Your Gender? A Friendly Guide to the Public Debate - a male philosopher writes at length on an issue he clearly doesn't understand

[stumbledin]

I realise this is nothing new, but here is the latest example of how academics, especially male ones, think they can turn a real life issue for women into a paper to add to their CV.

The blog post is open for comments, but maybe the best thing is it having no comments to illustrate nobody cares what he thinks!

Published by Practical Ethics of University of Oxford blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2020/03/what-is-your-gender-a-friendly-guide-to-the-public-debate/

There’s no “manness” written in my genes.

Yeah right.

Brian has a beard. Brian doesn't know much about the history of why women would need single sex provision. He's willing to accept that it might he hypothetically justified, but he can't think why. Brian makes long, unfocused speeches in which he references his beard repeatedly.

Brian doesn't think his inner mental life conforms to male stereotypes.

Brian is laughably wrong.

Brian thinks that a clitoris and a penis are similar structures. Brian thinks a clitoris can be measured in centimeters!

Anyone else thinking that Brian has perhaps never seen a clitoris?

Anyway, I can’t read the whole thing. Brian asked a series of questions establishing sex and personality traits, then began some endless unreadable waffle, which is presumably designed to distract from the perfectly obvious fact that the vast majority of human beings are unequivocally man or woman and you can’t swap, and generally can’t even hide which you are if you went through male puberty.

Put on a dress if you like, Brian. While you are visibly male, people will respond to you as male.

People who are perceived from a young age to have female reproductive features tend to be systematically disadvantaged along numerous dimensions in societies that are patriarchal—that are characterized by male dominance

Thanks for telling me about my experience as a woman - sorry, someone perceived from a young age to have female reproductive features - you boring, self-absorbed prat.

Brain raped
A binder, rap
I err bad. Nap.
Beard in rap.
Paid? Barren
A rap, inbred.

what an absolute prat. ye gads.

moron

Oh my goodness! That 'pub discussion as posited by Brian describes the worst date ever!

Q: what gender are you?
A: what do you want to know about me?
Q: I’m trying to find out if you are chromosomally disposed to getting a disease that people with XY chromosomes tend to get.*

To Brian: I suggest you do use notes when you give your next talk.

Now maybe you say something like, “I want to know whether you can engage in penile-vaginal intercourse unassisted.” Maybe this is a date or something and you’re trying to figure out where it’s headed. In any case, I can answer this functional question. I could let you know that, under the right conditions, I would be able to engage in penile-vaginal intercourse if it was consensual, and so forth.

Oh be still my beating cunt.

Is the word "friendly" identifying as including the concept "patronizing as fuck" these days? Every day is a school day when the actual schools are shut apparently.

I would be able to engage in penile-vaginal intercourse

Yes, Brian, but from which direction, as it were? These things are important to the randy and unenlightened amongst us.

I want to know whether you can engage in penile-vaginal intercourse unassisted.

How very rude! 'I just want to know if you can get it up'

Jesus, no, with that kind of talk I don't think he's ever seen a clitoris...

Some of those views are ok it’s just...so so boring. I think it’s a lack of bravery. For instance this bit, he gets that it’s stereotypes, but possibly thinks it’s what the TRA’s believe, innate, but doesn’t quite say that:
“I want to know whether you find yourself intuitively and irresistibly drawn toward, and resonating with, ways of behaving, dressing, interacting with others, engaging with cultural artifacts, and so forth, that are stereotypically feminized or masculinized in our culture.”

I want to know if anyone has ever fallen asleep while Brian was educating them.

I saw a YT video recently about the backlash against the intense pressure for South Koreans, especially women, to conform to impossible beauty ideals. They are cutting their hair, eschewing makeup, choosing comfortable clothing, & often risking public abuse to do so. One of the women interviewed says, right at the end, "This is feminine. I'm a woman. What a woman is & what a woman does is feminine".

Ugh. In his recommended reading "by me and colleagues" he cites this (which don't have the stomach to read right now):

Earp, B. D. (2020). Gender or genital autonomy? Why framing nontherapeutic genital cutting as a children’s rights issue is both ethically and pragmatically necessary. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada, 42(2), e17. Available at T

Again, falling back on DSD as a support for a debate.

stumbledin
I couldn’t finish as my eyes had rolled out of my head. This beard has significantly made a point though. I feel for future generations if you have to have conversations that come down to what working body parts do you have that you were born with to size up a sexual partner. And it is scary to think of the reaction when someone is rejected because ‘no I want a born vagina and clitoris not a ‘neo’ fashioned one.

He has highlighted how fraught the future could be for pub pickups. And how complicated a small group needing constant validation could make navigating the dating pool.

The best thing to do if you meet somebody who says, “I’m a transgender person,” or “I’m non-binary,” or whatever, is just to talk to them, hear their story, and let them tell you what’s important about their life.

I have much better and more important things to do with my life, thanks Brian.

Is the word "friendly" identifying as including the concept "patronizing as fuck" these days?

Paired with “guide”. Maybe it’s a girl guide. Brian isn’t knowledgeable enough to guide anyone. This is a masterpiece of mansplaining.

Compare these two introductions to gender and sex based approach;

Let’s say that you’re really strong in the transgender ally community. You’re concerned with the fact that people who have transgender identities, who are trying to live out the gender that they regard themselves as, and by which they understand their experience and can make coherent their inner life, are subjected to violence, mistreatment, stigmatization, are not taken seriously, and can often suffer very severely because of that

On the other side of the debate, there are people who go by various names, and they’re all controversial. But among the less controversial names would be “Gender Critical Feminists” […] and they have a different purpose. Their purpose is something like tearing down male supremacy. That’s maybe their primary political purpose. They want to fight the patriarchy, which involves people who are perceived as having certain reproductive features being systematically treated differently in a society

You v They

Trans people are subjected to violence, mistreatment, stigmatization, are not taken seriously, and can often suffer very severely because of that

Women are People who are perceived from a young age to have female reproductive features tend to be systematically disadvantaged along numerous dimensions in societies that are patriarchal

(No mention of rape violence or ‘suffering severely because of that’)

His understanding of testosterone, yes you would need to check the levels, but testosterone (where there is no DSD, difference of sexual development) IS distributed in a binary way between the sexes: female, across a short spectrum with a tiny amount, then a massive jump to male, also on a spectrum but all with far more than the highest female.

It isn’t a spectrum with overlap and an arbitrary line half way along delineating m/f

Basically he is a pompous patronising prat with no self reflection (“I hope I haven’t shown my hand too much about the way that I think”) who sounds as if he is telling women what to think and how to feel.

The best thing to do if you meet somebody who says, “I’m a transgender person,” or “I’m non-binary,” or whatever, is just to talk to them, hear their story, and let them tell you what’s important about their life

Well yes. That goes for meeting anyone as it happens. And Brian, if you meet me, just talk with me, hear my story, and listen while I tell you the story of my life. Naturally I will return the compliment because I don’t generally tear down the patriarchy man by man at the start of any conversation.

Suzanne Moore’s piece was some just relating their experiences as a woman and look what happened. If you’re looking for examples of being subject to to violence, mistreatment, stigmatization, are not taken seriously, and can often suffer very severely because of that

Sorry italics fail

Omg. I never tried to read such blah blah in my life. Haha. Is he Trolling ?

I mean no one would ever take it seriously