Building the Conservative Case for Trans Acceptance | Trans Sandwiched #23

Like a British PM once said, 'I support gay marriage because I'm a conservative'

Welcome back to Trans Sandwiched by TaraElla. Recently, I discussed the idea that the contemporary Western intellectual landscape is lacking a healthy appreciation of conservative philosophy, and how this has led to the rise of an unintellectual, reactionary style of conservatism. To fix this, I think that we need to revive an intellectual philosophical conservative tradition. I think we should at least welcome this philosophical conservatism, as one more lens to see things through, to help resolve our current social controversies. Today, I want to explore how we might approach trans issues from this kind of philosophical position.

I think that, in general, the starting point of an intellectual conservatism should be to adapt effectively to new circumstances and demands, while insisting on preserving the good things in our basic social structure. The goal is to successfully integrate the new solutions into our current social structure. This way, our shared institutions, values and social contract get strengthened in the process, while they also get to evolve to become more adaptive and responsive to the needs of people, hence staying relevant for generations to come. This stands in contrast to a reactionary approach, which just opposes and resists all proposals for change, from a place of fear or resentment. An intellectual conservatism recognizes that some change is essential for preservation ultimately, unlike the reactionary approach. Hence, for an intellectual conservative, the question is, what changes are acceptable, and even to be encouraged, because they will help us further realize our shared values, and what changes are not acceptable, because they will break the fundamentals of society.

As you can see, an intellectual conservatism does not oppose all proposals for change as a knee-jerk reaction. Rather, all proposals are assessed intellectually, and assessed as to the harm or benefit it will have on our shared values and social contract. A good application of this was seen during the gay marriage debate. While reactionary conservatives ardently opposed all attempts to advance gay marriage and even civil unions, many intellectual conservatives saw the benefits of extending marriage to gay couples, including the strengthening of the institution of marriage, the re-establishment of the norm of life-long commitment, and the affirmation of the value of equality of all individuals before the law. Ultimately, the intellectual conservative view provided important arguments that won the marriage equality debate. On the other hand, the proposal of abolishing marriage, that came from the more radical quarters of the gay community, was rightly opposed by intellectual conservatives, because it would only lead to the destruction of our shared institutions and values. It was with the help of intellectual conservatives that the gay community ultimately chose, and got, marriage equality, rather than marriage abolition.

I propose that we start applying the same lens to the trans issues currently under debate. Currently, there are many proposals for change out there regarding the topic of gender broadly speaking. Some of these proposals are clearly at odds with our shared values and social contract. For example, there is no reason that free speech should be compromised, or gender itself should be 'abolished', nor would this benefit trans people. An intellectual conservatism needs to firmly oppose these radical ideological programs, and guide the trans community towards more productive reforms. However, reactionary conservatives are also using these extreme proposals as an excuse to resort to their habitual knee-jerk position, to blanketly oppose all trans-related reforms and social changes. Not only has this approach been discredited by history (given that gay marriage has not destroyed families), it also disaffirms many of our long-standing shared values, including compassion, open-mindedness, accommodating the less fortunate, equal opportunity for all, and more. As you can see, the reactionary approach is basically anti-conservative from an intellectual conservative point of view!

The challenge for an intellectual conservative position on trans issues is therefore to find and support proposals for change that will help integrate trans people into society as productive members with equal opportunities, while preserving, or even strengthening, our shared values and institutions. I think anti-discrimination provisions in housing and employment would fit into this category. Ensuring adequate and affordable access to evidence-based health care for gender dysphoria would be another example. Going forward, there needs to be more discussion about what else could fit into this category, and what does not.

Trans People Are Not All The Same. Let's Face It. | Trans Realist #7

Refusing to acknowledge our differences is hurting us in many ways.

Welcome back to Trans Realist, a project where I have a conversation with my fellow trans people, about what could be done to make our lives better in the real world.

Today, I want to talk about another controversial topic: the fact that not all trans people are the same, or even similar, in our experiences, and the way our gender identity developed. The denial of this fact, the reluctance to talk about it, has caused various unexpected consequences: non-trans people turning to the Blanchard typology to understand us, some trans people feeling excluded from the trans community, and some even finding refuge in anti-trans gender critical philosophy, to name a few. I know that some people think that unity is everything, and everything done in the name of unity is justified. But this artificial unity based on denying our differences clearly isn't working.

