This may interest those who have been following the ‘Language and Bewitchment’ series.
Appendix Six
Gender, language and reality
Words are not only used to deceive, as I have discussed previously, but also to create a false ‘reality’ - which is sometimes desired by the ‘deceivers’ for political reasons. The best example of this is, of course, Wokeness - especially ‘gender politics’. The chaos caused by proclaiming the existence of various genders is both profound and unsettling. The assumption, now quite widespread, that individuals can ‘identify’ as a ‘gender’ which conflicts with their biological sex has caused all sorts of problems, such as allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports (and breaking women’s records), or allowing men to enter women’s prisons or changing rooms. I expect many of you will know this already - so bear with me.
As a Student of Sociology and Philosophy in the 1990s I was taught that ‘gender’ is, in part, the product of socialisation that dictates how males and females should dress and behave. The point was made that biological sex does not completely determine dress and behaviour. This is fair enough. However, over many years the term ‘gender’ came to be defined in many different ways. Towards the end of the 20th century, as Merriam-Webster points out, ‘gender by itself was being used as a synonym of gender identity’.1
PBHS Closet, an LGBT group, defines gender as follows: ‘where you personally feel on the spectrum between male and female. Commonly people identify as male or female, but some fall in the middle or move through the spectrum.’ This site lists around 40 different terms relating to gender identity, including gender fluid, polygender, agender, gender apathetic, intergender and so on.
In Cardiff University during the early 1990s, gender was a term used to describe something objective – i.e. the social assumptions about behaviour and dress normally associated with each sex. These were studied by sociologists who identified gender assumptions reinforced by parents, who dress their young children in blue or pink (for example) and teachers who expect boys to be rough and girls conscientious.
But the above, more recent, definitions are subjective and psychological; they are descriptions of feelings about gender. But it must be pointed out that when the Merriam-Webster dictionary states that gender became a synonym for gender identity; it is actually referring to the use of the terms among a relatively small group of people, and the PBHT definitions are used by an even smaller group of people. I think it is important that we do not lose sight of this because most people are not familiar with any of the PBHT definitions and would not automatically associate gender with gender identity.
The fact that most people do not know very much about gender politics and the terms employed within it, is causing problems. Within the gender politics movement, attempts are being made to make everyone conform to its definitions, including the appropriate pronouns we must use to refer to the different ‘genders’. This is an absolute minefield which, thankfully, I do not need to explore here.2 But people who do not conform to the appropriate use of these pronouns will find themselves attacked and maybe ‘cancelled’ – especially when they use ‘inappropriate terms’ on social media. They may also find themselves in conflict with the law in some states (including Scotland).
This is very much a case of a small minority of people (backed by elites who have their own agendas) attempting to force compliance on the vast majority, which is always a recipe for conflict and resistance. Most people rarely have contact with someone from the LGBT ‘community’ and may never come across someone they know to be transgender3 or transsexual.4 Thus, most people cannot relate to gender identity politics at all.
The use of appropriate pronouns appears to constitute an appeal to be polite, and in most cases those promoting identity politics make the additional point that where individuals see themselves as having characteristics and feelings that are not typical of their biological sex; where they view their gender as different to their biological sex, they should be allowed to ‘identify’ as ‘transgender’. This appears to be fine depending on one’s understanding of the term ‘identify’ in this context.
To identify as someone or something suggests some sort of affinity with someone (or something) that is not identical to that someone or something. The expression: ‘I am a woman’ (uttered by a woman) is not problematic in the sense that ‘I identify as a woman’ (uttered by a man) has the potential to be. The former is a claim about reality while the latter suggests a subjective imposition on reality, introducing the notion that those who make the subjective claim to identify as women constitute a category of things that can be said to exist in the same way as biological women exist. If someone identifies as a woman, according to this nonsense, they become a woman.
So, according to this ideology (and it is an ideology) men who possess male biological characteristics, but who view themselves as female, should be permitted to live as biological females. All ideologies possess a moral dimension - in my experience - and Woke is no exception. The Categorical Imperative of Wokeness is that it is our moral duty to refute and deny what our reason tells us.
In practice, this has led to policies that allow men identifying as women to compete in women’s sports, for example.
Female athletes, quite understandably, feel that this is unfair because biological males have greater strength and speed. As absurd as this may sound, the practice is quite widespread.
