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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   16082 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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Suppose we get to a point that with minimal effort that all trans people undergo, they all start to pass as the gender they identify with to the point where, as far as hooking up goes, you fundamentally could not tell if they were cis or trans. Is this "false advertising" still?

Probably, although you would never know it I suppose. But the point is that we very much do not live in that world. The idea that "a trans woman is indistinguishable from a woman" is a blatant lie, unless you're using something like the circular "a woman is anyone who says they're a woman" definition.

In the transhumanist future, we may get to the point that it's actually indistinguishable. At that point it's maybe false advertising in the sense that some people may have a disgust reaction if they found out they were sleeping with a trans woman, but they'd never know so the point is moot then.

People form their attitudes based on the world that actually exists. Any reasoning involved would be based on central examples, not on edge cases.

In a transhumanist world full of casual, perfect, sex changes, where the central examples are nothing like they are today, the attitude towards dating trans people would be different from today.

Oh for sure, we don't live in that world right now. But we should be clear about what exactly would make someone reject a trans person as a suitable sexual partner. I think any argument that firmly rejects trans people as partners even if they could perfectly pass on every biological level is an argument rooted in some notion of a non-material essence inside a person that corresponds to gender.

Even if the pizza hut meme is no longer true, and they're now indistinguishable from a natal woman. They still may be rejected because whatever is was that made them need to be a woman, is undesirable in a partner.

Based on Canada I think we'll have suicide booths before sex-swaping machines.

I think any argument that firmly rejects trans people as partners even if they could perfectly pass on every biological level is an argument rooted in some notion of a non-material essence inside a person that corresponds to gender.

This is related to why most people fight hypotheticals.

It's all fine to talk about hypothetical situations as hypothetical situations. But this kind of hypothetical is used as a way to sneak in assumptions about the real world. Answering "sure, I'd accept trans people who were biologically identical to cis examples of that gender" is likely to be followed up with "well, how big are the differences really" or some other suggestion which tries to use the hypothetical example as a step towards saying something about the real world.

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