The trans community has its own historical problems with hierarchy, gatekeeping and exclusion. I guess this is why a taboo against talking about our differences developed. But now that trans issues have gone mainstream, it is unsustainable, because even the non-trans people out there can see that we are not all the same. The trans community's refusal to provide an account of our differences has led some people to seek out unsound theory like the Blanchard typology, because it at least tries to explain the vast differences seen among trans people. Quite a few people have actually told me that this is the exact reason they came to be interested in Blanchard's theory. It's bad news for the trans community, because if people are turning to the Blanchard typology, it would hinder them from developing a proper understanding of trans people and gender dysphoria. This is why, if we don't honestly explore the differences among trans people, others will do it for us, and it will be in a way that is unsound and unfair to trans people.

Another problem with the refusal to acknowledge differences is that a vague, one-size-fits-all narrative is all that is left, and many trans people themselves find it unsatisfactory to explain their condition. Many trans people, especially when they are done with the initial stages of transition, start searching everywhere for a satisfactory explanation of how their life has turned out, being unable to find it in the conformity of the trans community. I guess this is why some trans people end up embracing gender critical philosophy, despite its inherent anti-trans attitude. Some even end up being spokespeople for the gender critical movement. Trans activists like to label them as self-hating people who have betrayed the community. But could it be the truth instead, to say that the trans community failed them in the first place?

Another thing is, in my own experience, under the cover of the vague one-size-fits-all philosophy, the trans community is often more welcoming to some narratives than others. For example, the mainstream narrative of the trans community is skewed towards those who became aware of being trans after puberty or in young adulthood. This is the reason why 'egg culture' is a thing. To be honest, I don't understand 'egg culture' any more than cis people do. This is because I have felt trans for as long as I have known gender. In other words, I didn't have an 'egg' to 'crack' in the first place. Instead, the development of my gender identity was largely intertwined with my childhood experiences. For this reason, I've often felt like I've been sort of 'left out' of the trans community. The subtle exclusion of so-called 'early onset' trans people is basically intra-trans discrimination, and it needs to end. Without being able to talk about the differences between 'early onset' and 'later onset' gender dysphoria, we are unable to even speak about the existence of this exclusion, let alone change it.

Gender Dysphoria and the Trans Language Wars | Trans Realist #6

Why it is counter-productive to apply the new terminology to everyone

Welcome back to Trans Realist, a project where I have a conversation with my fellow trans people, about what could be done to make our lives better in the real world.

Today, I want to talk about a controversial topic: the trans-related language wars. Much has been said about this topic, however, I haven't seen anyone discuss this phenomenon from the perspective of gender dysphoria. As I've said before, it's important to put gender dysphoria back at the center of the trans discourse, and it's time we did so with the debate over so-called gender-inclusive language.

I think the relationship between gender dysphoria and gender-inclusive language is complicated at the moment. To begin, I think we should acknowledge that the new language was designed with the purpose of relieving gender dysphoria in the first place. Trans people have health care needs like everyone else, but information and care that is delivered using the normal terminology could trigger gender dysphoria in many trans people, which could then lead to avoidance of seeking proper health care, for example. Hence the invention of terms like 'people who menstruate' for trans men, so they can discuss health problems around the topic of menstruation without being called women, for example. Therefore, there is indeed a need for such terminology when delivering health care and services for trans people specifically.

The problem is that, in recent years, the new terminology has been applied in situations that are not specifically targeted at trans people, meaning that some non-trans people feel like they have been forced to use the new terminology without even being asked first. Moreover, when non-trans people object to the new terminology, they are sometimes accused of being 'transphobic' by activists. This has led to a feeling among some people that traditional terms like 'women', 'mother', and so on are being erased. This is now a major problem objectively, having become a political topic in countries like the UK and Australia. It is also an issue that has made many feminists skeptical of trans rights, unfortunately. Therefore, in regards to the move to extend the new terminology to the mainstream, given the backlash generated by this move, and the resultant harm to trans acceptance, from a gender dysphoria point of view, I believe the cons clearly outweigh the pros.

The extension of the new terminology into the mainstream has often been justified on grounds of being inclusive. However, how necessary is this move in being 'inclusive'? It's not as if trans people would find it offensive that a service designed for the mainstream, where 99% of users are not trans, would use mainstream language to describe things. Most trans people understand that we are a small minority, and would not expect the world to be designed around our specific needs. All we ask is for care and sensitivity to be applied when you are actually dealing with trans people.

