Count the scare-quotes
Another entry, this one by Ani Dutta. What’s interesting about this one is the nested hedging and qualifying, which is so recursive that you end up unable to figure out what the claim is.
I have a feeling that I’m not going to be riding any popularity waves with this one, but I wanted to register my discomfort with the way in which ‘trans / gender non-conforming’ and ‘people of color’ voices have often been essentialized and homogenized in the wake of the controversy on Rebecca Tuvel’s Hypatia article that defends ‘transracialism’ and makes analogies between ‘transgenderism’ and ‘transracialism’. I do not say this ‘as’ a trans/gender non-conforming person of color (categories I use with discomfort given their US-centric hegemonic senses), as I don’t believe that occupying those positions necessarily justifies or gives more credence to the points I’m about to make. But I am referring to these categories, in which I’m often socially placed, simply to make the point that some of ‘us’ (though there’s no ‘us’) might have differing takes on both the Tuvel article and the question of transracialism than the general stance of condemnation and dismissal that ‘we’ have been associated with.
Between scare quotes and talk of essentializing and disavowals followed by avowals…we get lost in the forest. Dutta either is or is not a trans/gender non-conforming person of color, and either does or does not speak as such; I can’t tell which it is. Maybe it’s both. There is no us, but some of us might have differing takes – except that there is no us. Or ‘us.’ (If there is no ‘us’ does that mean there is an us?)
It’s one academic style, I guess, but my god it seems pointless. There might be a good point in there but I can’t tell what it is.
There’s the obligatory rebuke of Adichie, and an acknowledgement that identity is complicated, and then we get to Tuvel.
This brings me more specifically to the Tuvel article: I agree that it is simplistic and problematic on several fronts, and especially fell short in its understanding of trans issues. As critiques point out, it reduces trans identities to a medical-surgical model of transitioning to another “sex” and ignores the trans-GNC critique of sex assignment (using phrases like ‘biological sex’ and ‘male genitalia’); further, it admittedly ignores non-binary subjectivities or practices, makes the sexed body the basis for both cis and trans identity, etc. Ideally none of this should have made past peer review, but these are far wider problems with entire biomedical discourses of transsexuality and are replicated across many academic disciplines, and even in some trans activism, rather than just this article in itself, and her article is not fundamentally making claims on trans identity anyway so they do not necessarily invalidate her main argument (which could still be critiqued, but that is a separate question).
Yikes, that last sentence ran away. But what I’m wondering is what kind of peer review it is that “none of this” should have made it past. The discipline in question is philosophy, so I’m wondering what philosophical peer review has to do with any of that. What field or discipline is the authority on “non-binary subjectivities” or “the trans-GNC critique of sex assignment” or why it’s wrong to use phrases like ‘biological sex’ and ‘male genitalia’? Is any of that an academic subject at all?
Also, specifically responding to a public post by a colleague, the Tuvel piece has been accused of managerial whiteness and the violence of abstracting and controlling differences, deciding which differences are equivalent or not, etc. I do appreciate and agree with the argument that philosophy, and academic theorization more broadly, is often guilty of managerial violence and the violence of abstracting differences over material bodies and experiences that theorizers don’t inhabit or share.
The violence of abstracting differences? I think that’s an agreement too many. On the other hand Dutta does say Tuvel shouldn’t be singled out for that.
Last but not least, moving beyond the specific Tuvel case, it seems important to introspect about why many of us (POC or not) have such a gut reaction to ‘transracialism’, racial self-determination and the analogy between racial & gender identity, while gender self-determination seems to be much easier to accept (even Adichie who generalizes male privilege onto all trans women seems to accept some degree of gender self-determination). Going by my preliminary and not entirely fleshed-out train of thoughts, part of it may have to do with the different ways in which ‘race’ and ‘gender’ are socially constructed, and these differences need to be interrogated more than they have been in recent debates. Broadly speaking, there is a relentless social demand that ‘gender’ be personalized and interiorized. Both conventional cisgender and more trans-inclusive epistemologies of gender (especially in the West) *demand* that we associate gendered embodiments, expressions, behaviors, words / terms, with a deeply *interior* identity (recalling the argument that Foucault famously makes about sexuality) – our gendered actions or embodiments must *mean* something in terms of the ontology of our inner selves, must correspond with a deeply held personal identity (even if that is genderqueer or fluid or agender, inasmuch as these are ‘identities’). Much of our hard-won struggles against biological essentialism and for gender self-determination often remain imbricated in this potentially oppressive ideology, being in some sense the obverse of the cissexist idea that social sex assignment ‘naturally’ corresponds to a gendered essence…
And yet that’s the exact opposite of what the hated radical feminists think. We think there is no “gendered essence” and that saying there is is what’s oppressive.
‘Race’, in contrast, is etymologically linked with ideas of common descent and collective lineage, deriving from one’s position within a collective rather than a deeply held personal identity…
Now there we’re onto something. We’re onto why trans activism is revealing itself to be such awful politics: it’s because it’s about “a deeply held personal identity,” which is about as opposed to the political as you can get. Basing a politics on an intensely anti-political idea is a recipe for disaster, and disaster is what we’ve got.
