Why Pete Buttigieg could lead the LGBT Community back to Sanity

Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay presidential candidate to have achieved a high profile, and he has been warmly embraced by many people in the LGBT community. Of course, Mayor Pete's support isn't limited to the LGBT community, but there has been particular interest about his run in the LGBT community.

So why do I think that Mayor Pete is a good role model? Because he's reasonable, and he deals in good faith with all sides. His recent comments about Chick-Fil-A demonstrate this. While he doesn't agree with the politics of Chick-Fil-A, he also thinks that all the talk about boycotting Chick-Fil-A is perhaps a little too much virtue signalling and a litte too 'santimonious'. Instead, he has suggested that perhaps a bridge should be built here.

In recent years, we have seen a decline in rationality and civility in some parts of the LGBT community, which saddens me a lot. It looks like the activists who are supposed to represent us have decided to just abandon the successful methods of recent years, and go back to using the methods of the 1960s and 70s, which alienated so many people that we had to wait until 2003 for being gay to be legal across the Western world. The 1960s and 70s were a mistake, and it caused the prolonging of homophobia for three more decades, with even relatively young people today still suffering the consequences. On the other hand, if you look at how the marriage equality movement was able to win over hearts and minds everywhere in such a short time, you can see that they didn't do so by being angry and militant. Quite the opposite. So, in my view, the LGBT community needs to make a choice, to embrace the methods that got us marriage equality, or to needlessly re-learn the lessons of the 20th century.

This is where the emergence of Pete Buttigieg as a major figure in the LGBT landscape could be important. In my opinion, the recent activist tilt back to radicalism is driven more by a change in the balance of power between the factions than anything else, but some young LGBT people feel like they have no choice but to go whichever way the activists go. With the emergence of Pete Buttigieg, we have a clearer choice between the two paths. Mayor Pete's meteoric rise in popualarity shows that the path that brought us to marriage equality is still a very viable option in this day and age, and we can collectively decide to travel down this path if we want to. I don't know how far Mayor Pete's campaign will go, but just by being a candidate with a high profile, it is possible that he may change the course of the LGBT community going forward. And for that, future generations may have to thank him.

Gender and Language 2

Welcome to the third part of my response to the recent ContraPoints video titled Gender Critical, in which she addressed some of Gender Critical Feminism's talking points about the trans community. In my original response, I criticized Natalie for arguing her points in the ground that gender is a social construct, something that I have always vehemently disagreed with, because I think it erases the lived reality of trans people.

"But some trans people agree that gender is a social construct too. Basically, it is a foundational idea of radical feminism. Besides, people who believe that gender is a social construct are not always transphobic. Believing that gender is a social construct is not the same as being a TERF."

Yes, I get that. I guess our difference has come from the historically different ways the trans community and the feminist community have defined gender. For the trans community, up until very recently, gender has meant something like brain sex, and this is the view of gender I sought to explain in my video for gender dysphoria. It is under this definition that I began the exploration of my gender issues two decades ago. It is this definition of gender that I used when coming out to people. On the other hand, for the feminist community, gender means something like the gender norms and expectations of society, hence their wish to 'abolish gender'. This is just another example of a word being defined very differently in two different communities.

Therefore, I can accept that gender is a social construct, if it is agreed to be defined as social norms and expectations. I also have nothing against moves to critique and abolish unfair gender norms and expectations. However, this would be very different from the way gender is traditionally used among trans people, and we at least need to agree that there are two different things we're talking about here. Perhaps it's like ministers of religion vs ministers of government departments. To use the feminist definition of gender to talk about gender dysphoria makes no sense, like to use church law to talk about political ministers makes no sense.

"But if we accept that gender is a social construct, it means we can work to abolish it. Some feminists believe that if we abolish gender, then gender dysphoria won't exist anymore, because trans people would be able to express whatever gender they like."

