Philosopher responds to Jane Clare Jones et al

[thatdamnwoman]

I'm pretty sure that over the past week or two I've read an article by GC women philosophers pointing out the fallacious arguments that fellow philosophers use when trying to promote a pro-trans agenda. I've looked for it but can't find it. I anyone can point me to it I'd be grateful.

A contact of mine, someone who is a senior paediatrician, has posted this article which I think is a response to the original GC feminist one.

majesticequality.wordpress.com/2019/07/25/dear-philosophers-you-can-trust-the-feminist-consensus-gender-critical-radical-feminism-is-bogus/

My contact – someone who is in a position to be very influential in her hospital and area – says she's read it and it makes sense to her and she wants those of us who are circulating anti-trans articles to read it. She's already getting lots of likes and people saying yes, they agree, from loads of people, some of whom I recognise as being in the NHS.

I've given the article a cursory read but it's long and tortuous and I am so infuriated by the toxic tone that I can't be analytical. This is rubbish philosophical writing.

I see that Kathleen Stock has responded but I'm so shaken that someone I mistook for an intelligent, sensible woman has swallowed this shit and that other women are agreeing with her that I can't absorb Stock's response.

Is there anyone out there capable of boiling down both his argument and her response in plain English so that I can intervene with some sanity on FB?

OldCrone

So why does it affect which toilets you use, or which sports team you play on?

Very good question. Bet it's one there won't be an answer to.

I can imagine the answers but I am not trans so not my place to say.

Lisa At 13:37 this afternoon you said "I'm kinda new to this".

Some of us asked you to explain what you thought was good about the article and pointed you towards some other things that we thought might be worth reading when you said there were things you didn't understand/weren't familiar with. My link was to a piece written by two psychologists about gender dysphoria, another one was written by the Professor of Evidence based medicine at the University of Oxford and published in the British Medical Journal. We were accused of linking to "obscure blogs and interpretations".

Yet 5 hours later you seemed to have become an expert who could tell us things like There is a broad understanding in medical terms that goes against the GC position I have been exposed to so far. When asked for evidence of this, you said it was easy to find, but you couldn't provide a link.

Now you're accusing us of being conspiracy theorists and that we're saying things that are 'half-baked nonsense'.

So are you new to this, or an expert who can tell those of us who have been reading up on this for years where we are going wrong? And do tell us about the conspiracy theories - I'm dying to know what they are.

Again merrymouse agree, I am sometimes at odds with people on these boards. I don't come down firmly on either side all the time.

"I think there are two separate issues - one concerns medical malpractice and the other the conflicting rights of trans women and women"

I would also like to suggest, in the mix, trans men and non binary people's freedoms and safety/comfort.

Seperate completely enclosed single occupancy toilets for anyone would really help trans men, who do not feel comfortable in the women's loos but may not be safe in the men's, and non-binary people, who don't want to use either.

I don't necessarily subscribe to the non-binary view point but seperate unisex/gender-free loos would help all those people.

But the trans lobby decided to push for accepting anyone who identifies as a woman into the women's loos and I really think it has/ will harm trans rights in the long run. And ignores trans men and the N/B people.

I don't know how medical malpractice can really be minor, though? Surely that's something we should be concerned about, for all people who are looking at very serious medical procedures for treatment of a psychological condition. And the teenage girl phenomena has had no studies behind it, they are an almost totally new cohort which must be a women's issue.

I think some of the stuff posted here in this thread about the medical practices is deranged. I'm sorry I really do. I see it from TRA's and I'm happy to call it out here too.

What parts of feminists' criticism about giving sterilising drugs to (predominantly female, often lesbian, often autistic) children struggling socially with early puberty do you find deranged?

thatdamnwoman (OP): Is there anyone out there capable of boiling down both his argument and her response in plain English so that I can intervene with some sanity on FB?

I will try. First you need to understand the author of the piece is a (self-described -- see the 'Comments' to the piece) 'social constructionist'.

