'Biological essentialism'?

Can you ask what he thinks a ‘woman’ is? I know people say it’s a dog whistle, but that’s generally because they can’t answer it. I think getting your friend to really think about the definitions he is using when he speaks about these things might help. And yes, as pp says, if he’s straight would he sleep with a transwoman, if he’s gay…..

This is the correct interpretation of what is meant by the term biological determinism.

It's the belief that an individual's biology determines their role in society, for example because women have babies their place is in the home.

It's often used to left wing people to try to characterise sex realists / gender criticals as right wing. It just shows they don't understand what being gender critical actually means or that they value men's wants over women's needs.

If TW didn't exist, and it was only the recent phenomenon of teen girls identifying as male, would anyone justify it by talking of their lack of material oppression?

Your 'friend' is the one who is the 'biological essentialist.'

He knows that there are two classes of Homo sapiens individuals. There is the class that are fully human, have a full range of emotions and thoughts, and are of prime importance. Then there is the class that are partially-sentient support bipeds who exist to service the first class; they are allowed partial sentience so that they can be scolded, berated and shamed if they fail to properly carry out their service role.

I have zero doubt that your 'friend' can effortlessly identify which class is which.

The problem with men like him is they don't understand women's boundaries and in particular why it's inherently a problem when males wilfully ignore the boundaries of female-only single-sex spaces and just force their way in anyway, whether it's physically, virtually, legislatively, conceptually.

"Men already exist in women's spaces" just shows he thinks of women's and girls' boundaries as something to be challenged and overcome. It's disgusting.

It basically resulted in me being labelled a 'biological essentialist'

If he said this is good faith, and is not just saying phrases he's heard and think sound impressive, he means that you are gatekeeping 'woman' to females only.

He thinks that female and woman are linked for the majority of people, but thats just coincidentally. Woman to him is an identity that is just as valid for a male person to be.

I dont think its based on stereotypes- lots of men who these people believe are women don't look and behave like a stereotype women. And thats what gets them into the position of supporting men with gender who have committed rape to go into womens prisons. They are women therefore they use womens facilities, even though they have committed a male crimes.

That obviously is where the ideology fails. Women and 'men with gender' aren't a group with anything in common or with the same needs.

I can think of multiple examples of grouping females with and without gender together to provide services, but what do women have in common with 'men with gender' that they dont have with any other man. What services and spaces would be needed?

Material oppression? Does he think the reproductive exploitation of women industry in poorer countries is seeking out transwomen to exploit them for their reproductive labour?

Sounds like your friend has heard a bunch of phrases which he thinks will make him appear clever and impressive but which he doesn’t understand and doesn’t have the critical thinking skills to unpick what they mean.

That they're reducing women down to male gaze fantasies instead never seems to occur to them.

they are just appearing to ignore this, because it is the actual purpose.

Now that is some shit right there.
A trans person, not being raised female, has no fucking idea what that's like.
They aren't being hated (by those who do hate them) for the sex they were born as, but because they refuse to conform to gender stereotypes. We're hated just because we are women, which is something we have no choice about. It's nothing to do with how we behave. They hate us no matter what we do.

It's the same meme tier shit as "you're just reducing women to their genitals" that these clowns like to repeat ad nauseum.

That they're reducing women down to male gaze fantasies instead never seems to occur to them. Sitting there calling themselves progressive while polishing these misogynistic turds of an opinion.

Well your friend has shown himself to be a male supremacist so perhaps he should challenge his thinking - particularly his belief that members of the reproductive sex class to which he belongs are entitled to dictate whether members of the opposite sex have a right to privacy and dignity when in a state of undress.

No surprise that he’s big on societal structures being broken down. I bet he pontificates about cultural sensitivity to countries with a lower age of consent and about the agency of women caught up in the commercial sexual exploitation of women trade, and considers those views part of his “progressive” credentials.

I read it as the view that a person born a man should present in a way that socially signals maleness. It is just another term for sexism. In fact our culture had pretty done away with these notions between around 2000 and 2015. It is infuritating that they are resurging in such a backwards looking and damaging way. He is calling you sexist without really understanding what he is saying. I imagine your own view is the opposite to that. A person born a man should be able to present as he wishes. But it doesn't make him a woman. The bio essentialist argurment is made by those lacking understanding (is a polite way of putting it - I can think of other terms!).

Biological essentialism - the idea that an entity must have some concrete attributes, in this case biological ones.

Its antithesis is “wibbly wobbly gender essence” essentialism. The idea that womanhood is woman essence but we have no idea what that is, ergo we can never have a concrete definition of what a woman is.

I think it's generally a good idea to ask people who use a particular phrase to score points in an argument to define what they mean by it. I suspect a lot of the time they have heard these phrases used as a kind of winning goal in an argument but don't really know what they actually mean. Or at least the weakness of their argument becomes evident when they have to break it down into everyday words.

