Belief and knowledge

If this is how we decide what is true…we have a problem.

https://twitter.com/ERunswickBMA/status/1306341502482886663

“Trans women are women legally.”

I’m not sure I believe the law has the power to change physical reality that way. The law can define people as citizens or non-citizens, criminals or not, and other social categories like that. It can define people as children or adults, I guess – certainly there are laws that rely on the categories. But can the law just decide that men who say they are women are in fact women? Maybe it has the power to do it, but does it have the right? And do we actually have to accept the law’s definition?

“The belief that trans women are men is not a protected belief”

But it’s not a belief. The shoe is on the other foot – the belief that a man becomes a woman by saying so is a belief, while saying that a man is not a woman is not a belief, it’s just reality.

It’s quite gaslighty, this business of pretending that it’s a mere frivolous lightly-adopted belief that men are not women.

Male Lions vs. Female Lions
Northern Cardinals (male & female) -- Kentucky State Bird | Cardinal birds,  Backyard birds, Northern cardinal

” and was considered “not worthy of respect” by the judge in the Forstater case.”

Even a judge doesn’t get to tell us we have to stop knowing that men are not women. We do know that men are not women, and we couldn’t stop knowing it if we tried. We could pretend, we could lie and bullshit and flatter, but that’s the utmost that is possible. Given that some of us think lying and bullshitting are bad, we’re not very motivated to make the attempt.

9 Responses to “Belief and knowledge”