[Social Constructionism (or, similarly but well, in some ways perhaps different; never mind Social Constructivism) is a philosophical dogma which holds that reality is a social construct. (No, really, these people do think that or at least they say they do. Whether the claim that reality is socially constructed is actually a claim, or amounts to just something like saying ' Jabberwocky Pinstripe ', is controversial. Let that go for now.) However, reality is not a social construct. Hold on to that thought. The earth really does go round the sun on a roughly elliptical path -- that it does has nothing to do with our concepts, our language, or our social mores. Humans are really sexually dimorphic. And so on. Reality is not socially constructed. OK, now. Relax.]

Next step in his argument. There is a logical rule sometimes expressed as ex falso quodlibet. Roughly what this means is, if you start with a determinedly false (set of) premise(s), anything you like follows logically. (I used to start explaining this to students by saying something like, 'If the moon is made of green cheese, then I am Icky the Fire Bobby '. That is a valid deduction the conclusion follows from the premise but only because the premise is false. There's more. But that is a start.)

So, now, the argument in question is based on (nonsensical or false) premises which are not true (premises which together make up, or exemplify, the daft social constructionist creed). The conclusions follow from these premises, but only because the latter are not true. This does not mean the conclusions are false, notice. The author has given us no reason for thinking them true, however. And, in fact, most of his conclusions like many of his premises are not even false: they are just nonsense.

Stock's response generally makes a laudable attempt to draw the debate back to earth and deny that reality is socially constructed. You can perhaps do the same on FB, OP. Just remind people who are impressed by this rubbish that (1) the whole argument depends on the (risible) notion that reality is a social construct; (2) the conclusions mostly make no sense, even if validly derived via ex falso quodlibet.

One more thing. The referenced article is the sort of crap that gives philosophy a bad name. If you want to see what some of the grown-ups in academic philosophy think of this nonsense, check out Felix Leiter's blog here. See, for instance, this, which Leiter describes as 'funny and apt'.

[Leiter's blog covers much more than the trans issue in philosophy. It is more-or-less the go-to blog for (anglophone and other) professional philosophers: he is good for getting a view of what grown-up philosophers think of the 'woke', though.]

Yes Goosefoot the stats on teenage girls are horrendous. While the trans community keeps arguing tgis is all a normal phenomimun there is no opportunity to really explore what is happening.

9toenails excellent.

Thank you for making sense of that nonsense and your brilliant explanation and the links 9toenails, much appreciated.

Thanks for that explanation and links 9toenails.

''Leiter describes as 'funny and apt'. ''

One of the tags he uses is ''posturing, preening wankers''.

I also enjoyed this thread on the same topic which I just happened to see.

twitter.com/Mgardner2000/status/1155534660316913665

OP it sounds like you have been doing fabulous work. I am not 'out' and I admire anyone who has taken the plunge. You are already making a difference, but not everyone will agree with us, impossible though that seems.

I am sure you are right to post stock's article. If you post it as a comment to your friend's post you may just take a few of her friends to stock's website or medium which is A Good Thing in itself (is its published elsewhere say 'you can find more by the same author here....') . Many people have realised that 2 and 2 is actually 4 by stumbling across writings by stock and Co.

If you do want to engage your friend in convo then I agree with people upthread who suggest asking her to explain it.

Reading his article again, he goes on and on about bathrooms as though public toilets are the only space where sexes are segregated.

Unfortunately I think we are all aware that women have been taken to court in Canada for refusing to allow a male bodied person into their home.

I suppose you don't have to worry about that kind of thing if you think reality is a social construct.

That's brilliant NotAtMyAge

Unrolled thread here.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1155534660316913665.html

Toenails, the Leiter blog link doesn't work for me. Any tips?

There was a rogue / at the end, Prawn. Try this.
leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/

Reading his article again, he goes on and on about bathrooms as though public toilets are the only space where sexes are segregated.