As I understand it, gender ideology includes the belief that an innate sense of gender is real and is more important than biology. Some even believe that biological sex is a social construct or is a spectrum. In short, this innate sense of gender determines whether one is male, female or one of the numerous neogenders.

So a biological essentialist is a person who believes that biological sex is the determinant of whether one can be called a man or a woman and rejects the theory of innate sense of gender.

BenjiCat · Today 17:32

definitely being used as a dig followed with imploring me to 'challenge my thinking'!

I think that you already have challenged your thinking and concluded that men can't be women and even if they pretend that they are, they have no rights to women's spaces.

I’d just agree with him on pretty much everything.

Yes, biological essentialism, knowing that we can never change sex, just our clothes.

Yes, transwomen need spaces that help them stay safe, just like women do.

Yes I do think transwomen are pretending to be women- I know I am not a transwoman. I am a woman and I can’t ever be a transwoman, I could only pretend to be. We aren’t the same.

And ask whether he’d view transwomen as sex partners, and be happy for his teen daughter to play rugby or swim with Hannah Muncy or the creepy middle aged Canadian swimmer who competes with children.

He doesn't understand the term. Biological essentialism means believing that men and women should have separate roles in life by virtue of their sex, so the very opposite of what any gender critical feminists believe since they want us to get out of gender straightjackets. What he's describing applies to rhe anti-gender right but not to anyone who simply recognizes the reality of our sexed bodies and the constraints this places on us.

You might want to point out that what his crowd is doing instead is essentializing gender - they reify feminity and pretend a taste for pink fingernails gives somebody the right to invade female changing rooms or menopause support groups.

A man should be able to put on a dress, grow out his hair, paint his nails, take up every feminine hobby he can find, and even change his name and still be considered a man. He shouldn’t be criticized or endangered for not conforming to male stereotypes.

Biological essentialism says that our choices should be constrained by our sex.

biological essentialism is what says a man can’t be a man if he wants to do things society associates with femininity. It’s discriminatory and wrong.

the world would be a much better place if males could just accept that men are a varied and interesting group of people that do not fit one standard. They are much like females in that regard, but we have made more progress in allowing women to express themselves, though I fear that progress may be waning.

I agree with asking him what he means by it.

It's usually an allegation that by saying 'woman' is a word defining a physical reality/sex class, that we therefore think all women are only 'real women' if they have kids, or have sex with men.

I've no doubt that there are quite a lot of people who believe that - you can find people who believe the most ridiculous nonsense. And even on MN you will find quite a lot of women and men have a belief in something like 'maternal instinct'. I think that is in fact an interesting subject and worth exploring more deeply.

I very much doubt he has thought about it very deeply though. If he really thinks it's OK to tell a woman that her physical body is irrelevant to her life and can't be defined beyond being an individual, I think he's wrong.

He is saying what most unthinking men are saying about this. 'Of course you need single sex spaces, but it's important that you take in and nurture men in them who want to be there'.

Basically he does not believe that women should have the right to say no to men, and that the first responsibility of a space and of women is to nurture men. In many ways he's the biologically essentialist one, he is the one who believes a man's need outweighs all women's.

The question to ask is what does he plan for the women who have to leave the space when a man walks in due to his gender identity. You'll get a lot of fudging that moves through 'there aren't any' and goes through 'but they're women with issues that shouldn't be allowed so it's their fault (which is a variant on if she hadn't annoyed him he wouldn't have had to hit her)' and eventually you'll get to the bottom line which is that excluding some women from women's spaces is right and ok if it benefits men. And men have no duty of reciprocity or care because men. (Even the ones who say they are women.)

Which is in essence a belief that all spaces are first and foremost for men and their needs, and women who are willing and able to be useful to men may use the women's space too. And women who aren't or can't deserve to be punished.

By this point they've usually got quite cross because they do not like facing their own misogyny. They identify as being nice people, hence the needing to dress all this up in pretty terms and wankery to hide it.

Biological essentialism is the belief that such things as masculinity and femininity, plus one's personality traits, are inborn rather than a product of the environment.
Specifically in terms of gender, it means that males and females are different because of biology, and it's not culturally influenced.
As feminists, we certainly know the influence that socialization can have, so that theory is bunk.

I'm not understanding how he thinks this relates to you.
If he's trying to say being trans is not anything biological, such as the gender non-conforming brain differences trans people claim to have, but entirely a product of cultural socialization, then he's essentially admitting it's made up bullshit. You can point out that he defeated his own argument by opening up that can of worms.

Interesting. Do you have any references or further info on this? I have never heard this word before. It is disturbing that it drags gender into the meaning, as it just sounds like shorthand for "biology is an essential factor" which it is of course.