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hegelesque · 3 years

Text

Gonna put my response below, as per last time.

Firstly, thanks for giving that feedback a read! I appreciate the chance to have a dialogue with you over this post!

I’d say that given your interest in pornography as a topic of materialist analysis, I would direct you towards Talia Mae Bettcher’s “Getting ‘Naked’ in The Colonial/Modern Gender System” as a reference point for elaborating a trans and marxist feminist critique of pornography, linked (here). I think that your points are interesting and could be honed further in a reading of this text with an eye towards your own views on the matter.

While I take it as fair enough that you don’t have any formal training in this subject matter I’d definitely encourage going to the link I provided in the previous post and looking for resources you might be able to use to further your own analysis.

Again I think I see what you’re saying about your post being focused more on average conceptions of trans-ness than philosophical concerns but the reason I would push strongly for you to find thinkers who put forward the position you’re critiquing is a pretty simple one. If you maintain that the average trans person thinks (x) about gender, this claim can pretty easily be countered by me saying “well in my experience trans people think (y) about gender” and we’re then at an impasse. If you find more specific evidence you not only allow yourself to have concrete examples to point to if someone like myself contests your analysis of trans people’s conception of gender, but you also allow yourself not to make trans people into an abstract community with more shared ideas than they might necessarily have.

I would also note that while I do sympathize with the analysis of woman as class within the capitalist mode of production, I would say that this is a more vexed matter than it may initially appear. For example, Luce Irigaray would point to the fact that “women do not constitute, strictly speaking, a class, and their dispersion among several classes makes their political struggle complex, their demands sometimes contradictory.” While Irigaray does cede the point that women are reduced to commodities, she is one of many thinkers who are cautious with regards to seeing womanhood as constituting a class in and of itself. I would similarly point to Audre Lorde’s analysis of white feminism and the dangers of thinking womanhood as a unified class, in that this thinking can function to obscure the often racialized intracommunal conflict between women even in the context of organizing for equality. While neither thinker forbids the notion of womanhood as class per se, they complicate the notion of the class of woman that is primarily put forth by thinkers such as Mackinnon or Dworkin for example.

An Abolitionist-Hopeful’s Critique of Conventional Transgender and Gender-Critical Philosophy

[ game sprite for the “devout” / “seer” class from “final fantasy iii” recolored to resemble a hero of blood from homestuck ]

hello, dear friends. before i begin my critiques i’d like to say that, yes, i am an MtF transsexual, and i have strong and growing sympathies for radical feminism in general, and not just intersectional feminism. i am also still deeply sympathetic to the needs and wishes of the trans community. however, in both cases, we must not take sympathy for likemindedness. this is a critique, after all.

before anything else, i am a COMMUNIST, and i’ve been a communist for many years now, since before i even knew i was trans.

and here i’m basically using the exact same kind of analytical method of inquiry in this critique for which communists have always been famed :

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

( or historical materialism )

it’s come to my attention that some radical feminists are considering themselves gender-critical on the basis of what they call materialism while calling themselves marxists.

my dear sisters, hardline marxists would be having a field day on you, and they hold your philosophy as an insult to their method of inquiry. it’s not as if primary sex characteristics were the ONLY identifiers of one’s sex status throughout human history, you know this. i could take this further and caricaturize your beliefs as being those that hold primary sex characteristics as all there would be to materialism, so yea it is an insult dialectical materialism.

my fellow trans people, our existence is not quite as revolutionary or ground-breaking as many of you seem to think it is, and as i’m going to spell out, contemporary trans philosophy is actively hampering whatever progressive potential the existence of trans people might have, beyond that which it’s already exerted.

