See also "strict church theory." As a belief, qua belief, "gender identity" stands out for conveying status at physical and personal cost. Contrary to its own myth about itself, the belief in gendered embodiment through medical sorcery has granted incredible social power since Christine Jorgensen. Dylan Mulvaney is a status chaser. Jeanette Jennings, mother of Jazz Jennings, is a status chaser. See the work of Eliza Mondegreen, who does a terrific job of documenting how online "gender identity" groups act as cults, reinforcing belief and banishing doubt. The more a person self-harms for their gender, or harms a child for their supposed gender, the more it proves that the soul of the "trans person" is really that gender. "Born in the wrong body" is an expression of faith, not reason. If not for the insurance codes, we could dismiss it all as a Skoptic cult that became strangely popular with elites.
And what a disaster, conceiving the whole issue in terms of subjective signaling. A piece like this, I'm afraid, exacerbates the problem rather than attenuating it.
There are many issues where a discourse on volition, sincerity, and signaling might make sense, but the trans problem is not one of them. This, I found interesting:
"2. Observers would benefit from accurate information about the quality, which would be absent without the signal."
What, in moral terms, is the salient quality here? It's not the subject's sincerity: to concede this is to concede the entire issue to the trans people. The salient quality is sex, and its functional intractability. The subject can be as "sincere" as he likes, can make whatever game theoretic tradeoffs we might stipulate, but the facts remain that his every cell has a y-chromosome, his circulating hormone profile points in one direction rather than another. These do not require a keen acumen or subtle judgment to determine; objective determinations like these are the basis for any meaningful distinction between "well" and "unwell."
On the other hand, people who would insist on their obscurity or indeterminacy are doomed to fritter away pointlessly on things far more obscure and indeterminate. The point is made by the author himself in the last paragraph of the piece.
Hi. I'm the author. The point of the piece was to try and come at the issue in an unusual, and unorthodox fashion, rather than engaging in the usual stuff. Hence the emphasis on 'acceptance' among the public, rather than taking a position on whether that acceptance was justified by the facts or not. It's more a piece about explaining why people react to different to the gender stuff. So it feels like your beef misses the point. Perhaps I'm wrong? (Or perhaps I wasn't clear enough).
In any case, thank you for reading! Feedback is always helpful. :)
Your example of an engagement ring as a signal of investment is both outdated and one-sided. At one time it was meaningful symbol of mutual investment, by the man in offering the ring and by the women in publicly accepting it. This is no longer true because nowadays there is little stigma accruing to women who break off the engagement, many of whom are even keeping the expensive ring afterwards as compensation!
Hi! I'm the author. You're probably right about the example being outdated, but it was only meant to illustrate the point. And it seems to have done that, no?
I'm open to better examples though. Thanks for reading!! 😊
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer. Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned. However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as actual harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (especially women). Finally, others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Gender non-conforming and trans individuals face huge levels of stigma, huge all-round social costs to not being fully closeted, even in liberal cities, up to and including much higher likelihoods of being assaulted or murdered. You don't need to delve into their medical spending to validate the hypothesis that there is a price those folks pay.
Edit needed: “And others benefit from that information in that they are better able them to interact with and understand the individual in question. The individual who has the surgery benefits too – by finding others who support and accept how they see themselves.”
Edit needed: “The joke was highly controversial, but put that aside. What is interesting is that the joke reveals an intuition: that someone who bears costs (by having surgery, or takinghormones) for their “gender identity” sends a more robust signal than someone who only verbally identifies as a different gender.”
An interesting factor in the whole transgender debate has been the almost complete omission of the female to male (ftm)element. It's nearly 2 decades now since the media were displaying great interest in the story of the "pregnant man", bearded and ethnic too for good measure. It didn't trigger any negative response at all, neither from any putative JK Rowling TERF types, nor anybody from the male camp either. Of course with males (white especially)there was never likely to be a reaction as their default position is to flex on each other with cheap shots like "feeling threatened now are we ?"etc .But when you think about it females should have at least registered some displeasure at the language. The strong suspicion is that most women didn't take it too seriously as they didn't think it affected them much. But surely an honest TERF would admit that to be consistent they should describe that term pregnant man as a nonsense at best and offensive at worst.
In her memoir, trans woman Julia Serrano theorizes the much greater negative public opinion about MTF transness is due to a misogynistic undertone - a man giving up their privilege to inhabit the inferior sex is more offensive to patriarchal value structures. It's less difficult for people to imagine why a woman would want to be a man.
To paraphrase an an infamous biological woman from the 60s she would say that wouldn't she!If there ever was any validity in her assertion I would say that it's no longer the case in western countries anymore. But my main point was that the failure to point out back in the 0s the ridiculous concept of a man becoming pregnant has deprived the JK Rowling TERF types of balanced consistency and coherency in their rebuttal to MTF who they're claiming are" invading" women's spaces.
See also "strict church theory." As a belief, qua belief, "gender identity" stands out for conveying status at physical and personal cost. Contrary to its own myth about itself, the belief in gendered embodiment through medical sorcery has granted incredible social power since Christine Jorgensen. Dylan Mulvaney is a status chaser. Jeanette Jennings, mother of Jazz Jennings, is a status chaser. See the work of Eliza Mondegreen, who does a terrific job of documenting how online "gender identity" groups act as cults, reinforcing belief and banishing doubt. The more a person self-harms for their gender, or harms a child for their supposed gender, the more it proves that the soul of the "trans person" is really that gender. "Born in the wrong body" is an expression of faith, not reason. If not for the insurance codes, we could dismiss it all as a Skoptic cult that became strangely popular with elites.