“managerial whiteness?” I’m guessing that in this context both managerial and whiteness are bad, or “bad.” Whatever.
Do these academics know that their use of the term violence is only metaphorical, that there are other, more dangerous forms of violence than epistemic or managerial? I know that disciplines sometimes need technical terms and jargon, but some of this approaches Sokalistic levels of opacity and incomprehensibility.
HA! I’m not an academic and I write nearly as incoherently as that. May I have a PhD, please?
Also, in general, making arguments based on etymology leads to silly conclusions. “Race” means X because it comes from a word that means Y.
(Or does “etymology” mean something different now, too?)
I’m surprised at the number of Tuvel’s critics, at least those who have made some nod at academic engagement, saying that race is about lineage (biology) and therefore any defence of transracialism is clearly wrong. If I have understood Tuvel correctly, her point was that as philosophers such ideas should be challenged, particularly when people hold the one position wrt race and a purely identity position wrt gender. I note that Tuvel was merely saying that the two stances needed to be critically examined alongside each other.
It’s almost as though even philosophers, academics generally and social justice activists especially (not mutually exclusive groups) have a gaping raw cultural blind spot that is incredibly difficult for them as individuals to see, let-alone overcome. That blind spot seems to over ride training and logic preventing any discussion.
Hmmmm.
Julian Baggini on the etymological fallacy:
Wow. That’s a lot of words to write without clearly communicating much of anything.
It always amazes me how often the radical feminist position on gender is either misunderstood or completely misconstrued. Does that mean that “epistemic harm” has been committed against radical feminists?
Are biologists allowed to speak of biological sex? Are medical students taught about male and female genitalia? Presumably, the answer is yes on both counts but I never see scientists targeted in this way. I have long observed that trans ideology is becoming a sacred dogma. It is blasphemy to discuss it, unless you wish to voice unconditional agreement. That is what is at the heart of this. The author of this article thinks that it shouldn’t have passed peer review because it shouldn’t be discussed. Likewise other critics say that trans people and people of colour (by which they mean trans people and people of colour who agree with them) should have been given the chance to review and thus veto it before publication. I’ve seen this again and again. The activists are trying to control the discourse and their behaviour is very like those of religious people who would silence blasphemers. This is the behaviour of people who know on some level that their claims will not stand up to scrutiny.
I’ve also just realised that there’s a strong parallel between those who deny that biological sex exists and those who deny evolution. I would really like to see biologists pushing back more on this. Sure, sex is more complex than many people realise but we can talk about that. In fact it would be really interesting to learn more. However, learning is not an option when you deal with people who silence and suppress all dissent.
Yep. The more you look at it, the more absurd this claim that “peer review” is relevant to various dogmatic dictats about “understanding of trans issues” becomes. That’s not peer review, it’s political enforcement. Absurd, ever-shifting, evidence-free, made up, thoroughly subjective claims about some magical Internal Gender Identity ARE NOT the kind of claims that can be peer reviewed. They can only be commissar reviewed.
And now, any academic who fails to toe the line can be dismissed as ‘US-centric hegemonic.’
Anyone can be called out as a witch at the discretion of any accuser.
Myrhinne @ 7, PZ did a post a while back about the complexity of biological sex and used that complexity as reasoning to discount the role of biology in determining anything to do with gender and identity. Strange seeing an adaptation of the ‘life is a veil of tears’ argument from someone like him. Or maybe not.
It was actually that post that tipped me from being simply uncomfortable about the direction FTB was taking to a sliding withdrawal. I found the abuse of science (through omission of obvious arguments and data) to support a political view deeply dishonest. Such a strong stance from PZ (mis)using science also cut the ground from under any biologists who may have wished to comment on the blog and pretty much let loose the Horde to go with the approved stance.
John the Drunkard, along with several other commenters I was screamed at for calling Thatcher a witch, because witch is a gendered insult. The screaming was screamed by the very same people who were shortly after to be heard screaming that gender is an artificial construct.
So confusing! Maybe ciswitch and transwitch may be acceptable to our puritanical ‘allies’, but who knows? Might run counter to their next cause du jour.
Also, ‘s’funny how a certain group of people become instant experts on their latest cause, or at least expert enough to lecture all and sundary on said cause to the point of correcting those affected by or with experience of the cause.
addendum to above: I was not screamed at here, but rather in the comments section of a blog frequented by a bunch whose nickname rhymes with ‘bored’!
Rob. I think I recall the post. It linked to an article on intersex conditions, which was quite interesting but not really concerned with trans people, most of whom are not intersex. I was dubious as well because PZ was blurring the issue a bit in his post when in other circumstances he likes to discuss biological matters in detail. I haven’t read his blog for ages so I don’t know what he has said on the matter but I find it interesting how many skeptics will now throw critical thinking out of the window where trans issues (and often other social justice issues) are concerned.