On the other hand, applying the new language as the 'new standard' for everyone is more problematic than most activists would acknowledge. For example, a form that describes everyone who had given birth in their lives as a 'birthing parent', and allows the choice of 'mother' only as a subset of 'birthing parent', implies that 'mother' is only a subset of 'birthing parent', which challenges traditional notions of motherhood going back to the earliest civilizations. A form that uses 'mother' by default, but allows changes when used by trans men, would imply something very different, that motherhood is still a concept that stands alone, and is not part of some 'birthing parent' umbrella. As you can see, the approach of applying the new terminology to everyone is going to offend many more people. Given what we need is more understanding and acceptance of trans people, I don't see why we should adopt an approach that many people find offensive.

In conclusion, my view is that there is a place for the new gender-inclusive terminology. However, it would be best to limit its use to situations specific to trans people, for example when delivering care to a trans person, or in health services that specifically cater to the LGBT community. Forcibly applying the new terminology on non-trans people is seen as offensive by many people, and is going to hurt trans acceptance and understanding. The cons clearly outweigh the pros, if the objective is to help trans people living with gender dysphoria.

How to Build the Post Woke Trans Movement | Trans Realist #5

It could be up to trans people to break the stalemate

Welcome back to Trans Realist, a project where I have a conversation with my fellow trans people, about what could be done to make our lives better in the real world.

Previously, I suggested a possible post-woke model of trans discourse, which will hopefully lead to a more productive discussion and a pathway forward for trans rights reforms. Such a discourse will put the focus back on gender dysphoria and the everyday needs of trans people like employment, housing and health care, and move away from the language and philosophy wars. Today, I want to talk about how we might build such a movement. I actually think that trans people are in the best position to help bring this about. Let me explain.

Trans issues have gone truly mainstream, whether we like it or not. 2022 is the year in which trans issues have truly become a routine part of national level politics, as seen in the US Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the Australian federal election, and the British Conservative Party leadership election. Unfortunately, in each of these cases, it is trans skeptical forces which have brought the issue up, and there is no reason to expect anything different anytime soon. In the face of this, trans allies, many of whom don't exactly understand the nuances of trans issues either, have often reflexively taken up the talking points of the loudest activists to argue back. What they don't understand is that these activists don't always represent the reality or the interests of many trans people. In some cases, these talking points have actually been unhelpful for us, and have given gender critical activists further ammunition to use against us. Lost in all of this is an actual understanding of trans people's lives and needs.

Without an intervention from people who actually understand what it is like to be trans, I can't see the current stalemate ending. As trans people, we have a full understanding of what it is like to live with gender dysphoria, and what it is like to live in this world as a trans person. Therefore, we are well positioned to bring this conversation back to reality. Of course, it won't be entirely easy, because the loudest voices on both sides are backed by a level of money and organization that the trans community simply can't match. However, many people are actually very interested in what trans people have to say, so we at least have an avenue to make ourselves heard.

The next problem then would be how many people we can reach. Again, we are at a heavy disadvantage here, given that the culture warriors have bigger platforms than us. However, things often start small and snowball to get bigger over time. The important thing would be to first get the message out, and get the discussion started. Every single bit helps. For example, when we see the language wars heating up again, we can gently remind people that these things don't really help trans lives, and suggest re-orientation towards priorities like employment and health care. When we see heated philosophical discussions that treat trans issues as abstract hypotheticals, we can try to bring the practical reality of gender dysphoria back into the picture. Replying to what other people out there are saying can also be a useful way to insert our voices into the conversation, and to challenge existing misconceptions on both sides. Bit by bit, we can change the conversation.

A Post Woke Approach to Trans Issues | Trans Sandwiched #22

Let's find a way to move beyond the current stalemate.

Welcome back to Trans Sandwiched by TaraElla. Today, I want to talk about what a post-woke approach to trans issues might look like. As I previously described, a post-woke approach is one that acknowledges the errors of woke culture, specifically addresses those errors, but is not based on just being reactionary to the woke position. Rather, a post-woke approach is constructive, and aims to provide a better alternative.

The woke approach to LGBT issues is deeply rooted in postmodern queer theory, and thus inherits the postmodern obsession with language. This obsession has been detrimental to trans people. It has created endless meaningless culture wars that has generated nothing but backlash towards the trans community, and it has served to distract from advancing public understanding of gender dysphoria and trans lives. For example, most trans activists insist on using 'cis women', while most anti-woke people insist on using 'biological women' to describe the same people, and both groups often turn hostile if they hear the other terminology being used. I personally think this 'disagreement' is really petty, because it wouldn't change a thing about the lives of trans people objectively. Another example is how some activists seem to find fault with a lot of conventional gendered language that has been used for a long time without problems, even among the trans community. A post-woke approach to trans issues must move away from this obsession with linguistic correctness. I've generally used the terms I think would be best received by the people I'm talking to in each instance, but it is tiring to have to think about this all the time. I think we all need to be less sensitive about which particular terms are being used, and focus on the actual things people are saying.

