How human rights work
Rhys McKinnon talking to Trevor Noah part 2:
Noah asks if trans women couldn’t compete against men instead of women.
So, like I said, this boils down to, are trans women really women [pumping fists up and down], are they really female. Because if you think yes, then we belong competing with other women. So it’s an extreme indignity to say, “I believe you’re a woman, except for sport.” Right? So you can’t single out one of the most important facets of our society, we are obsessed with sport, athletes are some of the most highly praised highly paid people on the planet, so you can’t say that like I believe you and I support you but not for this one really big thing that society really cares about.
Noah asks if we don’t know yet whether trans women have an advantage [we do know, but anyway] why not wait until we do know? McKinnon answers:
Because that’s not how human rights work. So the way human rights work, is that the default is inclusion, and the burden of proof is on people seeking to exclude.
And there’s a little flutter of applause at that.
I call bullshit. “Exclude” is a morally loaded word, and in this context it’s a highly manipulative word. We don’t have cheetahs competing against humans in races either, but we don’t call that “exclusion.” Sports used to be for men only, and then women started to organize their own sports. That wasn’t “exclusion,” it was inclusion of women in the category “sport.” And McKinnon himself doesn’t want to “include” all men in women’s sport, because he wants to win, and he’s not very good.
And that’s where they end it.
So the burden of proof is on the transwomen who are seeking to exclude women from having their own sports categories. Did I get that right “professor?” Is that how it works?
And those of us who don’t believe you’re a woman at all are just bigots who must be ignored. YES, IGNORE THEM RIGHT NOW! DON’T LISTEN TO A SINGLE WORD THEY SAY!!
@2 Exactly. He carefully avoids calling 95% of the population transphobes. Yet the rest of them aren’t adhering to the doctrine of the Church of Trans strictly enough. Shame on everyone, pray harder trans allies! :P
Correct. Rhys is taking a gamble here and calling the bluff of the Be Kind Brigade, who have no intellectual reasons for thinking gender identity is what makes someone a man or woman. They’re primarily impelled by wanting to be helpful or progressive and lazily adopt specious arguments and analogies with that end in mind. They therefore haven’t quite realized that this is for real — and it’s all or nothing.
Not just “all women and girls” in women’s sports, but no testosterone limits whatsoever. No qualifications. If a TW wants to transfer back and forth between men’s and women’s teams — stunning and brave. Rhys is banking on the fact that being an LGBTQ+++ ally is as fixed an identity as being trans. He’s hoping they’ll recognize the logic of consistency and capitulate 100%.
The risk is that people will recognize that logic and go “Hey … wait a second ..”
Let’s hope so!
Wait. The burden of proof is on the person making the extraordinary claim. Now, which is more extraordinary? Claiming that male-bodied people don’t belong in women’s sports? Or claiming that male-bodied people are actually women (or even female)?
How about claiming that people who go through male puberty have a physical advantage over females versus claiming that people who go through male puberty don’t have any advantage over females if they say they are women?
Also, which is more extraordinary? The claim that a man waving his penis around in a women’s changing room is violating the privacy of the naked women? Or the claim that a young girl seeing his penis is being rude by looking at what she can’t ignore? Noticing he has a penis?
Extraordinary claims – these are the ones that bear the burden of proof. The idea that sex is a western invention is about as extraordinary a claim as I’ve heard. It’s certainly more extraordinary than Bigfoot, which could (in theory) be a giant ape that somehow manages to elude all attempts to find it, even though it is huge. That pales in comparison to Transwomen are women.
And if you think no? What then, Rhys? Why don’t you say? For a philosophy professor, you sure aren’t any good at thinking things through, are you?
Too bad Trevor couldn’t have replied, in his smooth Seff Effrican accent:
Because really, that’s what’s going on. Almost nobody really believes this chubby thug is a woman. It’s just that people can be punished for telling the truth about it. It’s like if you had a small child saying “I’m not a boy, I’m a tiger!” and all the grown-ups are saying “Okay, you’re a tiger. Will you sit at the table now?” And that’s all well and good until it’s bedtime, and everybody is tired, and no you can’t sleep in a tree, just put your pajamas on and go to bed, we’ll call you a tiger again in the morning if you want.
Well I think it’s possible that some people really have convinced themselves that we have redefined “woman” now (though not so much men, which is suspicious…), in such a way that this chubby thug is a woman in a particular sense. That’s ludicrous of course, but I think a minority may believe it.
But who knows; other minds are a black box.
I think it’s quite possible that some people really have convinced themselves that we have discovered that women “are not defined by their biology.” Which involves equivocation, at least.
I can no longer doubt that some people have convinced themselves that the word “woman” has changed, that the category now includes some men and that all this is completely settled. I see people every day who seem absolutely caught up in this childish wordplay. They seem to think that redefining a naturally occurring category along completely arbitrary lines is somehow meaningful: trans women are women because the category of woman has been redefined to make it so. They will obstinately pretend that when anyone else uses the word “woman” they are using it in precisely the same way, to include some men. And they will pretend to be confused when anyone uses the correct meaning. That’s what’s at the root of this, the lie that sex categories are arbitrarily defined, when they absolutely are not.
I think some of the people who play these linguistic games genuinely believe they are operating at a higher, more enlightened level of thinking than we reality enthusiasts.
Exactly
If life has taught me anything at all it’s to never underestimate the ability of humans to make themselves believe things for self-serving reasons (practically the definition of rationalization). This is why I don’t automatically consider it a mitigating circumstance to say that someone is doing the right thing as they see it. I say it depends on why they see it that way in the first place.
No, that’s bullshit.
Assume the negation; i.e., that McKinnon’s claim is true. Then for every rights claim, that claim must be honored until and unless conclusively proven that it ought not be. I now claim that there is a chicken that has the mind/soul of a human. That chicken is entitled to the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As such, that chicken must not be slaughtered for food and its reproductive functions must not be exploited for others. A chicken can’t have a human mind? Well, the burden of proof for that is on you. In the meantime, don’t eat that chicken. Which chicken? How should I know? The burden of proof is on you, so in the meantime, we must treat all chickens as human. Actually, I lied: I’m not entirely sure it’s a chicken. It might be a duck. Or a goose. Or a cow, sheep, goat, fish, dog, cat, horse, grasshopper, grapevine, … Seems we are obligated to treat every species, mammal or otherwise, as deserving of full legal rights until we can show without exception that no member of that species does or ever will.
Such platitudinous pablum.
Sastra:
Definitely. It feels similar to how people who grow up in “liberal” churches (or in none) can’t really come to terms with the sincere beliefs of their fundamentalist counterparts. I even ran into that kind of resistance in a philosophy class on the intersection of science and religion.
In addition to admonitions to be kind, which reforge a link in the chain of traditional patriarchal socialization of females, the movement exploits the normal tendency to avoid confrontation, to fit in, to not rock the boat. When people say that, for instance, referring to someone by incorrect pronouns is polite, the notion of politeness functions as a way to rationalize conformity and reduce the ensuing cognitive dissonance. “I’m not giving in to peer pressure. I’m being polite.” It’s a foot in the door. Which, of course, is a well documented tactic of abusers and cults and torturers.