And what a disaster, conceiving the whole issue in terms of subjective signaling. A piece like this, I'm afraid, exacerbates the problem rather than attenuating it.
There are many issues where a discourse on volition, sincerity, and signaling might make sense, but the trans problem is not one of them. This, I found interesting:
"2. Observers would benefit from accurate information about the quality, which would be absent without the signal."
What, in moral terms, is the salient quality here? It's not the subject's sincerity: to concede this is to concede the entire issue to the trans people. The salient quality is sex, and its functional intractability. The subject can be as "sincere" as he likes, can make whatever game theoretic tradeoffs we might stipulate, but the facts remain that his every cell has a y-chromosome, his circulating hormone profile points in one direction rather than another. These do not require a keen acumen or subtle judgment to determine; objective determinations like these are the basis for any meaningful distinction between "well" and "unwell."
On the other hand, people who would insist on their obscurity or indeterminacy are doomed to fritter away pointlessly on things far more obscure and indeterminate. The point is made by the author himself in the last paragraph of the piece.
Hi. I'm the author. The point of the piece was to try and come at the issue in an unusual, and unorthodox fashion, rather than engaging in the usual stuff. Hence the emphasis on 'acceptance' among the public, rather than taking a position on whether that acceptance was justified by the facts or not. It's more a piece about explaining why people react to different to the gender stuff. So it feels like your beef misses the point. Perhaps I'm wrong? (Or perhaps I wasn't clear enough).
In any case, thank you for reading! Feedback is always helpful. :)
Your example of an engagement ring as a signal of investment is both outdated and one-sided. At one time it was meaningful symbol of mutual investment, by the man in offering the ring and by the women in publicly accepting it. This is no longer true because nowadays there is little stigma accruing to women who break off the engagement, many of whom are even keeping the expensive ring afterwards as compensation!
Hi! I'm the author. You're probably right about the example being outdated, but it was only meant to illustrate the point. And it seems to have done that, no?
I'm open to better examples though. Thanks for reading!! 😊
To whom you are attracted sexually is purely subjective and therefore cannot reasonably be contested by an outside observer. Where you decide to live your life on a spectrum of superficial, stereotypical male to female attributes (and we all do) is also purely subjective and similarly cannot be questioned. However, your biological sex reflects an objective reality which cannot be changed by your subjective personal view and futile attempts to do so can result in serious health impacts to you as well as actual harms to members of the sex you are impersonating (especially women). Finally, others who are grounded in objective reality should never be forced to accept your subjective version of your actual biological sex.
Gender non-conforming and trans individuals face huge levels of stigma, huge all-round social costs to not being fully closeted, even in liberal cities, up to and including much higher likelihoods of being assaulted or murdered. You don't need to delve into their medical spending to validate the hypothesis that there is a price those folks pay.
Hi! I'm the author. I never denied there was a cost to those factors. Obviously. But costs are *comparative*, that's all. Thanks for reading!! 😊
Edit needed: “And others benefit from that information in that they are better able them to interact with and understand the individual in question. The individual who has the surgery benefits too – by finding others who support and accept how they see themselves.”
Edit needed: “The joke was highly controversial, but put that aside. What is interesting is that the joke reveals an intuition: that someone who bears costs (by having surgery, or takinghormones) for their “gender identity” sends a more robust signal than someone who only verbally identifies as a different gender.”
The uncanny valley mitigates against the chimera. Costly signalling need not be succesful.
Nope. Never said it must be successful.
AI generated?
An interesting factor in the whole transgender debate has been the almost complete omission of the female to male (ftm)element. It's nearly 2 decades now since the media were displaying great interest in the story of the "pregnant man", bearded and ethnic too for good measure. It didn't trigger any negative response at all, neither from any putative JK Rowling TERF types, nor anybody from the male camp either. Of course with males (white especially)there was never likely to be a reaction as their default position is to flex on each other with cheap shots like "feeling threatened now are we ?"etc .But when you think about it females should have at least registered some displeasure at the language. The strong suspicion is that most women didn't take it too seriously as they didn't think it affected them much. But surely an honest TERF would admit that to be consistent they should describe that term pregnant man as a nonsense at best and offensive at worst.
Every "TERF" I know hates the term "pregnant man" and complains about it. And has been doing so for years.
Well there's been very little public outrage that I've encountered. That's what I was musing over the whys and wherefores.
In her memoir, trans woman Julia Serrano theorizes the much greater negative public opinion about MTF transness is due to a misogynistic undertone - a man giving up their privilege to inhabit the inferior sex is more offensive to patriarchal value structures. It's less difficult for people to imagine why a woman would want to be a man.
To paraphrase an an infamous biological woman from the 60s she would say that wouldn't she!If there ever was any validity in her assertion I would say that it's no longer the case in western countries anymore. But my main point was that the failure to point out back in the 0s the ridiculous concept of a man becoming pregnant has deprived the JK Rowling TERF types of balanced consistency and coherency in their rebuttal to MTF who they're claiming are" invading" women's spaces.