Part One:

Critique of Conventional Transgender Philosophy

i’d like to start this by saying that it truly pains me as a member of the trans community to write this.

i am neither ashamed of the community i’m a part of, nor do i hold the community to blame for mishaps that represent me or my existence as shameful. like any other, i believe that trans people are deserving of dignity, respect, and affirmative recognition to their existence.

being that many trans people within our community consider themselves to be gender abolitionists, this is merely a critique of what i consider to be a dire vulnerability in the logic of our conventional philosophy, nothing more, nothing less.

the trans community, much unlike their detractors believe that the male/female markers on identifying documents are the assignment of a of a legal and social gender without consent given by the individual being identified.

the trans community understands that this is on the basis of their genitals being identified as part of a male or female pattern, but that although the shape of one’s genitals are a scientific fact and a medical record, the trans community believes that this is insufficient as a basis for determining their overall social and legal sex status, there are many different sets of characteristics that are biologically determined along the same physiological phenotype as the gonads and genitals, and that each set may vary independently from the others, so many say that by this reasoning that is supported by science it is unfair and even dogmatic to assign an overall sex status to an individual on the basis of but one sex characteristics to identify them for the rest of their lives from birth without their express consent.

trans people also believe that the psychosexual phenomenon known within medicine as “gender identity” is one of these aforementioned characteristics, and that it is physiologically determined but doesn’t change during or after puberty, and they also believe that one’s internal identity forms the basis for how an individual presents themself and interacts with others, as well as their social needs and vulnerabilities, whereas the genitals are not to be socially observed, but referenced by record.

so for the average trans person, it stands to reason that their gender identity would be a more valid characteristic for determining one’s social sex status, to which consent would always naturally be given, whether an individual identifying as female has female primary sex characteristics or not.

so the saying goes, “trans women are women, and trans men are men!”

but therein lies my critique. the conclusion is logically inconsistent with part of their reasoning.

remember that one of the arguments was that social sex status is determined by one set of sex characteristics, the genitals, whereas trans people argue that gender identity is a more legitimate characteristic for determining sex status, but gender identity is also but one set of sex characteristics.

the only thing fundamentally different between their logic and anyone else’s is which one set of characteristics should be central to determining an overall sex status, not whether more sets of characteristics ought to considered during an ongoing and additive process of determination, or something of the like.

the stance of gender abolition is incompatible with the idea that social justice can be implemented with a redistribution of sex status by definitions according only to one set of characteristics over another.

that conclusion is a betrayal to the spirit of arguing the recognition of variety of distributions of sex characteristics between many individuals, namely intersex people, yet another marginalized group under the doctrine of traditional sex.

the reason why is quite obvious, it’s because they are selling legal recognition under the sex status consistent with their gender identity alone, but i should think based on many other arguments made by the trans community that social treatment by others within their social groups in ways that are consistent with their gender identities seems to be given a lot more weight than a single designation on a legal document, which leads me to wonder why they aren’t advocating for an abolition of the practice of designating sex status on legal documents instead. either way they’d be more likely to receive their desired treatment their loved ones and friends, and often from strangers, it would still eliminate barriers to hormone replacement therapy, and it would also eliminate non-consensual assignment of legal sex status.

after all, the argument most supportive to the recognition of trans people is that other sets of sex characteristics are to be given their due of recognition for the sake of one’s medical needs, as they note the rightful claim by detractors for reproductive health by primary sex characteristics and as trans people rightfully claim for gender-affirming healthcare by gender identity. secondary sex characteristics also beget legitimate medical needs to the same extent as any other set of sex characteristics, from endocrinology to mammography, irrespective of one’s genitals or gender identity.

i think based on the most crucial point of reasoning given by the trans community, either all sets in one’s distribution of varying characteristics are equally entitled to legal recognition for accurately defining a more complete picture of one’s true sex status, or they should believe there should be no legal, binary, overall binary sex status at all.

because the existence and experiences of other so-called “sex-variant” people such as intersex and cis-androgynous individuals are just as marginalized and are no less deserving of affirmative recognition, it therefore follows that just as primary sex characteristics are insufficient identifiers, so too is gender identity on its own.

to some, this may strike as reminiscent of some of the writing by andrea dworkin in her 1973 book “woman hating” as her exact meaning by her words that humans “are clearly a multi-sexed species”.

i have seen that quote being used in advocacy for trans inclusion against talking points made by gender-critical feminists, but gender-critical feminists are really perceptive to point out that this is a cheap point to sell the affirmation of trans people and to shoot down criticism from gender-critical feminists without engaging their critical reasoning, or even dworkin’s supportive reasoning for that matter, because it isn’t meant just for trans people, and it certainly isn’t for designating sex status just by gender identity versus genitals, and some people have sadly made it seem like they think it is.

if i could condense my critique of trans philosophy down into one sentence, it would be that although some trans people say they would like to see the abolition of gender, many of them behave as though there is no conspicuous reason why they or anyone else would ever want it, and i’m hoping that this might change sometime in the near future.

