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This neuters the entire concept.
You can't start with "A man is an Adult human Male and a woman is an adult human Female"
And derive the conclusion
"Adult human Males should be pressured not to wear dresses, take HRT, move to California and become FAANG programmers."
You have taken what was a sacred set of associations and shredded it until all that is left is a dictionary blurb.
And if you try to add all those sacred associations back in as a second premise-
Well, now you have a problem, because the thing most gender theory is actually attacking, isn't the definition of man and woman, its actually attacking the premise that this set of sacred associations holds in the tail end, and the premise that it should be maintained in general.
And once you start fighting those, I suspect you're going to find at the end of the line, that your final crux is aesthetic.
I mean, if every pragmatic issue were resolved with artificial wombs, better transition, etc, would you really concede that HRT is fine and as dumb to mock as getting a tattoo? Or that splitting sports by gender is dumb because what really matters is position in the bimodal distribution?
But that's not what I'm doing. From "A man is an Adult human Male and a woman is an adult human Female" I am only deriving "You cannot force people to use opposite-sex or neopronouns, you cannot force single sex spaces to accept opposite-sex trans people, and you cannot make them chant 'Trans women are women!'". My other positions regarding trans issues are derived from other principles.
You're not even doing that much. Your definition says nothing about the correct use of pronouns. Your definition actually helps the argument that gendered spaces are unethical. Because gender doesn't mean anything important anymore (unless you're trying to have a baby and have no artificial womb on hand). You have to use other arguments for that now. And many of the arguments really only work for splitting people along the bimodal, not along single dimensions of the bimodal like your narrow definition of gender.
Sure it does. I, and most people, use them to refer to someone's sex.
I don't accept that premise, so your argument doesn't follow. The establishment does seem to be trying to push that idea on people, but in fact even the most vehement egalitarian acts as though sex does make a difference in many contexts.
I don't understand what you mean by that, can you elaborate?
And plenty of people use them to refer to boats. You can bite the bullet on that if you want. But there are plenty of us who are willing to use feminine pronouns on anything with a feminine vibe.
See... This is it. You said:
"A man is an Adult human Male and a woman is an adult human Female"
but you expected the listener to put 1 and 1 together to create a normative framework.
This is a form of Motte and Bailey argument. That is what annoys me.
Both sides are quibbling over the definition of Man and Women because they know there's a cultural normative framework of what Men and Women are expected to do that most people intuit by vibe and don't question.
But here on theMotte we should be aspiring to be better than that.
That's why SJW definitions of Man and Women as a whole are incoherent by the way, they're trying to incorporate cultural normative vibe into the definition, and no two thinkers have precisely the same cultural vibe on the matter, and cultural normative vibe is subject to change. So naturally no singular definition emerges. It's also why Trans Women are Women has become a rallying cry. What they're really fighting for is "Trans women shouldn't be held to the masculine cultural normative framework." This is also a Motte and Baily argument.
Here on theMotte we should be aspiring to be better than that.
Certainly. take the argument "It is dangerous to permit Men in Woman's restrooms." This only holds for the subset of men that it is actually dangerous to permit in womens' restrooms. Is it dangerous to permit a passing castrated dickless Man with boobs in the Women's restroom? No, for the purposes of restroom safety, that person might as well be a woman.
Should Men be permitted in woman's sports? No. Because the average man will outcompete the average women. And we want to have a place where these people can compete and not get curb stomped every game (sounds like affirmative action to me but-).
Well. This only applies to the subset of Men that actually have advantages in woman's sports. Un-transitioned Men? Sure excluded. Transitioned men who went through a male puberty first? Probably excluded. They do have advantages due to that puberty. Men who never went through male puberty? Well. You're going to have to find some advantage they have. Otherwise- why not.
This is sort of limited to English, but in any case when people use pronouns while referring to a human, they usually mean their sex. I know there are people who disagree, and that's their right, but they have no right to force me to use their definitions, and accept their worldview.
But you were just arguing that there isn't a normative framework, and that nowadays sex is seen as irrelevant, and that's why I need a different argument than the definition of man/woman.
Also, I believe that it's not just a question of a cultural framework, I believe the differences, including psychological ones, are to a large extent biological in origin.
Sure, that's how heuristics work. We have no way of analyzing each individual case, and even if we had, it would probably be too expensive to apply it in every context.
That's assuming the conclusion.
Actually no. We already went through this, when the claim was lowering testosterone levels nullifies the advantage. How about the pro-trans side comes up with evidence for once?
There, that's much better. Now the arguments are getting into the territory.
Hmm? No no. Culture contains a bunch of normative principles that are disagreed upon. I don't think the traditional normative framework is justifiable, that doesn't mean it isn't a very real cultural construct. In terms of culture war, you can just argue that "Trans Women are Women" or that "A man is an Adult human Male and a woman is an adult human Female", and this will work because most people haven't reflected on the hidden assumptions around what those words entail within their cultural framework.
I'm saying it's disingenuous to act like the argument is about language, pretend you're just 'stating the facts' about what men and women are, and then rely on existing norms to prop up your actual position.
A thing I've argued is being done by both sides of the culture war.
As for the traditional normative framework itself... I think the traditional normative framework was a compromise with sin used to fight against a dangerous world, that becomes more and more outmoded as technology advances. The culture war we see is the result of a few things:
People who haven't questioned the traditional cultural framework's modern utility at all.
The fact that there is still some modern utility to the framework- we are still hovering in the grey area where it's utility hasn't quite broken all the way down. We don't have artificial wombs yet etc.
People who want to disassemble the framework a bit too early, before it's utility has fully broken down.
The fact that this breakdown of utility differs by tech level, and the fact that tech level is not uniform worldwide, but the internet lets the associated memes go worldwide.
I'll give you this until I stop giving you this. I'm the CloudHeadedTranshumanist, not a Trans Rights Activist for anyone but my high class transhumanist trans friends (who I think it's fair to say are highly unlikely to fuck up their software careers for the sake of bathroom misbehavior, but hey, they're already smart enough to move to California).
But nothing remains too expensive indefinitely. I'm not really concerned with defeating transphobia now. I'm interested in breaking down the restrictions in the territory until there really is no utility left in gender and my opponents are left standing on thin air. I'll get back to you in 10 years.
Sure, I didn't intend this as a comprehensive argument. Rather, I've never heard an argument that works for these people. I've resolved the point that was compelling me to argue with you today. Namely the Motte and Baily I keep seeing. I'll make sure to bring something more comprehensive if I decide to try to hold this hill in a future culture war thread.
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