Guest post: In understanding and analyzing any claim
Originally a comment by Sastra on You may not question.
Are you anti questions?
Yes.
What is “gender?” What is the meaning of the word “gender” in the phrase “gender identity?”
How are you defining “man” and “woman?” What is the difference between a man and woman?
What would falsify the existence of an innate gender identity present from birth?
Why does gender identity outweigh the cumulative effect of DNA, chromosomes, gametes, genitals, and hormones in the womb?
What would change your mind?
I consider these type of questions to be critical in understanding and analyzing any claim, including the claims TRAs are making. They’re basic to both philosophy and science. But the above are known as “JAQing off” — “Just Asking Questions” in a way designed to obscure and detract from the real issue. The real issue, you see, is PEOPLE JUST TRYING TO LIVE THEIR LIVES WHY DO YOU HATE THEM SO MUCH????
Ironically, the major complaint made against Richard Dawkins wasn’t Dear Muslima, Clockboy, or anti-trans statements which Removed the Humanity of Marginalized People. . It was that he was trying to prevent people from getting the meaning and comfort of religion. He didn’t understand theology; he didn’t realize how belief in God is a key component of the identity of the religious; he really needed to just sit down and talk to Believers, so he might understand that understanding religion wasn’t about o-so-clever arguments and questions, but how the religious find meaning and purpose and understanding in their lives. Dawkins the atheist needed to Educate Himself.
Till then, he was just being ignorant and mean.
An interesting summary of the issue!
Excellent questions, Sastra, which would naturally lead to more, if the initial answers were interesting enough to encourage further study. Assuming gender even existed, how many genders are there? How would one know there were others, given that one has access only to one’s own? How does gender fluidity work? At what point in evolutionary history did they arise, whay selective advantage do they offer, and what evidence do they leave behind of their existence?
The problem that so many beliefs and pseudosciences fail to grasp is that the actual existence of the phenomena which they promote would open up new avenues of inquiry and questioning that are not being persued, even by the believers themselves. If communication with the dead really happened, then there would be fewer unsolved murders, and “genuine” spirit mediums would be giving testimony in court about the last moments of murder victims, rather than nightclub acts using cold reading techniques. Wy can’t everyone talk to the spirits of dead people? What differentiates those who can from those who can’t? Investigators could research whether the dead communicated only through languages they spoke in life, or whether a unilingual English spirit medium could communicate with a dead person who, in life, did not speak English.
There are all sorts of similar questions that naturally arise or fall out of the implications of genderism. There’s the return of mind-body dualism for starters. The existence of some sort of independent, immaterial, “gendered” essence, capable of implantation, or origination within an “incorrect” body, certainly seems to be what gender ideology is positing and dependent upon. Wouldn’t scientists and philosophers jump all over that if it were true? Why aren’t genderists themselves investigating this staggering proposal? Finding this “essence” would be precisely the evidence they would want to support their case? Why are they not looking for it? If they had anything better than word games, clown fish, and lies, they would use it, and their position would be the stronger for it.
The proposed existence of new entities or phenomena makes the world a more interesting place than we had suspected it was. Science is always on the lookout for new things to study, new questions to ask. If what you’ve got is the real deal, science is your greatest ally. Genderism claims to be supported by science, but the case seems to be very weak, and is far from “settled” once one limits oneself to mammalian and human biology. If even half of what gender ideology claims to be the case were true, there would be lifetimes of fruitful research with Nobels aplenty awaiting. These are revolutionary claims about the nature of human conciousness and existence. There should be commensurate evidence and research to support such sweeping conclusions. Given the degree of sympathetic institutional and organizational support, and the resources upon which gender researchers should be able to draw, you would think there would be a robust research program, with a growing body of evidence and data supporting their assertions. But no. Instead, we see dangerous, unethical, uncontrolled and under-documented medical experiments, scandalously foisted upon confused and impressionable minors, unable to meaningfully consent to what is being done to them in the name of trans ideology. Welcome to diagnosis via the new phrenology, treated by the new faith healing.