I think Natalie actually addressed the 'abolish gender' idea, saying that because gender cannot be abolished anytime soon, feminists won't be able to help trans people anytime soon with this. But I would go further. Even if we abolish all gender norms and expectations, gender dysphoria would still exist, because the 'gender' in gender dysphoria is not the feminist type of gender. From my experience, gender dysphoria is basically dysphoria about the body, how it is seen both subjectively and objectively, plus dysphoria about the gender role taken in romantic relationships, and as you can imagine, these things are all closely related to each other. I cannot see how the abolition of gender norms and expectations can solve the problem of dysphoria.

"I have heard that some trans people have decided to reclaim the word transsexual for themselves, as that would end the confusion. Besides, bodily dysphoria can be more accurately termed sex dysphoria, right? So what do you think about that?"

I personally don't support this. Yes, it would end the linguistic confusion, but then the word transsexual has never been an accurate one, because human beings cannot physically change their sex. To identify as a 'transsexual' is basically to identify as something that is beyond the possibilities of reality, and therefore is like identifying as a 'unicorn' when unicorns don't even exist. It opens us to attacks that we are living in fantasy land. Therefore, I guess we are just stuck with being 'transgender people', and we are also stuck with the language of gender. As a result, I think we will just have to continue to uphold the 'brain sex' definition of gender, at least as one of the ways the word is used, and to prevent its confusion with the feminist definition of gender.

Gender and Language

To clarify the point of this episode: I personally strongly believe that trans women are women, but I do recognize that not everyone actually agrees with me right now. And I also recognize that, even though this is the case, it doesn't mean we can't have constructive discussions about how society can better accomodate trans people.

 

Welcome to the second part of my response to the recent ContraPoints video titled Gender Critical, in which she addressed some of Gender Critical Feminism's talking points about the trans community. I guess one important point that Natalie did sort of touch on, but in my opinion did not address quite convincingly, was the question of 'are transwomen women'. Natalie said that she sees herself as currently a woman but used to be a man, and if I understand it correctly, this is based on a performative view of gender, one that is rooted in the kind of gender analysis found in the works of Judith Butler. But in fact, the vast majority of people in this world would find this view of gender absurd or even offensive. On one side of the debate are the vast majority of trans people, who clearly don't share Natalie's point of view.

"I have always been a woman. I have never been a man, I have never identified as such, even if I was forced by others to present as such. To suggest that trans women used to be men is offensive! I am so disappointed! Natalie doesn't speak for us."

We also have, on the other end of the spectrum, the Gender Critical Feminists themselves, who believe that trans women are men, and will always be men. And then, you can also say that, both the GCF view and the most common trans view are at least consistent, because human beings cannot change their sex, and let's face it, gender is strongly related to sex. You are either always a male, or you are always a female or else these terms become confusing and dysfunctional. Let me give you an example. If gender is only performative, then a drag queen would be a woman when he is in drag, only to become a man again when his performance is over! Defining gender this way would only cause chaos for society. This renders, in my humble opinion, Natalie's view of gender basically invalid.

But between the two views I consider logical, namely, that of the trans woman saying that she was always a woman, and that of the GCF saying that trans woman are men, which one is the more valid one? From my point of view, it is basically a matter of semantics, a matter of language. Objective reality is absolute, but how people use language is not. The objective reality is that trans women are not the same as biological women, nor are they the same as what we typically consider a 'man', but how language reflect this reality is another matter. According to opinion polls, there are a substantial number of people who would say that trans people are their birth gender, and there are also a lesser but still substantial number of people who would say that trans people are the gender they identify as. Furthermore, both sides are very strong in their conviction, and neither is going to back down anytime soon. Like all semantic debates, short of limiting the free speech of one side, there is no end in sight to the debate. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for different communities to have different definitions for the same word. For example, a 'biscuit' is a completely different thing in Alabama vs in England. Therefore, as a Moral Libertarian who strongly supports free speech, all I have to say on this matter is people are free to use their words in whatever way they like, and I have no problems with it either way.