Part Two:

Critique of Gender-Critical Philosophy

the stance of the gender-critical feminist is typically set as the belief that the genital characteristics of an individual are the basis on which one is identified by sex. we must then generously assume that they also believe that these material identifiers of sex then become historical identifiers of gender, still one and the same as a synonymizing link between male and man, and females and woman, which then becomes the basis of a sex-based hierarchy throughout civilization. this is what they call gender. they also hold that there are historically two sex statuses throughout civilization.

so far, nothing controversial.

what becomes controversial is their embrace of institutional interpretations of the sex sciences to justify it.

when faced with the challenges presented by androgyny they will claim a litany of different defining characteristics as the attribution of man and woman as sexes, that i could be forgiven for thinking will change in importance depending on the time of day.

as one core byspell, we will consider how they deem they are to classify an individual born with Estrogen Insensitivity Syndrome ( EIS ). starting with their first go-to argument, they will say that it is a condition that only affects individuals with the female sex karyotype, so they are essentially female, even though they are born with unambiguously male genitalia and later grow to have a male identity, and are socially recognized as men, so they may also go undiagnosed. if the critical feminist accepts this as a problem with this argument, others may say that the individual’s sex is determined by the structure and physiology of the gonads and genitals around the function producing sex gametes, sperm and egg cells, the gonads and genitals of our friend with EIS are unambiguously testis and a penis respectively, physiologically formed to produce and transmit sperm, even though our friend is likely to go through hardship in doing so, and despite the female karyotype, the gonads and genitals would be classified as essentially male if that’s the one argument we must accept.

in this matter, gender-critical feminists seem blind to the fact that to accept the institutional interpretation brought before them on these scientific observations means that they accept the notion that androgyny is to be viewed socially as a pathology, in other words, they carry the logic not born from their own movement to keep it inherent to their analysis that cross-sex distributions of sex characteristics and ambiguous sex characteristics are a disease to what the institutional model would conservatively affirm as the two inescapable sex statuses socially published and renamed as gender, half-aware that the essential characteristics are the classical social identifiers of gender as such.

in hindsight, i should have recognized this long ago, but with words like “syndrome”, “disorder”, “condition” and “symptoms” still being used to describe intersexuality and androgyny, AS DISEASES, how could they not have accepted the exact same language and descriptions before regurgitating it practically verbatim as their own reasoning?

none of this bodes well for gender abolition or even the fair treatment of intersex people in a civilization that still holds fast to the historical constructs of gender by the hands of liberals and conservatives.

the stance of gender abolition is incompatible with the idea that androgyny is to be classified as an abnormal pathology to the condition that manhood and womanhood are otherwise inescapable. this is a defeatist attitude in disguise.

how do we suppose intersex people are still having their rights completely denied, their genitals butchered as infants to conform to a normalized sex status in the first place, and then to have society try and enforce a social gender identity on them under the theories promoted by john money?

and speaking of john money …

we must now come to the assertion of gender-critical feminists that supporters of ‘transgender ideology’ are proponents of john money’s particular theory of gender identity and their converse assertion that expression and conformance with gender identity are conditioned through socialization. the fact of matter is that money’s entire method as applied to intersex children and david reimer suggests that the opposite is true:

“John Money came to believe that gender was susceptible to change, and that upbringing played a significant role in developing a female or male identity.” ( PBS, “Sex: Unknown”, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2813gender.html )

what do these people think money’s method even was? to surgically and hormonally alter a child’s physiology and pray they’d identify with the opposite sex without intervention by upbringing? if that were the case, then it would be sound for them to suggest on the basis that he was wrong that socialization is the main factor of behavioral sex presentation and not biological factors, but sadly for them, that is not the case. john money’s entire argument was that socialization was the main factor, and his method was designed to prove it, but that was not the outcome of his model.