For what it’s worth, what finally drove me away from Pharyngula and to here a few years ago was seeing their reaction to people posing this type of question. I missed most of the “Ophelia is a TERF” controversy, in part because I was on vacation and in part because (much to my chagrin) I didn’t follow B&W at the time (but I’ve since caught up). The last straw was when someone (Lady Mondegreen, perhaps?) who used to be a regular offered a perfectly reasonable definition of the word “woman”, only to be excoriated by the horde. After that, I did my own research, educated myself, and ended up here.
Much the same for me, I think, except that I stuck with Pharyngula for a while after I came here.
@YNNB #2:
The explanatory mechanism for gender identity, at least on atheism-based blogs, seems more prosaic than supernatural. During fetal development hormones effect the brain. Part of this neonatal brain involves the sense that you’re a man or a woman, and if something goes wrong in the hormone rush, there’s a mismatch. I’ve also been told that “ whole-genome polygenic inheritance studies will show that gender identity is largely genetic – preliminary studies are already indicating that is so.” The other evidence that gender isn’t taught, but innate, is to just think about it and realize that you’ve always Just Known.
Which of course suggests the question “How far back can we really remember our infancy?” Also a relevant question for examining claims of reincarnation, Birth Trauma, and suppressed memories.
Sastra:
The short answer is that they do not consider it a cumulative effect but rather as five separate aspects, none of which in their opinion outweighs the power of identity.
The one aspect of thag which really annoys me is the reaction whenever anybody mentions genitals as a marker of a persons sex. Two examples spring to mind. First up is the odious G, Pharyngula commenter and unworthy joint-inheritor of Caines old Affinity blog at FTB, who accuses those who see genitalia as rather important in sex determination of having an obsession with genitals.
The other is Foxglove, a regular at The Friendly Atheist and is someone who you, Sastra, had an exchange with on the post about Dawkins las week. In fact, and without going back to check, I think that Foxglove, a TiM, used this argument during your exchange, basically saying that a person’s existence should not be reduced to their genitals. On the face of it, saying that a person is more than what’s between their legs is inarguable, because of course a person is not defined by their genitals, but that is not what is being argued and the response is deliberately missing the point. I say ‘deliberately’ because the tactic is intended to beg the question of genitalia and pretend that it’s a relatively unimportant thing whilst still sounding reasonable.
The truth is exactly the opposite, however. When it comes to defining a person’s sex then the genitals are a major marker and the most significant visual clue, not a side issue to be swatted away like an irritating insect. Of course, if one points out this most obvious of facts the follow-up response is always something about us wanting to inspect everybody’s genitals, which again is just disingenuous nonsense intended to make us appear unreasonable and somewhat perverse. They know full well that for most of the time and in the majority of interactions we don’t really care what genitals a person has, and they know that we have neither the desire nor the intention of inspecting anybody’s bits, and they also know that there are times when knowing what a person has is very important, but that is actually beside the point, for the point is very simple: genitals do define one’s sex, they know that genitals define one’s sex, and they know that they dare not admit to that, which is why they ignore the importance of the body and instead immediately deploy the insults and question-begging bullshit.
@AoS #6;
All true, with certain caveats. First, they do seem to believe we want to inspect people’s genitals (especially when it involves bathrooms) and agonize over the trauma this will cause, especially to the young. I’m speaking mostly of FA here. They seem to be lumping the gender critical in with religious conservatives who obsess over gay sex. In both cases, they think the other side is sexually stunted and motivated by perversion. Wanting to inspect genitals goes along with caring about where and with whom other people stick their genitals.
And I did not have an exchange with Foxglove. I haven’t replied to them in over a year, which apparently is the way to drive them crazy. I am not a psychologist, but in my opinion FG is a narcissist, and a pretty toxic one at that. Psychologists don’t advise engaging with them, and I have no trouble remembering that. It’s pretty funny. They’ll write something that screams personality disorder, and people will refer to beloved FG and sniff that I can’t deal with such killer arguments (which usually come down to explaining that I’m a hating hater who hates because hating is something I love to do.) The “you’re reducing me to my genitals” is also a favorite, along with “I’m just living my life going to the store and doing other normal things which is all I want, is it really too much to ask?”
