Sunday, November 18, 2018

A Not-Great But Not-Terrible Dialog About Trangenderism

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It'd be hard to find two groups I disagree with more than radical feminists and transgender ideologues. But I admire these folks for having a civil public conversation on the subject. (Honestly, though, the incivility has been almost entirely on one side of this particular issue.)
   IMO most of this discussion just isn't terribly relevant, because the questions about alleged oppression and so forth are far, far, far, far, far less important than the questions about truth and falsehood. And those questions are pretty damn simple: can males be women? No. Can females be men? No. There's just nothing even interesting about those questions.It's an open-and-shut case. In fact, it's a not-even-worth-opening case.
   That doesn't answer any of the substantive questions about whether we should allow sex-segregation in restrooms and locker rooms, sports and scholarships. And all that. those questions could legitimately be raised, if not in actual policy contexts, at least in philosophy. What it does is make it clear that you can't settle those questions with mere semantic screwing around.
   Lawford-Smith produces far stronger arguments than Chappell--but, then, she's got a much stronger case than he does--when she focuses on the right issues, anyway.

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