I am an elderly man. I cannot understand transgender ideology ...

[9toenails]

... I think this is because it is incomprehensible. It is not possible to understand something that does not make sense.

Given what 'transwoman' means, 'transwomen are women' is analytically false (sc. logically contradictory) if 'women' means 'women', and plainly nonsensical if 'women' is taken to mean something other than 'women'.

Confused about what 'women' means? Well, think of your mother; she was certainly a woman. The mother of my children, she is a woman, as is the mother of any human child; likewise my grown-up daughters. All of them, women. Knowledge of the meaning of such a common word as 'women' is not, as they say, rocket science, at least for a native English speaker.

Do transgender ideologues themselves understand their own claims? No, they do not, at least if they sincerely try to assert 'transwomen are women'. 'Transwomen are women' just cannot be true. At best it can be analytically false; more likely it makes no sense.

I know many such ideologues are very young. Still, though, it strains credulity to think they have no inkling of their own lack of understanding. Why, then, do they keep up their nonsense rather than trying to learn? It would seem we are forced to consider more-or-less nefarious motives. Such as ... ?

Can anyone help me out here?

OP, I think you're confusing propositional and predicate logic. Also I think the relationship between predicate logic and set theory is rather more complex than you think it is (it is possible to prove soundness and completeness for predicate logic, which quantifies over individuals, but not for higher order logics which quantify over the predicates themselves).

But you're spot on about trans ideology being a pile of hooey.

I'm afraid a lot of the logic theory arguments are over my head but the way I look at it is this:

Can I identify as a transwomen? No. Why not? Because I was born (and therefore am) female*. TW are born (and are) male. Women can not be male. Therefore transwomen cannot be women

• this relies on woman = adult human female. And it explains why some TRAs rail so vehemently against the definition of women as AHFs. And why they say man/woman is 'gender' and male/female is sex.

It underlines why we cannot and must not let go of that definition which has served us for all of history.

Some TRAs are now also trying to claim the word female for TW. Overreach will always be their undoing.

@CaraDuneRedux

OP, I think you're confusing propositional and predicate logic. Also I think the relationship between predicate logic and set theory is rather more complex than you think it is (it is possible to prove soundness and completeness for predicate logic, which quantifies over individuals, but not for higher order logics which quantify over the predicates themselves).

But you're spot on about trans ideology being a pile of hooey.

You are right to pull me up on this. We do need more than propositional logic to pick up the fallacy.

'Bachelors are married' may, indeed, be parsed as 'For all x, if bachelor(x) then married(x)'. So, indeed, full first-order, given the analysis. Likewise 'transwomen are women': its analysis (which is what shows its status as a contradiction) requires looking at the predicates. So, sure, first-order predicate calculus is needed.

As you say, the real divide comes at the movement to second-order. But thanks anyway for the correction. I was just sloppy.

As for the relation between set theory and logic, yes, complicated. But at a basic, informal level the isomorphism works well enough, I think. And, well, ZFC is first-order, no? Am I missing something else here?

[None of this does anything to let the trans ideologist off the hook, as you emphasise. And it is something of a derailment. I would be grateful for any further thoughts, though, particularly about how this all might play out with the non-technically adept.]

I have literally NO idea whats going on 😳

Sounds good though...

Wait thats no strictly true

I understand the title...

Rufus. I'm very much enjoying this thread and googling the big words.

I regularly feel a bit thick on this board but this is taking it to another level!

I can’t spell the big words

And my spell check hates me

😩

But seriously it is a very interesting thread...ds1 and his boyfriend pulled this stuff on me back in October...the whole logic thing, I didn’t know whether to be impressed or pissed off. I went for pissed off as i felt it hid the fact that i had no idea what they were saying 😀

If you are interested in logic arguments, you might like this article. I warn you that it's very long and takes quite a while to come around to the gender identity point, but it is at least quite readable.