Sastra, my mistake; I went back to refresh my memory (something increasingly necessary as the years creak by) and what I remembered as an exchange was actually FG throwing venom into a conversation you were having with somebody else and you studiously ignoring him.
Odd how FG claims repeatedly that sex and gender are different things yet still insists that he is a woman. Well, not so odd when one realises that FG has re-classified ‘woman’ as a gender term, not a sex term.
Don’t forget that asking such questions is constitutive of transphobia. Asking the questions at all means you’re not demonstrating complete subservience to the ideology, and therefore you are embodying transphobia. Commit to doing the work. Do better.
Bigot.
I think TRAs have kind of weaponised a lot of the shortcut memes which the rest of the left didn’t realise were bad ideas at the time.
I mean “JAQing off”, was originally a criticism of anti-feminists wasting everyone’s time, by asking questions which were unproductive and which had been answered repeatedly over a course of decades.
I think what we didn’t realise was that we had created an ideology which had this neat out from having to answer those questions at all, where asking those questions was an immediate marker of an enemy.
To JAQ off should be to ask questions without reading the basic easily findable FAQ, it should not be to ask questions for which there are no comfortable answers.
There really is no way to answer “What is female” without either endorsing sexist ideology or going with blunt biology. If there was a way of doing this, I think we’d have seen it by now.
And the whole trans issue is fundamentally a matter of semantics, what do you mean by woman? What exactly are you talking about when you call someone a man?
We can talk about how gender is socially constructed. Great. Lots of things are socially constructed that we don’t really get a say in – they’re things that society decided to label us with.
Which means there is room for acceptance of trans ideology in all of this. That includes trans racial ideology.
But it isn’t undisputed room, because the damage done by these labels aren’t things that people chose to have done to them. The social roles that come with these labels are not good.
And dealing with the injustices to these labels requires figuring out who the injustices are being done to, and there are questions around whether the damage was chosen. There are a lot of definitional questions that need to be asked.
With examples of trans racial individuals, we understand that by making race a matter of choice, we undermine the fight for racial equality by giving the impression that say, a black man who is being oppressed could just decide to be white. We build the impression that being black is something that white people may well choose to be in order gain some sort of benefit.
We can see how it is problematic when it comes to making arguments against racism.
Trans, when it comes to sex, has the same problem.
Just what does it mean to identify with your gender? If it means fitting the gender role assigned to you at birth, is trans ideology validating those roles, if not how they are assigned in the first place?
These aren’t comfortable questions, and they aren’t being answered. Rather than answering these questions, there are accusations of denying people their humanity, as if a he or a her isn’t human. So far as I can see, the trans think they’re the only humans and that the rest of us are something else.
I have a developed a big problem with “dog whistles” – in that I am not a dog. I do not think people engaged in these discussions are dogs. The TRAs seem to think they are arguing with canines, and frankly it is a losing argument because they do not answer the questions being posed to them.
Instead of answering the questions, the TRAs attack the motives of the questioners, and it slowly turns into a situation where those of us who don’t particularly care about sports, aren’t really het up over bathrooms, and who honestly don’t give a damn about your pronouns and thus are happy to use whatever you prefer, we look at it and we increasingly find ourselves on the other side of the debate.
Because if the questions are so terrible, the answers must be worse.
God, yeah. Well, I don’t know that they were necessarily bad ideas, either then or with hindsight, but they have become meaningless. A very small sample of this kind of thing:
1. Dogwhistle := a reasonable thing a ‘bad’ person said. Nothing obviously wrong with it, so it must be wrong but in disguise.
2. JAQing off := asking any question
3. Bad faith := asking any question
4i. Sealioning := defending yourself from crazy, hyperbolic accusations
4ii. Sealioning := asking any question
5. Ad hominem := mentioning someone
6. Moving the goalposts := asking any question
7. Begging the question := asking any question
8i. Straw man := trying to pin down terms or even what the argument is about
8ii. Straw man := asking any question
9i. Anecdotal evidence := any statement that is not immediately followed by a false claim that it is totally backed up by “the leading minds in the field of science”*
9ii. Anecdotal evidence := any counterexample.
