Sunday, February 17, 2019

Stock: Changing The Concept *Woman* Will Cause Unintended Harms

Stock is good, but this is merely ok.
Harm doesn't matter, really, in this discussion.
What matters is that men are not women. It's not possible to change the concept woman to include men, anymore than it's possible to change the concept marriage to include numbers, or to change the concept black to include white. Men can't be women because males can't be women. And there are limits to conceptual elasticity. The word 'woman' could be changed to include men...but, then, any word can be changed, in due course, to mean anything. With enough time or badgering or diligence, we could change the meaning of the word 'cat' to include dogs--but that has nothing to do with changing the concept cat to include dogs. To change the word 'cat' so as to include dogs is to change the word 'cat' so that it is no longer associated with the concept cat, but is, rather, associated with some concept like common pets. Changing the meanings of words is easy, relatively speaking. Concepts simply don't change. Not in that sort of way, anyway.
   Even many feminists who support transgender ideology have begun to admit that women can't be women and women can't be men. Rather, they're beginning to admit that they're really just trying to force people to change how we use the words 'man' and 'woman.' Caitlyn Jenner isn't a woman and will never be--though he might have been had he been born later, when medical technology is much more advanced. But the best the left can do currently is badger people into calling him a woman, and using feminine pronouns to refer to him. And that's a different thing entirely.
   As for the harm question; well, I'm not sure. But I'm inclined to think that, with respect to such questions, we're permitted to set up society in a way that we prefer. And there's nothing overtly wrong about a convention according to which public restrooms and locker rooms are segregated by sex.

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