It's a few years old, but it gives an interesting, category / set-based argument for "trans women are women" - basically that gender is a human-constructed category and that we can alter the category boundaries if another categorisation becomes more useful.

I actually bought into this argument for quite a while, by maintaining the distinction between gender identity and biological sex. I no longer do, because of the new insistence that biological sex does not exist / is a social construct. Which made my brain explode.

slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/

I sometimes feel like starting a thread for people like me who regularly feel a bit thick on here.
We can discuss the basics all over again.
All you smart cookies would be welcome to lurk, as long as you didn't post anything

I think we need to start from the basis that there is a difference in kind between "female" and "feminine", and between "male" and "masculine".

"Female" and "male" are biological, in all cases; some individuals may be a combination of both, or may be neither, but all cases of female or male are defined by their biology.

"Feminine" and "masculine" are performative, and can be said of actions performed by anyone of either female or male sex.

Thus weightlifting is perceived in general as a masculine performance, nurturing in general as a feminine performance. Females can weight-lift, males can nurture, but they perception of the activities is of feminine and masculine.

Male people who for whatever reason strongly wish to be female find that performative femininity is not satisfactory to them, and wish actually to become female. They cannot do this, but they want very much to be acknowledged as female (except where this is not convenient, as eg nursing the elderly, deferring at all times to the male, being paid less for the same work as a male, and so forth). Hence their assertion that what is not fact, is fact. Similarly females who long to be male wish to be told that they are male.

All the rest stems from that desire: it is what used to be called "crying for the moon".

the perception, not they perception

@notassigned

I'm afraid a lot of the logic theory arguments are over my head but the way I look at it is this:

Can I identify as a transwomen? No. Why not? Because I was born (and therefore am) female*. TW are born (and are) male. Women can not be male. Therefore transwomen cannot be women

• this relies on woman = adult human female. And it explains why some TRAs rail so vehemently against the definition of women as AHFs. And why they say man/woman is 'gender' and male/female is sex.

It underlines why we cannot and must not let go of that definition which has served us for all of history.

Some TRAs are now also trying to claim the word female for TW. Overreach will always be their undoing.

Theory, though interesting to some, is really beside the point. What counts is practice. Your logic looks impeccable, in practice, like that of most people here.

OK, we can all make mistakes, sometimes about facts, sometimes in thinking things through. Luckily, we can often rely on others helping us to see, and rectify, our errors. Debate: a good thing.

However, you do not need any explicitly formulated logical theory to think things through correctly.

In a similar vein, I wonder if strict emphasis on definition may be a mistake. More often than not, we do not need any explicit definition in order to know what we mean.

In some contexts mostly of a more-or-less technical nature definitions may be useful; for instance, 'a zoonotic disease' is 'one that can be transmitted naturally from animals to humans'. Or (here is a relatively recent neologism) 'a transwoman ' is 'a man who wishes/believes himself to be a woman.'

That is fine as far as definition goes. In most cases, though, we do not need an explicit definition in order to know the meaning of a word and use it correctly. In such cases, it may be a distraction, I have found, to look for a specific, explicit all-encompassing definition.

I know what 'woman' means. We all do. We do not need a dictionary to tell us. We just need to know English. (Compare: it is only recently I found out what 'zoonotic' means; likewise 'transwoman'.)

Do transgender ideologues know English? The English ones surely do. So we have the right to just ask them, off the bat as it were (without opening the OED or whatever), what on earth they think they mean by 'transwomen are women', given that this is either self-contradictory or meaningless.

No theory needed. Just common sense.

I sometimes think (see confusion over "only women have periods" versus "all women have periods" mentioned on other threads) that a bit of compulsory logic, set theory and statistics might get us out of this mess.

But then I reflect that a lot of the TRA arguments I read come over like a poor lower second answer to a philosophy exam on Hume on scepticism on natural kinds, or on the Sorites paradox. (Hence the fixation on differences of sexual development - "so post menopausal women are still women... and women who don't menstruate due to PCOS... and women who are phenotypically female but lack internal reproductive organs... and, and, and" until we arrive at fully male bodies in women's sports and Lisa Nandy saying with a straight face that she would have no problem with a person with penis convicted of raping an underage teen being placed in a women's prison if he violated his parole conditions).

