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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I do think you think you haven’t made a claim to how we should treat trans people,

I will get this out of the way first: You are being rude. I know exactly what claim I am making. As it happens, I don't think transwomen should be allowed to participate in women's sports, nor use women's bathrooms. And, as someone who used to work with adolescents, I don't think that gender reassignment surgery should be allowed on anyone under 18. But none of that is relevant to anything I have said here.

My point is that they can’t go “trans women are women” without conflating category and identity. “Trans women are women” is a categorical statement of whether “trans women” is a subset of “women”.

Yes, you can. First, that is actually not a claim about definitions; it is a claim about how transwomen should be treated. I understand that superficially it might seem like a definitional claim, but it isn't; it is a claim about public policy. And it is, after all a slogan; "transwomen should be treated as women" is not nearly as catchy.

Second, even if it is a definitional claim, it is NOT a claim about the definition of "transwomen" (and even less the definition of gender identity") but rather a claim about the definition of "women." And not the female sex, because obviously the distinction between sex and gender identity is central to the entirety of their claims, but rather the definition of "women" as used in "women's sports" or "women's bathroom", etc.

Finally, you keep taking issue with my statement that identity in general, including gender identity, is a belief/feeling/whatever, and I have cited evidence that others use that term. But, I haven't seen you say what you think those terms mean, let alone that anyone uses them as you define them. So, tell me, what does "gender identity " mean, if the definitions from the Open Education Sociology Dictionary (and from the Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood or the WHO or the Mayo Clinic or Merriam-Webster ) are wrong?

Well, I think I’ve tried to be as polite as reasonably possible, and since I don’t think we will ever agree, let’s call it off.

For what it is worth, in my opinion, those are the mottes that I alluded to before.