Your comment is an essay it itself, Rex, and I'm not sure I have the energy to respond to it all and I strongly suspect you'll find the responses I do offer to sound curt. It's fatigue-driven.
I'm not sure how you read this as an attempt at debate. The audience is deliberately pretty narrowed. My goals are explicitly articulated. Some of the language is inaccessible. All of this is ON PURPOSE to accomplish a specific thing.
If you want to debate my three premises, there are places to do that. I didn't create the invitation here and you're arguing with me about how I didn't accomplish that invitation as if I don't know that. As if that wasn't the goal. As if you have something to teach me about writing or philosophy (I recommend visiting my Twitter feed and reading the pinned tweet thread at the top.) You're frustrated in your reading because you're trying to make this into the conversation that YOU want to have when it's the conversation that I want to have.
I have engaged in those questions with people on Twitter and on Medium, responding to their own comments and essays. It takes a massive amount of energy and patience and time. And they never, ever, ever understand what it is I'm saying. I don't use "jargons and slogans." I can always get on their level and understand exactly what they're saying and why—it's not hard or complex. But they don't understand what semiotics is. When I try to even explain the concept, they don't get it. I use language for sixth graders and they still don't understand, and partly, I'm sure, because they don't want to. They only pretend at being open to understanding and changing their minds, so they don't try to understand. And it's crucial to understand in order to answer the question, "What is a woman?" and to have this debate. So, yeah, I have no interest right now in writing an essay that suggests I'm open to discussing these three premises. Either you understand what I'm saying already or you don't.
You said, "if someone is actually uncomfortable about puberty blockers, it's very unlikely that they're going to be aligned on the precise context and interpretation of the statements you made"—incorrect, Rex. A lot of people agree with the statements I made, a lot would answer "yes" and still take issue with youth receiving puberty blockers. I know my audience. I have conversations with people about this.
"I don't think this is a good place to start a debate." I wasn't trying to start a debate. I was trying to get a group of people who are noisy to understand a few things enough that they could be less obnoxious and noisy.
"How is this a question?" you asked, to "Are trans people real?" The question is not asking, "Do you believe there are people who call themselves 'trans'?" It's asking, "Do you believe there are people who are different in a specific way and who have always existed this way, across cultures and time, and would still exist even if they didn't have a name?" Not everyone believes that. Some people believe that's impossible. Some people believe that being trans is an invented concept (as opposed to gender itself being the invented concept) and that once people hear about it, they buy into it and identify with it. This is also what "valid" speaks to. Scientifically valid. Anthropologically valid. A way of being a person that isn't "broken," or "confused," or "new and manufactured."
It's phrased in an accessible way to the people I'm trying to reach. That might not be you.
Your response to "or are they suffering from some psychological problem" is an incorrect reading. You're conflating some things. Nowhere does it say or logically imply that if trans people are not real in and of themselves but are instead experiencing some sort of psychological distortion (an argument some people have), that no one who has mental health issues is valid and real.
"Even if transgender identity were a psychological problem, are you implying that we could be needlessly cruel or indifferently accommodating to trans people?" Who is "we"? I can't figure out what you're trying to say here.
"Anyway, what ever happened to having respect for the intrinsic value of all people and promoting the dignity of all people?"
Rex, I don't understand what you're saying. Are you reading this and thinking that I am putting forward that trans people are just messed up in the head? If so, did you start responding before you even finished reading?? I think there are some reading comprehension gaps happening here.
No, "sex" is not this clearcut innate thing you think it is. THAT IS WHY I have worded things as I have, so that people who are not already caught up with what I know and others know would not be reading and responding.
There's no code and it's not that complex or nuanced, actually. Here are some things for you to read:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/06/15/the-myth-of-biological-sex/
Next, you take issue with Premise Three when the way it is phrased, as an entire sentence, has the "about biology and the world" informing the first part. The question mark wasn't placed after "who they say they are". Your example is not one of biology, it's one of role. We know that Tom Cruise doesn't have the role of President of America. We know that Atlantis is not an observable place.
"I'm pretty sure you don't believe the phrase as written even remotely." The phrase "as written" is directed at an audience who knows what is being said.
As for what I believe, if a bunch of people started identifying themselves as extra-terrestrial or as animals, and the only consequence to acknowledging and accepting that was that they felt accepted and it caused people to have to be respectful about something they don't believe—YES, I think we should have to do that. But that's a whole other essay. The main logic is that we do not have the right to decide for other people what Truth is. We do not have the right to decide for other people who they believe they are. And to go around arguing with people simply because you don't believe they are who they say they are when it has no negative consequence for others to just say, "Okay"—that's such arrogant chaos. We have no proof that we're even all experiencing the same reality as opposed to each living some dream, as computers in the sky somewhere. We can't prove anything is what it is, exactly. Everything we think is true rests on a prior assumption being true. And while that might sound like a silly distinction to make, it's not. It keeps us humble. Whereas there really are a lot of people who think that Truth is objective and knowable. They think it's what they see and it's what enough people—but the "right" people—say is true.
Anyway. I think you came into this writing of mine with so many of your own particular ideas and beliefs and degree of understanding and you tried to make what I was saying fit into all of that and it didn't and when it didn't, you thought it was because I wasn't making sense. But it's more that you're not the audience for this. And that's fine, nothing wrong with that. But you need to understand that it's why you're not quite following along, even thinking that I'm trying to get some discussion going or some debate about trans rights or trans identity in general, across the wider public—I'm not.
When I do want to do that, you'll see it show up as an essay titled something like, "What is a woman? Let me explain." And then I will take my time to be as accessible as possible and as specific as possible.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