A post-woke approach to trans issues should also uphold the core post-woke values of decency, fairness and genuineness, because, as I said before, these are the values that will heal the wounds brought on by woke culture. Here, both the woke and anti-woke approaches have fallen short. The woke approach has allowed free speech to be compromised by putting everything in terms of power and oppression, and this is neither fair nor genuine. A post-woke trans discourse should restore the respect for free speech and freedom of conscience, and nobody should be afraid to voice their genuine concerns in good faith. Extreme versions of woke culture has also pit trans people against non-trans people, and this definitely has to end.

On the other hand, the anti-woke discourse has, especially recently, uncritically adopted elements of gender critical ideology that are certainly not decent or fair to trans people. For example, the insistence that only biological sex matters and gender does not is effectively erasure of trans people, or at least trivialization of trans issues, and is not a compassionate stance. Trivialization of gender dysphoria is literally cruel to trans people. The pressure on trans people in anti-woke circles to deny the importance of their own gender identity is also incompatible with encouraging everyone to be genuine. A post-woke approach should not treat trans people like this, given that decency, fairness and genuineness should equally apply to everyone.

A post-woke approach should also bring back the sincere intellectualism that both wokeness and anti-wokeness have destroyed. The culture warrior style approach on both sides to the 'what is a woman' question is incompatible with a truly scientific and sincere approach to the matter. A post-woke approach would uphold sincere and open-minded discussion, and allow trans people's actual experiences with gender dysphoria to be heard and considered fairly. Currently, the woke side represents postmodern queer theory, and the anti-woke side increasingly represents gender criticalism. Both ideologies essentially amount to an erasure of gender dysphoria by people with an unscientific worldview. A post-woke trans discourse would end this injustice.

Finally, a post-woke approach should allow the required space to discuss trans rights reform, so we can come up with constructive solutions that work to improve the lives of trans people, while also satisfying the reasonable concerns of other parties. From time to time, I've been asked about what trans rights I want exactly. I can tell you that, in general, my wish is that trans people get an equal opportunity at employment, and have basic needs like housing and health care satisfied on an equal basis as other people. I can also tell you what is not on my trans rights agenda: firstly, I don't want the language wars to continue. Secondly, I don't care about things that only affect a very small number of relatively well-off trans people, like elite sports. Finally, I don't demand or expect every women-only space to open their doors to trans women. I respect that people have freedom of association, and I'm certainly not going to force my way into a club that doesn't want me there. However, beyond these principles, I can't tell you exactly what trans rights reforms are needed, because I don't know exactly what barriers are faced by other trans people in their quest for employment, housing and health care. This is something we need to discuss and work out together. As long as the requests for reform are reasonable, and the concerns of other stakeholders have been adequately dealt with, I hope that the good people out there will be open to necessary reforms to improve the ability of trans people to access employment and the basic needs of life.

We Must Not Trivialize Gender Dysphoria | Trans Deeper #7

Turning other people's suffering into a culture war football is evil.

Welcome back to Trans Deeper, a show where we take a deeper look at what people are saying in the trans conversation, and whether their claims are valid or not. Today, I want to look at a worrying development: the trivialization of gender dysphoria. Specifically, in certain circles, basic compassion for those suffering from gender dysphoria is increasingly seen as 'woke', and inhumane treatment is therefore justified as non-woke and rational.

Let me give you some examples. Treatment for gender dysphoria via medical transition is described as 'experimental', despite being the only proven effective treatment out there, and decades of evidence supporting its effectiveness. From there, such treatment, even in the context of consenting adults, is painted as questionable, and possibly in violation of the 'do no harm' principle. This 'standard' is, of course, ridiculous if we apply it equally to all of medicine in general. All medical treatment carries potential harms. If this is the way 'do no harm' is to be interpreted, then clinical medicine might as well not exist, and patients left to suffer despite the existence of highly effective treatments. Of course, nobody intends for this 'standard' to apply to all of medicine. They only apply it to gender dysphoria, because they are trivializing the suffering brought on by this condition. This culture war motivated bias is both unscientific and inhumane.

