talking about end up drawing different conclusions from those experiences, whether we're talking about being women or being Jewish or living in poverty or getting invaded by Russia or whatever.

If it helps, or has any relevance, I recently looked up a certain very controversial and thoughtprovoking text by Fredy Perlman, and have been thinking about the opening paragraph a fair bit:

Escape from death in a gas chamber or a Pogrom, or incarceration in a concentration camp, may give a thoughtful and capable writer, Solzhenitsyn for example, profound insights into many of the central elements of contemporary existence, but such an experience does not, in itself, make Solzhenitsyn a thinker, a writer, or even a critic of concentration camps; it does not, in itself, confer any special powers. In another person the experience might lie dormant as a potentiality, or remain forever meaningless, or it might contribute to making the person an ogre. In short, the experience is an indelible part of the individual’s past but it does not determine his future; the individual is free to choose his future; he is even free to choose to abolish his freedom, in which case he chooses in bad faith and is a Salaud (J.P. Sartre’s precise philosophical term for a person who makes such a choice [The usual English translation is ‘Bastard’])...

People who don’t understand human freedom might think the terrible revelations could have only one effect, they could only turn people against the perpetrators of such atrocities, they could only make people empathize with the victims, they could only contribute to a resolve to abolish the very possibility of a repeat of such dehumanizing persecution and cold-blooded murder. But, for better or worse, such experiences, whether personally lived or learned from revelations, are nothing but the field over which human freedom soars like a bird of prey.

 

[Raheem]

That's not my claim Frank, I'm saying that no identity is purely an act of self-will because everything is socially negotiated, and certainly "allowed" or otherwise is no part of my point. That is abstruse and theoretical, which is why I never bother making it on actual threads about trans issues because I think it's besides the point, but since this thread is primarily about theory, I mentioned it in that light.

This might suggest that private self-identification is either impossible or not meaningful, which I don't think can be right.

 

[Knotted]

That's not my claim Frank, I'm saying that no identity is purely an act of self-will because everything is socially negotiated, and certainly "allowed" or otherwise is no part of my point. That is abstruse and theoretical, which is why I never bother making it on actual threads about trans issues because I think it's besides the point, but since this thread is primarily about theory, I mentioned it in that light.

The trans youtuber Contrapoints has made two videos which are both basically dialogues with different sides of herself on trans theories, settling uneasily on the conclusion that there is no good theory and that it shouldn't need theory to be accepted. Warning - the first of these is/was pretty controversial among the trans online community. As a sis man, there's a whole conversation here that I was never even aware exists still less even thought about. Anyway, here and here if you're interested.

 

[Cloo]

hitmouse - that reminds me somewhat of Primo Levi's attitude to the Shoah - the way he wrote about it was very 'unsentimental', I think he never claimed to have any special insight into anything because of what he went through, that he was just writing what he saw. Which was all the more human. He wasn't trying to have a 'philosophy' really.

 

[bimble]

I don't understand the OP tbh.
If the thread is not in fact just about that subject (and how disingenuous or silly TERFS are) then it would be great to see a suggestion of another instance which fits what the OP seems to be grappling with:
Where else is it the case that people are making a big pointless fuss about words and categories and theory when they shouldn't because in your opinion it probably has no bearing or not much on 'lived reality'? I can't think of anything tbh.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Where else is it the case that people are making a big pointless fuss about words and categories and theory when they shouldn't because in your opinion it probably has no bearing or not much on 'lived reality'? I can't think of anything tbh.

You've never been to an SWP meeting then I take it.

 

[smokedout]

Do you really think people 'self identify' when they say home town they have, or for their occupation, or give their favourite colour or shoe size? Isn't that using self identify in a way that becomes totally meaningless?

They may well self identify their race or sexuality though, and legal rights are sometimes granted based on these identities. Would you prefer a system of government run panels like trans people and disabled people face?

 

[cesare]

The trans youtuber Contrapoints has made two videos which are both basically dialogues with different sides of herself on trans theories, settling uneasily on the conclusion that there is no good theory and that it shouldn't need theory to be accepted. Warning - the first of these is/was pretty controversial among the trans online community. As a sis man, there's a whole conversation here that I was never even aware exists still less even thought about. Anyway, here and here if you're interested.

Contrapoints is worth listening to for sure, but one needs to settle down to a quite long engagement and time spent. They don't do flypasts, they are measured and it takes time. They are entertaining too for anyone that contemplates serious engagement. I've never regretting a second of my life spent watching/listening to them.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I think when someone checks your passport they're in some part checking your sex as part of your ID really aren't they?

