I’m at a philosophy colloquium talk called “Farewell to the Sex/Gender Distinction.” I was prepared for the far-left argument that’s supposed to be trans-liberatory (i.e., the idea that allows you to say “the penis is a female organ,” which I think just confuses things and doesn’t really help). But instead it’s an older cis man approaching it from the perspective of old-fashioned analytic “natural language” concept analysis. I am very worried.
A picture of a TERF sign was just offered as evidence that we shouldn’t merely assert “trans women are women” as an assumption… but then a poll showing that a majority of trans women consider trans women to be female was also raised as a consideration, so I’m just kind of confused right now.
I think my problem with this talk is that this guy is approaching it as if he’s some sort of impartial arbiter of truth and practical/political goals should not be taken into account.
Older cis het white man, perhaps?
Definitely white, probably het. I don’t know that his whiteness is relevant except to his sense that his views are authoritative and come from no particular standpoint – that he inhabits the so-called “view from nowhere.”
That is what I was referring to—the “my view is the objective default” perspective.
There’s an attitude common to men in core subfields of analytic philosophy (metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind) that they can wade into a debate in any other subfield and immediately get to the truth when the poor confused philosophers of art, gender, social science, etc. have just been floundering around helplessly. That really felt like what was going on in this talk. And he didn’t even make a good faith effort to get clear on the issues. Yeah, he quoted from some feminist philosophers and transgender advocates, but he also used the term “transsexual” as if it were still current (not just while reading the titles of books from the 70s-90s) and flatly denied that there was any subjective phenomenology associated with feeling oneself to belong to one gender or the other. Dude, have you ever met or talked to an actual trans person…?
Loki is the Philosopher King 