“It wasn’t long before the local psychiatrist looking after Brenda [ David Reimer ] wrote to John Money about the concerns she had with Brenda’s [ David’s ] development. She [ He ] was showing signs of being deeply disturbed.

Now on estrogen, Brenda [ David ] began overeating in an effort to conceal her [ his ] growing breasts. She [ He ] even began dressing like a boy. Problems at school escalated to a point where Brenda [ David ], in fear of her [ his ] own safety, finally had to leave.” ( PBS, “Sex: Unknown”, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2813gender.html )

and money’s theory was not even developed with the the interests of trans people in mind, how could it have been? according to his theory of determining gender identity through rearing, it would instead have otherwise been useful for attempts to intervene in the mishap that a child may be identified by parents as having a greater likelihood of growing to identify as trans. but that was wasn’t necessarily the intent of money’s theory either. he developed the theory of his gender-of-rearing model with the hopes of socially normalizing children born with ambiguous genitalia. the whole purpose of his model was NORMALIZATION [ that is to surgically, medically and psychologically assimilate so-called sex-variant bodies and minds to the currently accepted sex stereotype ]. advocating normalization to pathologize androgyny and moreover reinforce social gender norms onto intersex youth through psychosocial socialization after performing surgery and prescribing hormone treatment. he hoped that david reimer would turn out to be the twin-based control experiment to prove his theory correct — HE WAS TRYING TO PROVE TO THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY THAT HIS MODEL OF TREATMENT WAS APPROPRIATE FOR INTERSEX YOUTH — and again, that didn’t happen — his theory of socialization did not work when it was implemented, not in reimer’s case, nor in the cases of literally thousands of intersex people.

the overall line held by gender-critical feminists that trans philosophy follows john money’s theory is a gross mischaracterization between john money’s beliefs and the beliefs of the trans community, that on basis of there being a belief in such a thing as of gender identity in the first place do they conflate the two sets of doctrines as the same, but when we look further, gender-critical feminists also rightfully stipulate that trans theorists believe at least to some extent that gender identity is innate, but then fail to remind themselves that money did not. so which is it? are trans ideologists followers of john money’s exact theories, or are they followers of the idea that gender identity is innate? we can’t have it both ways, that is logically impossible.

but i do not mean to discredit the idea outright that there is no truth at all to the belief, as particularly held by gender-critical feminists that socialization should be seen as relevant to an accurate understanding of gender. socialization definitely sets customary mandates and limits to the behavior and fashion of sex presentation, historically in ways that were often injurious to women globally, such as in the ancient chinese practice of foot-binding, and in the still modern belief among conservatives for women to be kept as stay-at-home mothers.

while i understand that none of this is proof positive that gender identity materially exists or that it’s physiologically determined, it’s actually BECAUSE john money’s theory on gender identity was wrong that makes it seem like their stance on socialization seem like it isn’t very credible.

and it’s similarly BECAUSE a primary sex phenotype can come at odds against a sex karyotype that their stance on what they seem the rightful method for determination of sex status isn’t airtight.

and there’s no denying the historical fact that the determination of a social sex status wholesale is the underlying observation and justification of reinforcing socially constructed gender. while it may within this worldview be contrary to the phenomenon of gender identity, upholding the practice of determining and publish sex status on a primary sex phenotype IS to uphold gender, no less so than trying to determine sex status on the basis of gender identity.

why do you think conservatives are so supportive of their reasoning?

on top of their selective and uncritical reception of the sex sciences such that they too are pathologizing androgyny and intersexuality, gender-critical feminists in this stance are also showing signs of logical inconsistency that would make gender abolition seem likely to be impossible if they were absolutely right, and we should start counting ourselves blessed that they aren’t.

