Excellent article by Holly Lawford-Smith

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

Hitching Glitterbeard Carts to Transsexual Wagons

“In Philosophy, there’s a well-known problem called the “Sorites paradox”. The usual example given to explain it is a heap of sand. We start with a single grain of sand. Is this a heap? Clearly not. We add another grain of sand. Is this a heap? Clearly not. And so on… and so on… until what we have clearly is a heap, and yet it wasn’t clear at what point the accumulated grains turned from a non-heap into a heap. The part of this paradox that will be interesting for us is the side-by-side comparisons, say, six grains of sand compared against seven grains of sand. It’s clear that either both of these are a heap, or neither of these is a heap. The side-by-side cases are similar enough that we should treat them as the same.
I think this kind of logic also shows up in discussions about who counts as a woman.

The reasoning goes like this: clearly this type of person should be treated as a woman (say, a fully-passing transsexual woman); there is not enough difference between this person and the next (say, a fully-passing transwoman who isn’t able to have sex reassignment surgery because of its prohibitive expense), so she should be treated as a woman too; and so on… until we reach a person who clearly should not be treated as a woman (say, a male-bodied male-appearing person who merely asserts that ‘she’ is a woman, such as US trans activist Danielle Muscato or UK advisor to Stonewall Alex Drummond).”

medium.com/@aytchellis/clockwise-from-top-transgender-youtuber-kat-blaque-transgender-model-munroe-bergdorf-8ef1b27c1610

This article is gold.
So clear, so concise. Philosophy at its best, without all the bullshit waffle/buzz words/pseudo-complexity etc.
*Goes in search of more of Holly Lawford-Smith's work.

That's interesting, thanks. I'd wondered about that myself, and philosophical treatments of vagueness in natural language and "edge cases". I think it's one of the reasons TRAs are so keen to appropriate intersex conditions for their political quest: they try to use them to say "even if I were to concede for the sake of argument that sex was what defined being a woman, there would still be edge cases - so you can't argue that my definition using 'innate femaleness' falls over because of edge cases like Pips Bunce (or indeed the vast number of natal women with short hair, jeans and baggy sweatshirts who quietly get on with biologically female things like birthing children or socially feminine things like being paid 10% less than men while not looking like Barbie dolls)."

To which my answer is (a) my definition has a hell of a lot fewer edge cases and (b) people like Pips Bunce aren't complex edge cases at all, they're quite obviously normal instances, both in terms of genotype and phenotype, of their birth sex. What they want to call themselves does not magically turn them into edge cases.

Brilliant article, sums it up so clearly. Holly Lawford-Smith is great, and as a result she has been on the receiving end of a world of particularly nasty shit, particularly from nobody’s favourite cyclist and his flying monkeys.

In the case of trans, the Sorites paradox is not in abstract, but has to be mapped on the rights of women to be protected as a category, and to have certain rights, and certain spaces. To the extent that no-one not born female is female, no-one on that spectrum, from trans-sexual to glitter beard, has a RIGHT to women rights and women spaces. But transsexuals have right to ACCESS women spaces because they never pose a threat, and have a RIGHT to the protections granted to women to the extent that they are perceived as women, not to the extent they are. So they are entitled to rely on protections against pregnancy discrimination to the extent their employer might discriminate against them on the basis of the mis-perception that they might get pregnant, but they are not entitled to demand pregnancy leave.
'Passing' transwomen might get away using women spaces, but have no right of access to them, so they cannot rely on any right to them if they are excluded or if they commit crimes, especially sex crimes that require a male anatomy (such as rape).
Ultimately, the question is not whether they are women, they never are, but whether they have the right to be treated socially as women or to access certain rights, and these rights are on a spectrum (finally something that is on a spectrum). But there is no paradox, because the question is never whether they are women, but which rights attach to their particular situation, as transsexuals, transgender or the last, widest category, fucking chancers.

Added problem is their definition of who "passes" is rather different from ours.

'Passing' is relational. Is not what transwomen think, is what others think.

I don’t get the concept of “passing”. It doesn’t turn a man into a woman. If a wolf wears a really convincing fleece, and hides his teeth, does that entitle him to enter the sheepfold? He’s still a bloody wolf, not a sheep or even a “trans”sheep.
I don’t care how well disguised a man is, I don’t want him in my changing room.