One reason I am not interested in semantic debates is because it needlessly divides people, and takes us further away from the discussions we need to have to accomodate the needs of people on every side of the matter. It is a fact that trans women are different from genetic women, but it is also a fact that people with gender dysphoria deserve reasonable accomodation in a society that otherwise values compassion and equal opportunity for all. While the activists' recent debates have focused on issues that put trans rights in conflict with other parties' concerns, I think there is a rational middle ground to resolve all those concerns, as I have discussed in a previous video. The key to having constructive discussions is to put our linguistic differences aside, and focus on the reality. After all, even if you believe 'trans women are women', you can still acknowledge that many straight men and lesbians aren't going to be attracted to trans women. And even if you believe 'trans women are men', it is still cruel and unreasonable to let them face social punishment and discrimination for not behaving like men. While language may divide us, the underlying reality is basically the same, and it is on the common reality that we need to find common ground and mutually acceptable solutions.

That's all for this installment. I will have even more to say on the Gender Critical video, as well as other ContraPoints trans stuff, later on.

Re ContraPoints: Gender Critical

This is a quick initial response to the ContraPoints video uploaded two days ago, titled Gender Critical. As with her usual videos, there's a lot to get through, so I will do a more detailed and thought out response later on. From my perspective, the video provided a good answer to many Gender Critical Radical Feminists' critique of the trans movement, but as usual with ContraPoints stuff, there is quite a lot I disagree with. So let's go through this video from my perspective, as a trans woman with a very different worldview.

Theme 1: Why Don't You Just Be A Feminine Man?

Natalie attempted to answer the common Gender Critical suggestion to trans people that we should just be feminine men. Natalie countered with her own experience, saying something along the lines that she felt like she had to be a woman to be happy. In other words, she had gender dysphoria, and living as a feminine man won't solve that problem. Of course, Gender Critical Feminists have a hard time understanding that, because they don't believe that there is any biological component to gender. If gender is purely a social construct, then it wouldn't make sense for anyone to have gender dysphoria. This is why Gender Critical Feminists often imagine trans people to have bad social motivations in transitioning.

The trouble is, Natalie didn't even argue this point. It seems to me that she would rather argue on the very grounds that validate Gender Critical beliefs and invalidate gender dysphoria, by giving into the 'gender is a social construct' ideology. Perhaps she is so deep into the sociological theory that is taught in the humanity departments, that she doesn't recognise the limitations of radical feminist ideology. For this, I'm glad that I have a biological sciences background instead. It means that I see things from a more or less medical science perspective. And yes, while brain differences between men and women are averages and those studies don't prove a lot, there is a strong evolutionary biology based argument for certain gender behaviours being biologically hardwired, as I had explained in my previous video on gender dysphoria.

The hard facts of biology and nature always trumps any ideology. Therefore, Gender Critical feminism's insistance that gender is not innate must objectively yield to the fact that individuals with gender dysphoria exist, that it is a well founded medical condition. I guess this would be enough to argue against most Gender Critical arguments, had it been presented upfront.

Theme 2: Solidarity of the Oppressed?

From what I understand, Natalie aimed to argue the case for solidarity between biological women and trans women, on the basis that both face some oppression from society. Maybe this is an appeal that Gender Critical Feminists are likely to appreciate, because they are very left-wing in their philosophy. But in the wider world, this argument simply holds no weight. For example, on the issue of gay marriage, it is white people who tend to support it and non-white people who tend to be opposed. There is no linkage between suffering from racism and supporting gay marriage, indeed it is the opposite that is true. The solidarity of the oppressed is essentially an academic idea, and it has very little acceptance in the wider world. If trans people want better treatment from other people, we must learn to argue on grounds that most people will accept. Like compassion for the inborn condition of gender dysphoria. Let me tell you, gender dysphoria is very real and is very terrible, I have suffered from it since before age 3, and I can tell you all about it one day, but there's no time for this now.

Theme 3: Trans People Changing the Language?