Mix a bit of poorly understood scepticism on natural kinds (as my philosophy tutor said many years ago "do you think Hume would still have made this argument if he'd known about modern particle physics, or even 19th century atomic theory?"), a half-remembered lecture on vagueness in predicates in natural language, and (especially dangerous) a partially understood course on Derrida and Foucault, and the result is almost inevitably someone who is so open-minded their brains have fallen out. But with (unfortunately, due to an expensive but poorly understood university education) a more than healthy opinion of their own intellect (a kind of post-modernist Dunning Kruger effect at work). A little bit of knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

Which is why I think there's actually a hell of a lot to be said for common sense - for instance an instinctive reaction of "fuck no, that's just inhumane treatment of women prisoners" to being told men with penises who've committed rape should be incarcerated alongside vulnerable women who've failed to paid fines acrued for not paying their TV licence, simply because those men have uttered the magic words "but I'm a woman."

Yes, CaraDuneRedux, a bit of common sense goes a long way.

But we should beware of 'instinctive reactions', I think; sometimes people's instincts are right, but equally sometimes they are wrong -- witness the popular instinctive move from 'only women have periods' to 'so you say those who have no periods are not women?' and so on. And the instinctive 'Let us be kind ' does seem to lie behind much current nonsense

The answer to poor logic as you say, would seem not to be a dose of theory. My experience (with young people anyway) was always that theoretical knowledge could quite easily co-exist with crazy fallacious thinking. (And, yes, of course there are grown-ups who exhibit the same syndrome, some of them making a living from it.)

Perhaps the answer is first to apply common sense in argument; theory can then build on that if necessary.

What is wrong with 'transwomen are women' is not that its advocates are over-endowed with theory partially digested; it is that they are silly. The best way of dealing with silly arguments in or out of the philosophy class is to point out their silliness. Taking a theoretical stance rarely helps with this. Common sense is needed.

Oh, and I reiterate my point about definition. Arguing about definitions is a mugs game when we are really just interested in meaning (and hence use).

I know people especially young people do not like being told they are silly. But really, 'transwomen are women'? Come on , people. Earlier on the thread someone wondered if I was John Cleese; this all makes me think more along the lines of Victor Meldrew: 'You cannot be serious.'

Really, what on earth do they think they are up to? But, yet, it matters ... there are consequences to this foolishness. So, well, action is required rather than words. As long as we are discussing it all, though, yes, common sense wins ... we can but hope.

Late to this enjoyable thread. I especially liked

Do transgender ideologues know English? The English ones surely do. So we have the right to just ask them, off the bat as it were (without opening the OED or whatever), what on earth they think they mean by 'transwomen are women', given that this is either self-contradictory or meaningless.

I always wonder why these idealogues get away with only messing with some words and not others. I have just been reading a rather sweet piece in the Guardian by an author who has vehemently stated elsewhere she believes TWAW. The piece wasn't anything to do with trans and I liked it. But at the same time as reading it I have a little commentary running in my head. I notice that the thread of her story hangs off various nouns and would fall apart were the meaning of those nouns to be messed with. The article, it being commissioned and the author being paid, relies upon our shared understanding of the language she writes in, including various nouns. Why is it OK for her to mess with "women" but assume we share the same understanding of all the other words she needs to use?

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I think we need to start from the basis that there is a difference in kind between "female" and "feminine", and between "male" and "masculine".

"Female" and "male" are biological, in all cases; some individuals may be a combination of both, or may be neither, but all cases of female or male are defined by their biology.

"Feminine" and "masculine" are performative, and can be said of actions performed by anyone of either female or male sex.