Well no not really. They're possibly checking that my gender presentation aligns with their expectations but they're not testing my DNA or rummaging around in my underwear.

Which is probably not what you meant. But then the words we have for sex and gender are really not fit for purpose. On any level. Hence we get arguments over the meaning of the words and who they should or shouldn't be assigned to, as if words have a true meaning beyond the uses to which they are put; instead of a discussion about how we can most effectively improve human experience and protect human dignity.

 

[smokedout]

I don't understand the OP tbh.
If the thread is not in fact just about that subject (and how disingenuous or silly TERFS are) then it would be great to see a suggestion of another instance which fits what the OP seems to be grappling with:
Where else is it the case that people are making a big pointless fuss about words and categories and theory when they shouldn't because in your opinion it probably has no bearing or not much on 'lived reality'? I can't think of anything tbh.

I think much of the rhetoric about benefits has largely followed this line, and it's why I suspect it's often used cynically. The idea that a person's self identification isn't enough to declare them unable to work, even when they are supported in that by their doctor, has been used to justify grotesque abuses of disabled people. And this was based on the claim that if this was permitted then millons of people would fake being disabled or sick to get out of working. But in reality you could get signed off sick with your doctor's support for decades and society didn't collapse. The claim that (working class) people were by nature workshy and so had to be policed and coerced at every turn or nobody would have a job is evidently false, but it was used for more sinister motive which was to force down wages and strip people of benefits they deserved. In much the same way some hostile to trans people use existential claims about womanhood being erased to cynically pursue and justify a trans eliminationist position.

 

[LDC]

They may well self identify their race or sexuality though, and legal rights are sometimes granted based on these identities. Would you prefer a system of government run panels like trans people and disabled people face?

I mean self identifying race is a while other subject that's highly complex and controversial right? But yeah, I wouldn't obviously. I'm leaving this conversation here anyway, no good will come of it!

 

[cesare]

I don't understand the OP tbh.
If the thread is not in fact just about that subject (and how disingenuous or silly TERFS are) then it would be great to see a suggestion of another instance which fits what the OP seems to be grappling with:
Where else is it the case that people are making a big pointless fuss about words and categories and theory when they shouldn't because in your opinion it probably has no bearing or not much on 'lived reality'? I can't think of anything tbh.

I don't pretend to understand the OP either but it strikes me that they may be going through some life-changing things in their family that raises this question; but also sets the context of "other" and experiencing or having passed on "other" and seeing how this plays out, potentially.

 

[smokedout]

Another example is people identifying as bisexual or more typically Queer who aren't in a same sex relationship are coming under attack with the claim that if anyone can call themselves Queer it erases same sex attraction or lesbians and gays. Except it doesn't, same sex attraction will still exist, as will same sex relationships, as will lesbian and gay identities it just means the language to describe sexuality has become a bit more complex and nuanced. But it won't actually change anyone's realities, it just annoys those who think that after centuries of oppression the western world created the perfect model of human sexuality in about 1985 and it must never move on from there.

 

[smokedout]

I mean self identifying race is a while other subject that's highly complex and controversial right? But yeah, I wouldn't obviously. I'm leaving this conversation here anyway, no good will come of it!

I think most people self identify their race and it seems to be a system that works pretty well. There's been a few anomalies, literally a handful we've heard about, so much like the op discusses it's not something that's ever likely to affect the vast majority of people's lives and self identification is probably a better bet then state approved ethnicities. Anyway fair enough you're out, just wanted to answer that.

 

[JimW]

This might suggest that private self-identification is either impossible or not meaningful, which I don't think can be right.

I sort of do mean that, in that I think there is no immutable abiding self, though of course we do adopt identities and find meaning in them, it's just it's all contingent. Again, I don't think that's particularly germane to a discussion about how rights should be granted in society, and I think smokedout makes good points about how we agree to go along with people's self-identification in circumstances where others could deny it, but to me that is precisely the sort of social negotiation I mean.

 

[mojo pixy]

Another one, theoretical No War but Class War (or full-blown Pacifism) bumping up against actual War in Ukraine.

Sorry, it's broadening the topic as I believe was intended, but already feels like a derail, nvm.

(Edit... Also said above by LynnDoyleCooper so .. yeah. It's a good and very relevant angle on the OP)