Part Three:

Non-Affiliates in Error

as we may soon begin learning, many among the broader public throughout whatever civilization, across whatever spectra of philosophical and political beliefs, subconsciously keep another traditional and flawed bias for identifying one’s sex status rigidly under a particular set of sex characteristics, not the primary sex characteristics, as all individuals are under social mandate to be clothed, nor gender identity, as under any umbestanding, that particular characteristic alone is even more immensely difficult to observe.

the set of sex characteristics held as part of the social mark of one’s sex status, if not the gender marker on one’s birth certificate, would be their secondary sex characteristics, breadth of hips and shoulders, breasts, girth of the chest and gut, etc.

these individuals neither willing to observe primary sex characteristics ( should i hope ), nor able to observe sex identity without it being communicated, would often resort to observing these characteristics to identify one’s sex status.

this method also has its logical limitations, as one’s secondary sex characteristics does not always correlate to one’s primary sex characteristics or gender identity.

let me be clear on this if it wasn’t already, these are all characteristics that may be distributed within an individual independently of the others; one may have male primary sex characteristics, an androgynous distribution of male and female secondary sex characteristics, and also a male gender identity, or really any other permutation of these sets of characteristics as historically defined as being male or female. this is why i stress importance to the phrase “distribution of characteristics”.

this is a fact that i believe all parties discussed often struggle with accepting because it is disruptive to all respective narratives they’ve embraced, that is to say the different narratives held by each that would often differ only according to which particular of set out of an array of many others they consider to be that set of characteristics which they feel are most important to identifying another’s overall social sex status.

it also bears mentioning that the observation of one’s secondary sex characteristics are often currently and historically observed as colloquial identifiers of sex, those characteristics, particularly those seen as female, may also be seen both as weapons and as objects of patriarchal oppression, especially toward women, from the male sexual fixation on breasts, to lingerie, and even to customs that are placed injuriously on women, such as corsets to exaggerate contrast between the breadth of waist and hips, the aforementioned practice of foot-binding, and plastic surgery to augment breasts and lips to conform to male fantasies of how women must look and behave.

there are also other factors indicating that an androgynous distribution of male and female sex characteristics among those medically and legally identified as male may make them liable to become targets of male violence, whether they identify as transgender or not. francis lapointe, also known as “frank wolf” is quite a famous and tragic example. lapointe was a male canadian model and youtuber whose body expressed particularly androgynous characteristics and he enjoyed modeling in clothing designed for women.

not long after, he was systematically harassed and abused by other users of the internet who sent him threats to murder and rape him on this basis till he took his own life.

i personally have also been the target of comments suggesting that i should be raped, and i am also a survivor of rape.

women’s reproductive characteristics are definitely a core factor of their historical oppression, with forced pregnancy as an especially traumatic example.

but this brings into consideration that their secondary characteristics are also targeted, not just as pressures to conformity, but also as objects of male fantasy, and also as distinct targets of male violence in their own right.

there are definitely differing internal and external material realities interacting with one another in this dialectical process that we call history in the formations of the social constructs of gender and in women’s historical oppression, and the pathologization and persecution of intersex, androgynous and trans people. that is the fundamental importance of holding not just materialism, but DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM, that is if anyone here still wishes to call themself a marxist.

as shown above, it is certainly possible for anyone of whatever sex or gender identity to have whatever secondary sex characteristics, and despite what trans people or gender-critical feminists argue, it is the set of secondary sex characteristics that is more likely to be the first and only social factor of identifying sex status among a public that cares not enough to investigate much further, and that has similarly proven unreliable.

Part Four:

Our Faults and Our Scars

this is kind of a last-minute chain of thoughts that suddenly crossed my mind lately. i feel that this discovery lies at the root of all these issues we’ve been bespeaking this far.

i am speaking of the history of the sex sciences, and the history of gender.

starting with the current designations of sex, “male” and “female”. these are the accepted termini to the definitions of “man” and “woman” respectively, hence “adult human female”.

suppose for the sake of argument that we have never understood the meaning of the word “female” and we are eager to learn.

first we shall turn to the dictionary, who tells us:

well shit, half of that description describes characteristics that will not be readily available for us to observe, and another half is describing characteristics that may apply to some transsexuals, but hold on a minute, that last part of our definitions seems to be calling back to the word “woman”.