As Natalie noted, Gender Critical feminists have been angered over attempts to change language that has been in long-standing use, like saying 'pregnant people' instead of 'pregnant women', but she didn't have too much to say on the matter. In fact, many people, including those who aren't feminists, have been angered by these moves, and they have set trans acceptance back by years. Let me say that I am as uncomfortable about these changes as everyone else is, because we should all stand against top-down linguistic changes that probably originated in an ivory tower somewhere. A liberty loving people will be rightfully suspicious about this. Throughout history, language only changes to reflect changes in our collective understanding of reality, that is, linguistic changes normally lag behind changes in understanding. If this order is reversed for whatever reason, there is a justified fear of social engineering and potential tyranny.

In fact, I have been a part of the trans community for nearly 20 years now, and I know that everyday trans people have never been part of this Orwellian Newspeak campaign. Instead, it is elites from academia, armed with their postmodernist philosophy, that are responsible. For some reason, postmodernists believe that language is power and oppression, and that's why they insist on changing our language. But I can assure you that everyday trans people have nothing to do with this madness. No actual trans people I know are offended by the assumption that women usually have certain reproductive anatomy, or that pregnant people are generally women.

That's all I have time for today. I will have much more to say about this particular video, and also other ContraPoints stuff and trans stuff in the future. Subscribe if you are interested.

What is Gender and Gender Dysphoria?

Today, we are going to discuss what gender is, and by extension, why there are trans people. I'll give an explanation of my sincere beliefs, my scientific hypotheses, based on my observations and my knowledge in the biological sciences. As a moral libertarian, I always acknowledge that I am not always right, and other individuals have an equal moral right to raise alternative hypotheses, in the name of being committed to the truth. But by putting my thoughts out there into the free market of ideas, I hope we can advance towards the truth of things, through rational debate. This is the very purpose of free speech, right?

I regret to have to warn you that what I am going to say today may sound controversial to some people, but shying away from controversy to please the establishment isn't my thing. It is infinitely more important to advance our understanding of why people are suffering, than to toe the establishment party line to keep egos happy.

Part One: Is Gender a Social Construct?

The radical feminist theory is that gender is a social construct, part of an oppressive system called patriarchy. This conception of patriarchy as a social system is in many ways linked to the neo-Marxist model of sociology, where our culture and institutions, called the superstructure, exist primarily to reinforce the base, that is the material system and its production relations. I will explore this concept further in a future episode. One thing I really don't like about the left is that their practice is largely based on theory, and practice based on misguided theory can be very harmful. We classical liberals base our practice on values and principles, like liberty and equality before the law, which I think is a much better approach. My regular viewers will know that I don't believe in leftist theories in general, but I will examine this one in good faith, I promise.

As leftist YouTuber ContraPoints explains in her video 'What Is Gender', saying that gender is a social construct doesn't mean that gender is not real, because money is a social construct, and it is clearly real. I actually think the example of money explains what a social construct is. That it is entirely constructed by human thought, and can be changed by human decisions. For example, back in the 20th century, people in Paris used the Franc, but nowadays they use the Euro. Because money is made real by laws made by the government, the government can decree a change in how money is defined and used, and this will effectively change the properties of money in a given country. Francs are no longer legal tender in France, because the French government decided so.

We can then look at whether gender is a social construct or not. At this point, I have to note that I will be using the normative cases of male and female in my discussion. Now, I'm not saying that normal is necessarily better, but I guess a good method to understand things is to look at your average or typical cases first, before we consider things that lie outside of the norm, like trans people and intersex people. The problem with postmodern leftist theory is that they too often jump to fit their theory around marginal cases before they have even appreciated the normal case. The Gender-bread Man that was shown in the ContraPoints video is a good example of a theory that over emphasizes the marginal cases at the expense of looking at the normal.

Let's start with what gender is. In common linguistic usage, gender refers to the dimorphic social and behavioural characteristics associated with biological sex. The female gender is the social and behavioural characteristics associated with the female biological sex, and the male gender is the social and behavioural characteristics associated with the male biological sex. (You know, as a somewhat conservative person, I really feel uncomfortable saying 'sex' so many times. That's why I don't use words like transsexual and homosexual. It just feels dirty saying it.)

