Riposte Team Gender Critical
So as a follow-up to my post on how trans people arguably don't exist, I did some follow-up reading. It was really eerie to come across this website, written by Rebecca Reilly Cooper, because some of her points were nearly identical to mine (h/t u/BenderRodriguez9 ). For example, she writes:
The unclarity about what kind of a property it is, and its inherently entirely subjective nature, means that the doctrine of gender identity becomes unfalsifiable. Positing the existence of a gender identity is thus equivalent to positing the existence of a soul or some other non-material entity whose existence cannot be tested or proved. If we wish to avoid this implication, the only option is to make a claim for the objective reality of gender identity and to try to search for its material basis.
Which is not very different from what I previously said:
So again let's consider a biological man who has thus far in life presented with what society associates as masculine (assertive, muscular, confident, etc.). One day he realizes that he feels like a woman but, crucially, changes literally nothing about his life, demeanor, or appearance. He wears the same male clothing, speaks in the same voice, has the same masculine mannerisms as before, etc. In this case, what does it mean to be feel like a woman?? With a hypothetical like the one I described, the entire concept of a gender identity seems to evaporate into a mist. If someone's internal gender dysphoria changes literally nothing about their outward appearance or presentation, then how does it even exist.
I apparently inadvertently and independently articulated a concern well known within "Gender Critical" circles. But reading this also made me realize why I bounced off GC to begin with, because the philosophy is highly fixated on the premise that female oppression exists and that it is predicated specifically by female biology. For example:
Women’s historic and continued subordination has not arisen because some members of our species choose to identify with an inferior social role (and it would be an act of egregious victim-blaming to suggest that it has). It has emerged as a means by which males can dominate that half of the species that is capable of gestating children, and exploit their sexual and reproductive labour. We cannot make sense of the historical development of patriarchy and the continued existence of sexist discrimination and cultural misogyny, without recognising the reality of female biology, and the existence of a class of biologically female persons.
This is where I admit that reading about how oppressive the patriarchy is is extremely boring to me and replete with a myriad of counterfactuals that pop into my mind. The narrative also comes across as rigid because necessarily every piece of sex oppression has to be somehow tied to or based in some way to reproductive function. If I'm understanding this correctly, it certainly feels like a driver of the TERF v TRA Proxy Wars are predicated on how trans identity ruins the normal way of examining female oppression. For example:
If we do not recognise the material reality of biological sex and its significance as an axis of oppression, women’s experience of oppression becomes literally unspeakable. We lose the terminology and tools of analysis – tools carefully developed by generations of feminists working before us – to make sense of female experience, and of the reality of negotiating a male-dominated world in a female body.
Anyway, the current paradigm with regards to how to discuss gender identity leaves me in some lonely territory. I'm basically on board 100% with Rebecca's framework on how to talk about sex and gender, but then she goes into a "THEREFORE, women are oppressed because of their womb". I want to keep the former and ignore the latter, but that position does not appear well represented in present discourse. As far as I can tell, the only people that are able to speak coherently about gender and sex are also primarily middle-aged academic feminists who can't stop larping on how their womb makes them susceptible to institutional oppression.
Writing this also made me feel like a cowardly centrist who "just wants to avoid extremism". But why do you think that primarily those who speak about sex and gender in this manner tend to also be highly attached to viewing society through a patriarchal oppression lens? The former does not seem to necessarily follow the latter, so I'm confused.