let’s see what other sources that might be able to help us:

now we have something to work with, a picture of the two classical genders, man and woman.

wait, really?

yes, really, after all, that is how we got the words “male” and “female”

these are words that have always had gendered connotations, and even gendered meaning.

this has a few problems in its own right.

as noted by gender-critical feminists, your sex is determined by your class of gametes, sperm and ova, as male or female respectively.

ascribing complete patterns within the human phenotype to a single cell, and to other species that look nothing like us.

no wonder everyone’s so confused.

and with two normative patterns of characteristics setting our social expectations of individuals’ bodies, now we see that the sciences have established a concrete basis for pathologizing patterns of characteristics that do not conform to those normal patterns, hence why the intersex community are designated as “disorders” and “syndromes”, and if we ignore the physiological basis of trans identity…

… we can just call them a mental illness, the same way different orientations were labeled as mental illnesses. we know what the intent is, to deny any material basis of characteristics that we refuse to acknowledge, and to call it a mental illness, or a disorder, to stigmatize the “abnormality” and to reinforce the norm. if we want to say that gender identity isn’t real, and that there is an inherent danger to positively affirming it by means chosen by the individual, then that leaves a frightening question for conservatives to ask us — about orientation.

yes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and variations of sex development are different things, but they are widely known by science to be determined along the same physiological continua as gamete production.

so where does that leave us about SCIENTIFICALLY giving non-gendered and socially unchanging designations based on gametes?

i don’t know, go ahead and simply call me a “spermatogen” for all i care. it does not change according to any of my other characteristics or any social designations granted to me, and it doesn’t have any gendered connotations, so i have no objections.

but let me guess,

THAT’S THE PROBLEM FOR YOU, ISN’T IT?

Part Five:

Conclusion

if we are to establish a radical front to the abolition of gender, then i should think that one of the metrics for that goal is that it would behoove us to reconsider the most is not just how we determine sex status, or on what basis of which characteristics it ought to be determined, but when we are still doing that and how the determination of sex status may be core function that inevitably promotes constructing or reconstructing gender, and why we felt that we must make any determination by whatever basis at all.

more importantly, we ought to consider what kind of understanding we can adopt that would put us on the right path to getting to a progressive worldview that is consistent with all these facts that i’ve drawn and many more, but that must first start with understanding our philosophical errors, and i came to this understanding by looking into multiple different factors and the history, and by cross-referencing them together, to separate the accurate from the true, and the true from the false. i think some people might want to look into trying this epistemic approach for once

for how unusually long this particular post is, i feel almost like i don’t want to post it just yet, like i could be missing something. but i believe i’ve written just about all the arguments i felt i’ve needed to.

i welcome friendly and respectful engagement to help build a more comprehensive analysis

#trans philosophy #would love to hear more thoughts from your end though!

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hegelesque · 3 years

Text

This is a very interesting piece with quite a bit to say on a number of topics, but I’ll restrain myself to a few comments under the break

So we have in the first part a critique of what is termed “conventional transgender philosophy,” which, I would argue, instead appears to be a critique of liberal notions of gender abolition. I am perplexed as to why this section is named the way it is for two reasons: Firstly, gender abolition is not a mainstream notion shared by trans people by any stretch of the imagination. At least in my own experiences, trans people are just as likely to maintain the necessity of the present colonial/modern gender system such that they be capable of being legible to colleagues and the state as that which they identify as within this matrix of violence. That is to say I would heavily contest the notion that gender abolition is taken as a given in trans communities. Secondly, this section showcases little to no engagement with the burgeoning field of transgender philosophy or indeed, with trans studies as a whole, and I find this omission striking as a lost opportunity for engagement with people who would provide interesting arguments (not ones that I necessarily hold as true) against the notion of gender abolition from a transgender perspective. https://transphilproject.wordpress.com is a good resource for diving further into trans philosophy and I’d encourage anyone interested in the topic to take a look. These issues demonstrate to me that this piece suffers from the burden of originality, namely a lack of sufficient attention to thinkers who have come before and who are already engaged in the sort of discourse attempted to be grasped by this post. Originality can be good, but it can also make you say things that you think are more revolutionary than they are, or lead you to misrepresent the thinking behind arguments you either want to support or condemn.