Another example is the increasing normalization of gender critical views in anti-woke circles, to the extent that gender critical activists are given many opportunities to promote their views without the other side of the argument being equally presented. One thing gender critical activists often argue is that using a trans person's preferred pronouns is 'giving in' to some kind of ideology. I have argued elsewhere why this isn't the case, but as a supporter of free speech I ultimately respect your right to say whatever you want. However, the important point is, the gender dysphoria side of the story is almost never presented as a rebuttal to the gender critical argument. The argument is that, using a trans person's preferred pronouns contributes to relieving gender dysphoria, and is therefore a decent thing to do. After hearing this argument, it is still up to you to do what you believe is right. But the argument must be available for consideration in the first place. And too often, it isn't even on the table anymore in the anti-woke world.

As I have been saying for a long time, the discourse around trans people has been dominated by everything from academic philosophy to politicized culture wars, with the focus on anything but gender dysphoria. This is totally unfair to trans people, who transition because they need to relieve their gender dysphoria in the first place. The distraction from this fact leads to less appetite for compassion towards trans people as fellow humans, and more polarization over trans issues as abstract philosophical concerns, as if they weren't affecting actual human beings. The current trivialization of gender dysphoria is the logical conclusion of all this. Therefore, it's time we talked a lot more about gender dysphoria. It needs to be at the center of the trans discourse once again.

What is a Woman, Revisited | Trans Deeper #6

Culture War Politics is Anti-Science, No Matter Which Side You're On

Welcome back to Trans Deeper, a show where we take a deeper look at what people are saying in the trans conversation, and whether their claims are valid or not. Today, I want to take another look at the 'what is a woman' question. Honestly, I'm sick and tired of this so-called 'debate', but given that some people believe it is important enough to keep it going, there is something else I must say on this topic.

Previously, I offered my view that an 'archetypal' definition of the words 'man' and 'woman' are closest to their long-standing historical usage, and I gave an analysis to back this up. It was well received by many people, and it also generated some controversy, as expected. This time, I am going to look at this topic from a different angle: the fact that there seems to be a culture war politics driven campaign to manufacture division on this topic, and why this is actually very anti-science.

Let's consider this fact: apart from perhaps the true believers of queer theory, for the rest of us, there is in fact very good agreement on the classification of 'women' (or 'men'). Observers, regardless of cultural background, political affiliation or generation, can clearly come to a consensus on whether particular individuals fit the words 'woman' or 'man', 98% or more of the time. The overall level of agreement here, across the population, is in fact very high by the standards of biological science, where 100% agreement is generally not the norm. The level of agreement here is actually higher than for the diagnosis of many serious illnesses, for example.

As I said last time, the only truly significant disagreements regarding the classification of both sex and gender are in the 'borderline' cases, mostly individuals who are intersex (re both sex and gender classification) and trans (re gender classification), who represent about 1% of the population at most, according to various estimates. All the recent culture war panic about 'definitions' is basically referring to no more than this very small area of disagreement. Honestly, those pushing this culture war panic remind me of the people who said that legalizing gay marriage would 'radically change the definition of marriage' and lead to the downfall of family values. Years after the vast majority of Western countries legalized gay marriage, this of course has not happened. I believe there is actually a lesson to be learned there about emotional manipulation for political purposes.

On the other hand, I do acknowledge that there are some real differences in opinion here, and it is something that we have to deal with. Given that what we are talking about is a matter of biological science, I believe we should defer to the scientific way, rather than the political way, to deal with our differences here. In science, having differences of opinion among the experts is part of normal life. There might be heated debates, and sometimes people might just have to agree to disagree, at least for now. After all, if scientific matters were always comfortably settled, there would be no room for improving our understanding, no room for scientific progress, and no point to science at all! Taking comfort in the certainty of one's position is the attitude of the culture warrior, not the attitude of the good scientist. (And I intend for this criticism to apply to all sides of the debate.)

Anyone who knows something about the history of science would know that things can eventually turn out in a number of ways. In some cases, groundbreaking discoveries lead to a firm consensus eventually forming. It is often the ongoing debates that lead to the discoveries that in turn lead to the new consensus. In other cases, the disagreement drags on for generations. However, the ongoing debates can still lead us to a better understanding of the topic over time. For this process to play out in a productive and objective way, the most important thing is that everyone gets fairly examine the topic and apply their independent thinking, without pressure from any side, and that we remain open minded to all possibilities. This is why we need to resist the politicization and polarization that the culture warriors are pushing us into right now.