Thus weightlifting is perceived in general as a masculine performance, nurturing in general as a feminine performance. Females can weight-lift, males can nurture, but they perception of the activities is of feminine and masculine.

Male people who for whatever reason strongly wish to be female find that performative femininity is not satisfactory to them, and wish actually to become female. They cannot do this, but they want very much to be acknowledged as female (except where this is not convenient, as eg nursing the elderly, deferring at all times to the male, being paid less for the same work as a male, and so forth). Hence their assertion that what is not fact, is fact. Similarly females who long to be male wish to be told that they are male.

All the rest stems from that desire: it is what used to be called "crying for the moon".

This looks about right. I am a little wary of 'difference in kind', though; sometimes talk of 'kinds' may be taken the wrong way, I think.

We all understand do we not? the words involved here: 'masculine', 'feminine', 'male', 'female', 'man', 'woman'. Those of us with mother-tongue English certainly do, at least.

Part of this understanding involves the knowledge that, for instance, 'a feminine man' makes sense, whereas 'a female man' or 'a male woman' is nonsense. This is a semantic point it is about what these words mean. To labour this a little, 'a male woman' is nonsense because the way we use these words rules out such a conjunction 'male woman' is, we might say, a contradiction in terms, given what 'male' and 'woman' mean.

There is no need to get into any science or metaphysics about any of this. All we need is to know English. And, perhaps, faced with someone tying themselves into knots about men turning into women and the like, an appropriate response might be simply to remind them of their knowledge of their mother tongue, rather than demanding peer-reviewed references or whatever for their nonsensical claims.

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[ And that (said John) is that. This thread is about played out. Shorter than the thread which occasioned it, that one by the self-styled 'young feminist' claiming not to understand, but I hope anyway less goading at least in intent. Thanks for all your responses and encouragements. Keep up the good fight. I return to my ('Childcare') Bubble. (Childcare in its contemporary manifestations brought me to MN a while back for hints for looking after the most recent generation of offspring; still here now and then for, well, this sort of thing I guess.)]

You know the Serenity Prayer:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

Well this ideology is the opposite.

@ nauticant -

An important thing to understand is that much of gender identity ideology is based on things that are not true and this lack of truth sets its adherents free. The ideology works like a religion and it requires faith, not facts. This means that supporters of the ideology will say anything, irrespective of its truth, to gain an advantage in an argument. Even if it contradicts something they said moments ago.

Facts don't matter. Logic doesn't matter. Consistency doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is belief.

There's an awful lot going on in the world like that at the moment. Maybe trans ideology is a natural part of the zeitgeist.

Just popping in to say what a wonderful ending to the "I am a young feminist" thread! Absolutely perfect, and very MNish.

There's an awful lot going on in the world like that at the moment. Maybe trans ideology is a natural part of the zeitgeist.
I recently read the following (longish) article, which helps explain ithe phenomenon. The comments are also very good.

newdiscourses.com/2020/12/university-woke-mission-field-dissident-womens-studies-phd-speaks-out/?fbclid=IwAR2uXSrWPNOwIeL0ERSSKnkIuYOsxZeCy4vrC6rjBcu5sh6Sit2GxmTxQ-E

sorry, posted too soon. First sentence should be in quotes from fifteentoes. ^^

We all understand do we not? the words involved here: 'masculine', 'feminine', 'male', 'female', 'man', 'woman'.

D'you know, I'm not so sure about this.

You never really hear the pro-trans side talking about masculinity and femininity. They have masc (meaning dresses in man-clothes and believes is a man) and femme (dresses in girl-clothes and believes is a woman) but I doubt many of them could give a coherent definition of masculine and feminine.

Probably in large part because those words demonstrate the silliness.

Male and female are sexes, masculine and feminine are genders, and anyone can see that a feminine male is clearly not a woman. So they've abandoned the idea that masculine and feminine are genders, and replaced with male and female as genders.

I am occasionally surprised by how much the argument of some random Trump supporter about some random thing reminds me of this.