The main error made by those who support this extreme form of gender politics is this conflation of gender with biological sex. Judging by some of the claims made by Wokists in this connection, there appears to be an assumption among some that identified gender determines biological sex. But I can’t be sure.
No matter how strongly a biological male identifies as female, he cannot be female, so cannot be accepted as female by society in general. Certain societal norms dictate the relationship between the physical sexes in relation to genitalia; women (generally) do not wish to expose their genitalia (or their breasts) in public to biological men, however strongly these men identify as women. Yet the supporters of identity politics expect genitalia to be overlooked, as it were; they also expect women to accept the unfair advantage bestowed on male athletes who identify as women.
The fact is that there is no such thing as a female male or a male female, which is what this nonsense implies. People whose feelings about themselves are not consistent with their biological sex are just that; i.e. people who physically belong to one sex but who feel they should belong to the other. But I think we can be too respectful of people’s feelings, especially when reality is being falsified in consequence. There is no need to create a range of different genders (i.e. nouns) in order to accommodate this situation and definitely no need to deny the reality of biological sex and the part it plays in human social relations.
I should say that I have worked with men who perceive themselves to be women and who wish others to view them as such even though they are obviously male. That poses no problem at all. In the case of Wokeness, however, political ideology has distorted our natural/human response to those who differ from sexual/gender norms.
We are being told how to respond and threatened with punishment if we wish to respond differently. This smacks of authoritarianism and that’s just what Wokeness is.
But it cannot and will not prevail as an ideology because it is so unnatural: it demands that we ignore our basic intuitive judgements by (for example) responding to a man as if she were a woman. Furthermore, it focusses our attention on certain areas (e.g. identity) that are not a concern for the vast majority of human beings and distracts us from issues that are much more deserving of our attention. It does not benefit the working class in its battle with the ruling class and has served to undermine the workers’ movement. This is why many ‘old fashioned’ lefties like myself have rejected it.
It is good to see that even elites such as Elon Musk are calling Wokeness ‘a mind virus’.
That’s all for language and bewitchment: the next philosophical short will deal with the barriers to independent thinking. If you would like to learn more about the intricacies of gender politics try ‘Galileo’s Middle Finger’ by Alice Dreger (for the dedicated only) - Best Rob
1 Gender Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
2 See Gender Pronouns | LGBTQ+ Resource Center (uwm.edu) for a list of acceptable pronouns associated with the different genders.
3 i.e. someone who identifies with a gender that conflicts with their biological sex.
4 i.e. those who have had an operation which changes sexual organs from male to female or vice versa.
I think that the boxer you mentioned was born a girl and has always thought that she was a girl and has been raised up as a girl. She has been to previous Olympics without issue and has indeed lost bouts to other women, nine I think. Maybe the issue is that she has got better at boxing and people are looking for fault and grinding their various axes.
Everyone that participates in Boxing is there to punch the opponent and inflict pain. It's a bit rich to get punched and then complain, after all evasion is one of the skills of the pugilist.
It also seems extraordinary to me that she could be a male yet compete as a female, it's not like you just rock up and claim to a woman no matter what you look like and are allowed to compete as such. I smell the outrage of the ignorant and it is a stinking brew.
If there are problems they lie with the ruling parameters of eligibility not the individual who might not have had a clue that they were different except that they were physically more adept than their peers. But this would be the same with any Olympic athlete. They are not run of the mill people, they are exceptional and have honed their gifts and that has made them even more exceptional
I recently read about a man who, caught driving in the bus lane said that he identified as a bus. British humour.
I also noticed, on a trip to Scotland last year, that there was a much higher proportion of transgender people on the streets of the major cities, than what we see here in Oz.
Unfortunately, scientists are finding that there are intersex people, whose Y gene has shifted from the Y chromosome, and who develop female characteristics. The boxer mentioned is a case in point. However, these people can have the musculature of males, so having them compete in sport against women is still unfair. Because they are XY, they should not be allowed to compete against women in sporting events.
My thoughts on women's changing rooms, prisons, and women's refuges, is that if the person has a penis they need to stay out.
As for woke terminology, an individual demanding that people refer to him/her as 'they' is inane (and insane).
I see a lot of this as a product of our urbanisation, and relatively luxurious living. It has made a lot of people precious about themselves, because life is no longer a struggle for existence.