10i. No true scotsman := any counterexample
10ii. No true scotsman := asking any question
And so on. These are just the things I’ve been accused of in the last couple of days and the intended meanings I’ve inferred. Terms like this are used like James Bond squirting oil slicks from the back of his car. Best to sweve around them completely. They’re a distraction used to escape reasonable engagement. They are signs that the person you are arguing with has the mind of a child.
* This is a direct quote from someone arguing with me yesterday
@Bruce Gorton;
Good points all. It sometimes seems that every question regarding the claims of transgender ideology is immediately translated into a hostile challenge directed towards their inalienable right to 1.) know who they are and 2.) live according to their truth. If we just accepted that, we’d be asking questions in a different way — curiosity tinged with respect. Just watch the give and take between the Trans Identified and their admirers. Requests sometimes involve the sort of preamble you might use if accosting a celebrity in the street, or approaching a prickly preteen who’s been through a lot.
@latsot;
I’ll add one of my favorites:
moving the goalposts = trying to find some other way to make a point that isn’t getting through.
“Educate yourself” = “There are irrefutable arguments in favor of my position that are out there on the internet somewhere. I’m not saying what they are, but I’m still going to blame you for not looking into them. If you had made a serious effort to educate yourself, you would know why I’m right, so the fact that you still don’t agree proves that you still haven’t made the effort. Now get online and keep keep studying and reading forever or until you agree with me”
Which is, of course, why they have to resort to “feeling” or “essence”, because they cannot be honest about why they ‘feel like’ a woman. It’s obvious even to the biggest sexists out there that putting on a dress and high heels does not make you a woman, even if accompanied with make up, earrings, and a purse. The tilt of a head does not make you a woman. We all know that, including the TiMs, but there are way too many people right now who are not willing to question the dogma, and pretend that something else is there besides the desire to inhabit a different set of stereotypes than the ones that go with their sex.
Iknklast wrote:
One of the most illuminating essays I’ve read is “Gender Identity Isn’t a Box, It’s a Yardstick.” It helps explain why so many TRAs seem to be convinced that gender identity and gender roles aren’t at all connected by way of analogy.
A stereotypical guy who likes construction, video games, and women “discovers” he’s always been a girl. Turns out he likes construction, video games, and women the way a butch lesbian does. He also likes romantic movies and kittens like the girl he is. This is what they mean by “rejecting gender stereotypes.” Which they’re totally doing.
Rest of the essay here, worth reading again.
https://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/gender-identity-isnt-a-box-its-a-yardstick/
Bjarte, Sastra:
More good ones. I know what Bruce means, though. I feel kind of guilty for perhaps having over-used terms like these (with their proper meaning) in the past, which has led to their being used willy-nilly and weaponised by the unthinkers, as he says, in lieu of actual argument.
If only these people would learn to use this nowadays much-maligned ‘rhetoric’, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
The misuse of rhetorical claims strikes me as similar to the misuse of arguments: claiming that X is good for children or veterans or women, when, one, it isn’t, and two, you never cared about children or veterans or women before. Or, saying Y makes you a bad Christian, when the speaker doesn’t give a rat’s ass about people being good Christians. They are ways of adopting an opponent’s language.
Sastra, I ran across that some time ago, I don’t remember where. Possibly on that website. I think it is still very problematic, because it still leaves the characteristics in place as what is feminine and what is masculine. The yardsticks are still strongly gendered, strongly stereotyped, and while most of our identities probably fit somewhere along the spectrum of one or the other of those yardsticks, I still think the problem is in labeling any of this “feminine” or “masculine”, because we continue to associate behaviors that are societal and learned with our biological sex, even if we acknowledge the right to be measured against a different yardstick. By that measure, I would definitely need to be measured along the male yardstick for most things, while still retaining my female body.
@iknklast;
Exactly. They haven’t managed to change anything at all.
It’s “I NEED you to evaluate me as the sex I believe I am” as opposed to “I am my personality.”
And with the acquisition of power, influence, and sympathetic institutional proxies wielding both, it becomes “I COMPELL you to address me as the sex I believe I am.”
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