> Today
@heritage
will critique gender identity
@UN_CSW
because powerful nations are pressing for the radical redefining of sex. If they can change the definition of women to include men, they can erase efforts to empower women economically, socially, and politically. #CSW63
That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist", or that they should be harmed in any way, or that they aren't human. That tweet expresses a perfectly reasonable sentiment that many others share: that human beings are sexually dimorphic and cannot change sex. This sort of hyperbole on the part of transactivists is very frustrating: anyone who doesn't agree with extremist gender ideology is painted as a "bigot".
This is more important than one AI ethics panel with questionable authority. Google is in a position to censor and influence a huge amount of speech on the internet, and the fact that they were targeted by and arguably caved to a small extremist group is very troubling.
> That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist"
It advocates "critiquing gender identity," which I take to mean asserting that gender identity is either not real or not important. Gender identity is the defining characteristic of trans people, so when someone critiques it as a concept, that implies that they think trans identities are made up, possibly for some insidious purpose, ie. that trans people don't really exist. I've heard people say things like "there's no such thing as a transgender, you're either a man or a woman," and this tweet makes me think that James would agree with them.
> or that they should be harmed in any way
Advocating against legislation to protect marginalized groups harms them directly.
> That tweet expresses a perfectly reasonable sentiment that many others share:
Many people in the world share the sentiment that apostates should receive the death penalty. If you lived in a place or time where this was considered a reasonable sentiment, I hope that you would not let it stop you from doing everything you could to oppose murdering people. We currently live in a society where many people believe that trans people should not accepted. I'm willing to be an "extremist" in order to change that.
> that human beings are sexually dimorphic
This tweet says nothing of the sort, nor would I expect it to, as no one in the history of the world has ever suggested the contrary.
> and cannot change sex
This is a red herring. The public controversy is not over what features of human biology can and cannot be changed, but over how society should treat trans people.
> transactivists
trans activists
> This sort of hyperbole on the part of transactivists is very frustrating: anyone who doesn't agree with extremist gender ideology is painted as a "bigot".
If you call the idea that we ought to respect the identites of trans people "extremist gender ideology," I am very happy to call you a bigot.
> It advocates "critiquing gender identity," which I take to mean asserting that gender identity is either not real or not important. Gender identity is the defining characteristic of trans people, so when someone critiques it as a concept, that implies that they think trans identities are made up, possibly for some insidious purpose, ie. that trans people don't really exist. I've heard people say things like "there's no such thing as a transgender, you're either a man or a woman," and this tweet makes me think that James would agree with them.
If gender is—as intelligently argued in decades of academic literature on the subject across a number of disciplines—a performative social construct and not an inherent biological characteristic, then gender identity is, in reality, made up. That doesn't mean gender identity isn't real, but that it isn't inherent. If gender identity isn't inherent and fixed at birth, then it is socially constructed and performed. There are socially dominant identities constructed and performed by the vast majority of humans that matches their [notions of] biological sex. There are also non-dominant identities constructed and performed by not-insignificant minorities of humans that [may] diverge from their [notions of] biological sex. But the identities themselves are made up—they're constructed and performed. Trans identities that diverge from biological sex are just as made up as those of normative male and female identities that match biological sex. The gender identities are real. They're also made up.
I say all this because it frequently comes across as intellectually contradictory and conversationally confusing to not recognize/admit that gender identities are real, but they are also made up by society and its members. I find the vast majority of the most vocal actors engaged in gender debates to be constantly yelling past each other on this point.
PS: Imagine how differently your otherwise nice post would have sounded if it ended like this:
> If you call the idea that we ought to respect the identities of trans people "extremist gender ideology", we have a lot to talk about. I am very happy to take this conversation offline and explain further how it isn't.
If your primary motivation is to ensure all people are accepted, respected, and treated equally and fairly even if they are trans, I find it rather unclear how calling someone a bigot—or litigating academic definitions of socially performative and constructed identities—gets you closer to that. I've been arguing and advocating for the equality of all people regardless of their sexual, gender, ethnic, religious, and whatever other identity group they might belong to for 20 years now. I've seen people's minds changed. I've seen them recognize new ideas. It doesn't happen overnight. And it doesn't happen by calling people bigots because they haven't seen the light yet. It takes consistent, careful attention and respectful effort—even when it's difficult to muster the effort and you just want to tell someone to fuck off for holding what appear to you to be bigoted views. It doesn't matter if the other person doesn't get it, they still ought to be treated with respect and you try again next time. It doesn't matter if they spout off what sound like bigoted views—so they remain convinced of a wrong view now; we can try again the next time we talk. Calling someone a bigot doesn't move the needle. Hell, you didn't even bother to get a definition from the parent for what they think "extremist gender ideology" even is. You jumped right to calling them a bigot. That doesn't help improve the state of discourse or the challenges facing trans people.
Trans activists. "Trans" is an adjective. Calling someone a "trans activist" would be like them calling you a "stupidbigot."
> Video
So, the first words of the video are:
"Sex typically refers to your biological traits such as your gonads, your genitalia, your internal sex characterstics, your hormone production, hormone response, and secondary sex characteristics"
To me claiming that humans are not sexually dimorphic would mean claiming that men and women don't generally differ in these characteristics. That's also what it would mean to "deny the existence of biological sex." That's obviously not what this video is doing, since they acknowledge all of these things from the beginning. This video is just about how intersex and trans people exist, and sometimes exhibit a mixed set of characteristics that we usually think of us mutually exclusive. This is obviously true and goes without saying for anyone older than the intended audience for the video, teenagers.
> This video contains at least one lawyer from the ACLU, Chase Strangio, claiming that there is no such thing as a "male body" or "female body".
So, I assume you're talking about the beginning:
"What are we talking about when we say sex and gender, is there something called biological sex and what does that mean."
Notice that this is a question. He's introducing a discussion about this topic.
"This idea that the body is either male or female is totally wrong"
They're saying that the body is not exclusively male or female. They're not saying that humans don't differ sexually / aren't sexually dimorphic.
> This video is accompanied by many other articles all arguing that transwomen are "female" because they say so, and therefore should be allowed in women's sex segregated spaces, sports etc.
Trans women are female and should be allowed in women's spaces. That doesn't imply that humans are not sexually dimorphic. In fact, in implies the opposite: if humans were like amoebas and were not sexually dimorphic, then no one could be called female. Clownfish sometimes change sex naturally, but no one would say they're not sexually dimorphic.
>That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist"...
The claim that all trans people are actually just cisgendered people trying to fool everyone does imply that trans people don't exist. It also implies that trans people are inherently deceptive. You are demonizing trans people when you claim this. Trans people are not mean-spirited demons who are trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes and to say that is unethical. Trans people are not "activists" for just being themselves and expecting to be treated with basic human dignity.