Yes, it would have been more convincing if he'd tackled things like sports, prisons, girl guides and Yaniv.

The whole blog from Daniel A. Kaufman is worth reading, theelectricagora.com/2019/08/10/philosophys-woke-triangle/

I came to this discussion mostly through JY and a friend who has been GC for a few months talking about women's sports and rights.
I wholeheartedly agree with most of the GC discussion I hear in this area.

I do not believe some of the hogwash in this thread and conspiracy nonsense, I'm sorry, and as I said others are free to do so.
A handful of people with strong opinions don't interest me, expert or not, nor will I be swayed by a handful of passionate flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers.
If I have to give up all semblance of critical thinking and support conspiracy theories in order to be accepted for my views, which until I registered was led to believe were also gender-critical, then I'm not sure this movement was what I thought it was.

I feel like I've stumbled into the twilight zone with some of the posts on this thread.
That people are trying to double down is a little bit jarring I have to say.
I'm going to step back from this thread, I've given my opinion and I'm fully aware, that's all it is.

@LisaVito What conspiracy theories have you seen here? Most of us are in favour of critical thinking, so you seem to be criticising us for something which is the opposite of what goes on here.

@lisavito I think the problem with trying to argue female rights without discussing transwomen is that the issue we are facing are due to trans rights encroaching on female rights, the two are linked. The motivation of preditory males to take advantage of this situation is something that needs to be highlighted as I don't think discomfort (no matter how justified) is nessesarily reason enough for the powers that be, to prevent people who identify as trans being allowed to access female safe spaces as if it was there would not be an issue.

Hi Lisa,

There is no conspiracy. But not all "science" is equal, because science is not monolithic truth that falls from the sky.

In the case of - say - climate change, there is a huge, very well buttressed consensus, build on a mountain of evidence and endless different lines of evidence, many of which have been around for over a century. If that was false, it would indeed require a conspiracy - reams of data would have had to have been faked.

In the case of gender dysphoria, particularly in young females (which is largely a new phenomenon) there is hardly any science at all. Thus no conspiracy is necessary. In the absence of knowledge, doctors and medical societies have been just going along with what patients have been asking for. An increasing number - including the Royal College of GPs - are starting to express serious concerns though.

Anyway, I don't need to be a doctor to know whether or not it makes any sense to talk of gendered souls, it is a philosophical matter. I'm sure that transition helps some people in some contexts. That does not require believing that they literally have the soul of the other sex and I will never believe that, because it makes no sense.

He lost me at 'middle-class white male' since this is exactly the population group that is pushing the TRA agenda the most, either as transwomen or as supporters of the TRA cause or as MRAs. I've heard enough from that segment of the population, thank you very much.

Also, this paragraph:

..."You’ve read those long comment threads on Daily Nous, you’ve read some duelling articles on Medium, you’ve looked at the things the GC side is saying and to you they all seem, if not true, at least reasonable enough to be within the arena of respectful debate. The denunciations from the pro-trans side seem so out of sync with the measured, careful, tone and modest, plausible-sounding claims of the GC side. It doesn’t feel like you’re reading the writings of a hate group. Indeed, it feels like you’re watching people being unfairly shouted down – and you’re used to identifying with whoever looks like they’re asking questions, and you can’t help but feel empathically defensive when it looks like the GC side are just asking questions and being attacked for it."

Totally putting words in the mouths of both GC and noncommittal feminists and assuming what we think or don't think, all in a transparent attempt to win the reader over to his point of view and make it seem utterly reasonable and obvious. That's just a rhetorical tactic used by speech-makers and propagandists, not real philosophers with anything serious to say.

So, in conclusion, bye-bye philosopher guy!

Typical tactics from Lisa. No specific points; no detailed arguments. Some generalised insults - never able to point to specifics to demonstrate their point.
Then run away.
It’s A level results day tomorrow. I’m worried for her. It’s not going to go well.