Jesse Singal: "When A Child Says She's Trans"
This is really, really good, IMO. And watch the video! The whole thing really is extremely interesting.
The piece does, in effect, argue that there are a small number of actual cases of actual "gender dysphoria." I think that, in a world of 7 1/2 billion people, we should expect to find some of almost any malady we can imagine...but I remain a bit more skeptical about the phenomenon than Singal. I think it's fairly obviously something like mass psychogenic illness--in very large part, anyway. But I won't find it terribly surprising if we eventually confirm the reality of something like sex dysphoria. (Gender dysphoria would be a different thing...not really treatable medically. But since everybody seems determined to botch the sex/gender distinction...well...I've just about given up on minding it.)
Of course my only real concern is roughly conceptual: no woman (nor girl) is male and no man (nor boy) is female. If the PC left could stop trying to deny that very simple, largely semantic point, the whole public discussion would become much, much clearer. So the medical point about whether or not any males feel like women (or girls), or any females feel like men (or boys) is really tangential to my concerns. For, say, John to have "gender" (actually: sex) dysphoria would be for him to feel like a woman (or a girl). Whether that ever happens to anyone is a purely empirical, medical, psychological question. But whether it's enough to make him a woman (or girl) is largely a philosophical one. (Whatever that means. No one's really sure what makes something a philosophical question...) And the answer's no. (Unless I'm really, really missing something.) That answer alone doesn't tell us whether we're obligated to pretend John's a woman, and treat him accordingly. But it goes a fair way toward a negative answer. It might be nice--but that means: supererogatory. It also must be balanced against the value of truth and honesty, and against the massive social changes that would be consequent on an affirmative answer. For example: goodbye, women's sports, goodbye single-sex restrooms and locker-rooms.
Anyway, I say the piece is way worth a read.
The piece does, in effect, argue that there are a small number of actual cases of actual "gender dysphoria." I think that, in a world of 7 1/2 billion people, we should expect to find some of almost any malady we can imagine...but I remain a bit more skeptical about the phenomenon than Singal. I think it's fairly obviously something like mass psychogenic illness--in very large part, anyway. But I won't find it terribly surprising if we eventually confirm the reality of something like sex dysphoria. (Gender dysphoria would be a different thing...not really treatable medically. But since everybody seems determined to botch the sex/gender distinction...well...I've just about given up on minding it.)
Of course my only real concern is roughly conceptual: no woman (nor girl) is male and no man (nor boy) is female. If the PC left could stop trying to deny that very simple, largely semantic point, the whole public discussion would become much, much clearer. So the medical point about whether or not any males feel like women (or girls), or any females feel like men (or boys) is really tangential to my concerns. For, say, John to have "gender" (actually: sex) dysphoria would be for him to feel like a woman (or a girl). Whether that ever happens to anyone is a purely empirical, medical, psychological question. But whether it's enough to make him a woman (or girl) is largely a philosophical one. (Whatever that means. No one's really sure what makes something a philosophical question...) And the answer's no. (Unless I'm really, really missing something.) That answer alone doesn't tell us whether we're obligated to pretend John's a woman, and treat him accordingly. But it goes a fair way toward a negative answer. It might be nice--but that means: supererogatory. It also must be balanced against the value of truth and honesty, and against the massive social changes that would be consequent on an affirmative answer. For example: goodbye, women's sports, goodbye single-sex restrooms and locker-rooms.
Anyway, I say the piece is way worth a read.
posted by Winston Smith at
11:08 AM
2 Comments:
Winston--
I think this is a case where comparaticlve anthropology is more useful than philosophy. What do other cultures do? (And not really repressive ones where gender non-conformity is suppressed.) There are a number of examples, in a number of tribal societies, in Hindu culture, possibly in ancient Greece.
I suspect one problem with it in the US IS the whole thing is so new, and it doesn't have It's, ah, kinks worked out yet.
And that doesn't even get into physical intersex, which is surely a sign that something is going on that's more complicated than pure binary, even physically.
Also: that is an excellent article. I suspect that sociology (like anthropology) is a better route to figuring this stuff out than philosophy, or at least than philosophy alone. Someone needs to go out and study what is actually happening .
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