In addition to this, there is the assertion throughout this post that dialectical materialism is a necessary aspect of elaborating a thinking of transgender existence that is ignored by many. This very well may be true but to be blunt, its necessity isn’t demonstrated in the post as I read it. Furthermore, one question that may be asked is: what formulation of dialectical materialism is being mobilized here? Dialectical materialism is even now a hotly contested term in Marxological circles and as such I would want to ask what permutation of diamat is necessary to the thinking of trans life and how can that necessity be demonstrated?

I have more to say but I’ll come back and add them at a later point when my thoughts have coalesced more.

An Abolitionist-Hopeful’s Critique of Conventional Transgender and Gender-Critical Philosophy

[ game sprite for the “devout” / “seer” class from “final fantasy iii” recolored to resemble a hero of blood from homestuck ]

before anything else, i am a COMMUNIST, and i’ve been a communist for many years now, since before i even knew i was trans.

and here i’m basically using the exact same kind of analytical method of inquiry in this critique for which communists have always been famed :

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

( or historical materialism )

it’s come to my attention that some radical feminists are considering themselves gender-critical on the basis of what they call materialism while calling themselves marxists.

Part One:

Critique of Conventional Transgender Philosophy

i’d like to start this by saying that it truly pains me as a member of the trans community to write this.

so the saying goes, “trans women are women, and trans men are men!”

but therein lies my critique. the conclusion is logically inconsistent with part of their reasoning.

Part Two:

Critique of Gender-Critical Philosophy

so far, nothing controversial.

what becomes controversial is their embrace of institutional interpretations of the sex sciences to justify it.

and speaking of john money …

“It wasn't long before the local psychiatrist looking after Brenda [ David Reimer ] wrote to John Money about the concerns she had with Brenda's [ David’s ] development. She [ He ] was showing signs of being deeply disturbed.

and it’s similarly BECAUSE a primary sex phenotype can come at odds against a sex karyotype that their stance on what they seem the rightful method for determination of sex status isn’t airtight.

why do you think conservatives are so supportive of their reasoning?

Part Three:

Non-Affiliates in Error

this method also has its logical limitations, as one’s secondary sex characteristics does not always correlate to one’s primary sex characteristics or gender identity.

not long after, he was systematically harassed and abused by other users of the internet who sent him threats to murder and rape him on this basis till he took his own life.

i personally have also been the target of comments suggesting that i should be raped, and i am also a survivor of rape.

women’s reproductive characteristics are definitely a core factor of their historical oppression, with forced pregnancy as an especially traumatic example.

Part Four:

Our Faults and Our Scars

this is kind of a last-minute chain of thoughts that suddenly crossed my mind lately. i feel that this discovery lies at the root of all these issues we’ve been bespeaking this far.

i am speaking of the history of the sex sciences, and the history of gender.

suppose for the sake of argument that we have never understood the meaning of the word “female” and we are eager to learn.

first we shall turn to the dictionary, who tells us:

let’s see what other sources that might be able to help us:

now we have something to work with, a picture of the two classical genders, man and woman.

wait, really?

yes, really, after all, that is how we got the words “male” and “female”

these are words that have always had gendered connotations, and even gendered meaning.

this has a few problems in its own right.

as noted by gender-critical feminists, your sex is determined by your class of gametes, sperm and ova, as male or female respectively.

ascribing complete patterns within the human phenotype to a single cell, and to other species that look nothing like us.

no wonder everyone’s so confused.

so where does that leave us about SCIENTIFICALLY giving non-gendered and socially unchanging designations based on gametes?

but let me guess,

THAT’S THE PROBLEM FOR YOU, ISN’T IT?

Part Five:

Conclusion

i welcome friendly and respectful engagement to help build a more comprehensive analysis

#trans philosophy #gender abolition #that all said #a very thought provoking post that should get more attention

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