She is rather wonderful and has done some great articles on this subject. Such a shame she is the target of so much abuse from a vindictive minority.

'Passing' is relational. Is not what transwomen think, is what others think.

Women recognise sex better than men. Study after study acknowledges this. Presumably, we have an evolved risk assessment in this superior pattern recognition.

Which, er.... says something.

Great article

Indeed. And in general it is easy to tell a transwoman, regardless of what they think. However, in principle I do not have a strong objection to transsexuals using some public women spaces (such as restrooms).

However, in principle I do not have a strong objection to transsexuals using some public women spaces (such as restrooms).

I'm of the opinion that boundary-pushing is an inevitable male attribute, especially where sexual identities (including but not limited to transness) are concerned. So am a single sex hardliner on the basis that otherwise, the battle will be endless.

@Langcleg
I agree on boundaries pushing, but if I were to make the exception to the prohibition that is where I, and the law normally, would draw the line. So i guess for me the un-negotiable is the intact male genitalia.

I agree on boundaries pushing, but if I were to make the exception to the prohibition that is where I, and the law normally, would draw the line. So i guess for me the un-negotiable is the intact male genitalia.

Which, I'm afraid, just takes us back to the "knickers inspection" transactivist talking point.

Women are not the caretakers of distressed males. Some of those males may well be distressed to the extent they need body modification and to be away from other males. I don't mind what they do or what solutions they find so long as they do not impact on women or the safeguarding of children.

But, harsh as it may sound, I'm really not that interested on what that non-woman-impacting solution might be. It's for them to sort out and I wish them luck with it. My interest is in what's beneficial for women, particularly traumatised or other vulnerable women, and preserves the safeguarding of children, particularly girl children and their ability to assert boundaries.

in what

I cannot type for toffee!

I'm hardline on it too, no XY in women's spaces. If men's spaces are more accommodating to other men no matter how they dress or what genitalia they have, or there are third spaces, then transsexuals benefit too and don't need to use women's services and facilities.

I'm also hardline. Because you can't tell.

It will just create a culture where women are afraid to challenge a man.

I also don't understand the criteria.

Removing a penis might prevent someone from raping you with that penis, but it doesn't stop them intimidating you or attacking you or women's visceral reaction to seeing an uninvited male in their space.

Passing, again is subjective. And if they really pass, then you won't know anyway.

The knickers' inspecting is a red herring by trans activists. Nobody ever thought in the past that having sex segregated bathrooms was impossible without inspecting genitals at the door. Of course enforcement relies on people being decent and using the bathroom they should. The consequence is that if anything happens, none of them would be able to use the 'I am a woman' defence.

if anything happens, none of them would be able to use the 'I am a woman' defence

That if is doing an awful lot of work there.

Firstly, it will, it has and it will continue to happen. Secondly, we're back in the circle to the inevitability of boundary pushing you've already conceded.

I'm of the opinion that boundary-pushing is an inevitable male attribute, especially where sexual identities (including but not limited to transness) are concerned. So am a single sex hardliner on the basis that otherwise, the battle will be endless.

^^ I'm wholly support of this stance and it is the logical consequence of ignoring all of the valid concerns that were raised during the initial discussion of the GRA. All of those voices who foresaw this current mess but were told that it wouldn't happen.

‘Passing’ is just another concept stolen from someone else’s struggle. Pale skinned black people might have ‘passed’ for white but their genetic and cultural antecedents suffered the same oppression as any other black people.

Transwomen don’t have a genetic link back to trans-ancestors, and any cultural legacy they have is inherited from other men.

Also the idea of "passing" in itself is transphobic, because it discriminates against men with gender dysphoria who cannot in a million years "pass".

So in the name of fairness and equality, all men need to be banned from women's spaces.

In my university there are female and male bathrooms and an all gender bathroom. It seems reasonable.

Yeahnahyeah
Holly is wonderful. There is no contest between the scintillating brilliance of GC theorists and the muddled, illogical thinking (for lack of better word!) of gender theorists and trans activists.