Now, let's look at how gender typically functions. A good example would be how women are generally better at caring for children compared to men. Now, this is clearly universal across all cultures and times, and it is not something a government could change by legal decree. If you think about it, it makes biological sense for the mother to be the primary carer, because the father may be absent at birth. Similarly, across all cultures and all times, women have placed a higher emphasis on making themselves look beautiful, compared to men. Again, this is not something a government could change by legal decree. This is all evidence that gendered behaviour is biologically hardwired, and not able to be changed by human decisions. Therefore, gender is clearly not a social construct.

I mean, there are certain gender roles that are social constructs, but the bulk of gendered behaviour is biological. I must also emphasize that gendered behaviour can manifest differently in every individual. But there are clearly many patterns of gendered behaviour that is typical of each gender, and has a scientifically logical purpose to it.

Part Two: The Biology of Gender and Sex

So what is gender? Gendered behaviour in humans is essentially the equivalent of mating behaviour we see in other animals. And if you look at nature, every species has a set of highly specific mating behaviour, all ultimately geared to increase the success rate of reproduction, which let's face it, is the ultimate biological purpose of all animals. The other thing is that mating behaviour exists even in animals of low intelligence. It doesn't require conscious decisions to function. Instead, it functions as a set of pre-programmed behaviours. Even in humans, mating behaviour functions at a subconcious level, and doesn't require much conscious input. It all happens naturally. Now, we need to note that when I refer to mating behaviour, I'm not refering to just behaviour that happens around mating. A lot of mating behaviour is essentially life-long. It is more like a pattern of programming that manifests itself in many natural behaviours in many different contexts. This explains why gendered behaviour encompasses a wide range of behaviours across the whole of life. In this view, gender is just as biologically grounded as reproductive sex, and the two normally complement each other.

Part Three: Let's look at Gender Dysphoria

To use a modern metaphor, biological sex is the hardware for reproduction, and gender is the software that makes the hardware work. In normal cases, which is more than 98% of the time, biological males have male gender software, and biological females have female gender software, and it fits like a hand and a glove, like a horse and a cart. But nature is messy, and is not perfect in the sense of mechanical perfection. Everything that can go right can also go wrong. For example, there is a specific neurological program for recognising faces, but some people like myself don't have that program, so we are not good at recognising faces. It's like the phone doesn't have the app, to use another modern metaphor. Therefore, as you can imagine, it is very possible to have a mismatch between the biological reproduction hardware and the gender program in the brain. As a result, the individual would have the gendered behaviour of one sex whilst having the physical characteristics of another. As gendered behaviour is hardwired and manifests itself across many areas of life, this represents a very painful situation. For example, in the area of self-grooming, the individual would be compelled to hate their own body image. In the area of romantic relationships, the individual would find it difficult and even repulsive to have to take on the role of their biological sex. There are also numerous other examples that arise in our everyday social interactions, where people who have the right match between hardware and software can just function without even thinking about it, but where people who have a mismatch experience recurrent living nightmares. This is what gender dysphoria is.

I think this model of thinking about gender and transgenderism in biological terms is better than all other similar models out there, because it explains the nature of gender dysphoria and accounts for why it has such a huge impact across an individual's life. In contrast, the more traditional explanation of 'male brains' vs 'female brains' grossly oversimplifies things, and cannot convincingly explain why normal people don't have a sense innate gender identity, or why gender dysphoria is so all-encompassing and so debilitating.

Now, I have to say that, although my views can be classified as transmedicalist, it doesn't follow that I share the beliefs of so-called truscums, or that I don't accept non-binary people. I will have more to say about these topics, and how they fit with my understanding of gender, in the coming weeks.

So there it is, my beliefs about what gender is, and what gender dysphoria is. I believe thinking about things this way is helpful for both trans individuals themselves, to understand why and how they are suffering, and for others to understand why there are trans people in the first place. The trouble is, I still don't feel comfortable speaking like this in real life, because it might offend postmodern radical feminists. Which is why we do need a more robust free speech movement.