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I don't understand why this matters if the attributes are trivia about molecular biology. Why can't the definition be self-referential? You keep saying it can't, but you haven't actually said why this is a problem! It's not a problem that the social norm as to who gets called "Bill" is "people who tell you 'Call me Bill'". Why should it be a problem for the social norm as to who gets called "Mrs" to be "people who tell you 'Call me Mrs'"?
And I don't "want a man who puts on a dress to be called a woman", I want anyone who asks to be called a woman to be called a woman whether they wear a dress or pants or a spacesuit. The contextual attributes, being ultimately subjective, simply explain why as a matter of fact someone might want to be called a woman, particularly. Compare: "Bill" has social connotations relative to "William", explaining why a William might prefer to be known as Bill, but that doesn't mean that only people who match the vibe that "a guy called Bill" evokes in a vacuum are allowed to ask that people call them Bill.
Other useful point of reference: "transwoman" itself, separate from whether you think a trans woman counts as "a woman". Surely you don't think "transwoman" is a meaningless term lacking a proper definition. You see perfectly well what we've been talking about all throughout this thread, there's no ambiguity, no case where you'd be helpless as to say whether WandererintheWilderness would consider a given person "a trans woman" or not. And yet - how else would you define it than "someone who identifies as a trans woman"?
Ultimately, I'm just being kind. I want people to get what they want, I want them to get to be who they want to be. Or try, anyway. Pursuit of happiness and all that. You want to talk about sophistry, it's the gender-criticals' harping on about the definition problem which strikes me as in bad faith. The trans usage of "woman" or the pronoun "she" are using those words in perfectly understandable ways that don't misrepresent the physical facts of their biology, any more than calling a boat "she" implies it has breasts: it uses "woman" as the supercategory including both "cis woman" and "trans woman". It's only a shift in language, not a lie or factually incorrect or whatever nonsense. And with that established, I see no other valid reason whatsoever why trans people shouldn't be called what they want to be called. Talk of tides all you want, I don't think cruelty will ultimately prevail. I've got more faith in human nature than that.
Because it literally doesn't mean anything. When people ask for your definition of woman you're functionally just making animal noises and then acting surprised that people say you don't have one.
You genuinely don't have one. You've said as much. You've compared the word to proper nouns that convey no attributes. When someone says you can't define the word woman you should just tell them they're right and that you think that's okay. Maybe you don't want to come off as some kind of crazy gender abolitionist, but that's the bed you've made for yourself by refusing to assign any traits to them.
And when everyone rolls their eyes at your personal rendition of "words don't have to have meanings" and considers the meme lived up to, that's your problem too.
Even a substantial majority of Dem voters don't want them in the women's locker room, and since the election the leadership has started to catch on that this isn't a winning issue. The progressive lock on the internet that let them get this far in the first place was an aberration that has now ended.
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It's not a problem for Bills only as long as it's not an imposition on the others to call them Bill. Right now, it is not. As references to people go, given names such as "Bill" are pretty close to the most efficient way to refer to people.
I see the argument about the trans definition of "woman" being circular as the bailey that's not really the central objection. The central objection is that "woman" is one of the words that mean things, unlike "Bill", and the meaning that includes "people sharing key traits with the 'human females' cluster" is the most useful one to most people, rather than "anyone who says their pronouns are she/her". It is no more cruel to refuse that "mere shift in language" than to impose it.
Do I get to define what your central objections are as well, and ignore anything that you say?
It's definitely not about "people sharing key traits with the 'human females' cluster" being more useful than "anyone who says their pronouns are she/her". For that matter, I don't even care if "woman" is a word that has a meaning, like I said in another comment you can say that "woman" is an arbitrary label, but you do actually have to say it. I can make my case for my preferred laws, and social rules, regardless of which definition we use, but for a conversation to take place, we do actually have to settle on a definition. However, settling on a definition will have logical consequences, and I can argue that no matter which definition you pick, those consequences will be unacceptable to some part of the progressive coalition, but if we don't settle on a definition, or insist on a circular one, we can't even have that conversation.
You're doing it again! I still don't understand the problem with the circular definition. Why can't we have a circular definition? What makes it unacceptable or unworkable? Why can't we debate the merits of a world where we use that definition vs. whatever your preferred norms are?
To have a meaningful discussion you need to be able to specify the parameters of the debate, and draw meaningful conclusions, and a circular definition doesn't allow for that. "A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" only specifies that we're talking about sentient beings capable of self-identification, but these conversation are usually already constrained to human subjects, so it's literally of no use, and indistinguishable from not having a definition at all.
I also disagree that it's my side that is unwilling to have the conversation about social rules, while using the other side's definition of "woman". "Ok, how about we rename it to 'female sports'?" is literally the first off-the-cuff response anyone comes up with when these topics come up.
I honestly, literally, don't understand this point. What discussion do you want to have? I rather thought the debate was "what will the consequences be for society of anyone were to accept the trans definition of woman, and would they be acceptable?". This seems to me to be a debate that we can have perfectly well even if the definition is circular. It would mean something for everyone on the planet to agree to call anyone who wants to be called Mrs 'Mrs', etc. etc. We can hazard guesses about what would proceed from it, and value judgments about whether those results are desirable. Where's the issue?
I mean, any discussion concerning women is impossible. Questions like "do trans-women belong in women's sports" become gobledygoock. I know it's about including some kind of people in some kind of sports category, but I can't make any meaningful conclusion about the people or sports category in question, because I have no idea who/what they are.
No, that's definitely not the debate I'm having. I don't even see how accepting their definition would imply any changes to society at all.
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