How Many Sexes?

Anyone discussing the nature of sex and gender on the internet--especially in the context of transgender or DSD (intersex) issues--will likely have been sent millions of times seen this piece titled "Sex Redefined" in the journal Nature.

Just noting here a tweet by the author of the piece:

Not gonna find it now, but should file this with Anne Fausto-Sterling stating on social media that her "paper" about five sexes--males and females, but also herms, ferms, and merms--was "tongue in cheek" and that there aren't really five sexes.

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Might as well also note here this link about the creation of that Scientific American graphic showing sex as a spectrum using DSDs: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/sa-visual/visualizing-sex-as-a-spectrum/.  Didn't look too much at this yet, but of course the riposte is simple: what's the variable on the X axis?  Are some males really more male than others (which is an implication of it being a spectrum)?

An Early TRA Acknowledgement of Transgender-Feminist Tension?

When blogging this post, I looked at some other articles by the same transgender writer and found this interesting one from January 2016 titled, "Jaden Smith as a new face of womenswear might seem progressive - but he's on transgender territory." 

Jumping off from the announcement that Louis Vuitton had chosen Smith as the new face of its womenswear collection, the author of the piece argues that there is, at the least, a tension between the gender progress reflected by Jaden Smith's sartorial choices and the gender progress of transgender recognition and visibility: as the culture evolves to normalize men wearing women's clothes and vice versa without that being weird or wrong or undermining of men's manness or women's womanness, this cuts against transgender people's progress in attaining recognition and validation through their signalling their gender identification through their own clothing choices.

I bring this up here to point to the fact that woman called "TERFs" make this argument all the time--that gender identity doctrine reifies gender roles and stereotypes, and otherwise cuts against feminist fight against gender--and are condemned as bigots for it. 

Take the T Out? Drop the T? Get the L Out?

I recently came across this piece in The Independent (UK) entitled, "Why It's Time to Take the T Out of LGBT". 

It's by a transgender writer from 2015, and it argues that the T-LGB alliance should be rolled back as one is based on gender identity and the others on sexual orientation, and that combining the groups into a single coalition is confusing and even stigmatizing to transgender people by associating it with something sexual. 

I also recently saw a short video--looked like it was pulled from social media--from Fox Fisher making the same point, and arguing for the decoupling on grounds of political/rhetorical effectiveness. 

I'm just noting this as these days and for a few years, any mention by any LGB person of the possibility of splitting the coalition in the same way and for the same reason (political effectiveness of one's cause) is denounced as bigotry.

Athletic Contest Categories' Names: Men's & Women's vs. Open & Female

On the incendiary transgender athletes issue, a proposal commonly cited on the science/TERF side is to have two categories: female and open. 
That way, female athletes get an even playing field without the presence of male pubertal advantage, and transwoman athletes get to participate without being designated as "men". 

However, I'm remembering a feminist line of thinking from 2017 when the US National Women's Team won the World Cup:
it was argued that we should not call the events the World Cup and the Women's World Cup, since that presents men as universal and neutral, and women as niche.  Instead, it was said that we should call each the Men's World Cup and the Women's World Cup. 

So not sure how these two arguments stack up. 

Free Speech's Problem of Self-Reference

Most people, people who still broadly support free speech, maintain that some content-specific exceptions are justifiable, even obligatory.  They just disagree exactly on what those exceptions should be.

So can you really apply an exemption from free speech to the exemptions from free speech themselves?

Clinton on Manspreading

One recent illustration of why there are critiques of HRC's feminism from the structurally-minded left occurred previously:

at a recent event after the election, Hillary discussed meeting with Putin and how such environments are hostile for women.  She said that Putin "manspreaded" all over the place, offering a humorous demonstration even.

But this alleged "man spreading" robs the charge of all the significance that gave it legitimacy as a social phenomenon/issue.  The idea was born of crowded public transit, in which men's socialization allows them to take up more room then necessary and women's socialization influencing them to take up less, leading to a systemic result of more comfort for men and less for women as the men's expanse is at the women's expense.  Presumably, it applies to other situations in which the different gendered socializations causes the genders to systematically experience different outcomes in purportedly neutral circumstances.

But it doesn't apply to just preferences in sitting when there is no constraint on common space and no effect on anyone else.

Leave it to HRC to take a prima facie useful concept for a recently-conceived/articulated social issue and try to use it for the cool points, only to completely void the concept of any possible importance.

Incongruous

I often seek out Jill Filipovic's opinion on matters I'm interested, especially lately on some of the internecine left-of-center disputes like on "identity politics", the 2016 campaign, and Democratic strategy.  It's an application of the cherished principle that truth-seeking requires seeking out the best possible case for the other side.  I find her contributions to the discourse valuable and appreciate her insights and the clarity she brings in expressing them.  I almost always find her pieces persuasive, even if I don't find myself fully persuaded by them to exchange my own opinion for hers.  And I am especially appreciative of her habit of doing all this in from her particular perspective and working from her priors that are far from my own on certain dimensions, as I've endeavored greatly lately to address and incorporate the contributions that can be made from a perspective such as hers into my own views.

But--and this is not to talk Filipovic at all but only observe of the larger culture--I find it jarring to try and click through the author's page to read other of Filipovic's pieces and encounter this pop-up soliciting me to join their email list.  To the extent that the persistent gender gaps in areas of social concern as well as problems of sexual assault and health (and more) result at least somewhat from cultural cues telling girls that their only worth is their attractiveness, and in general being bombarded with images the inculcate a very particular and very difficult to attain beauty standard...

Impact, not Intent?

Calcifying into dogma in some left-of-center circles is the (proposed) principle expressed by phrases like "intent isn't magic" and "impact matters, not intent."  This is the kind of thing common in certain communities on social and online media, but also is the type of platitude uncritically accepted and then promulgated by administrators and their student activist confreres in contexts like orientation sessions for new students.  Imagine a fresh arrival on campus, maybe--for the vividness of the argument--think of a graduate student in ethics and moral philosophy, or a law student ready to pursue truth only to find some questions provided answers before any classes even begin, answers decided by non-academics and with an air of stipulation that brooks no criticism or dissent.

The more recent "oops/ouch" discursive instructions from a few schools are another example, provided that entailed along with having to say "oops" is an admission and acceptance that the "ouch"-causing utterance was wrongful and to refrain from repeating it or similar verbal "oops"s.

Plenty more could be said on the absurdity of this status of received wisdom being afforded to this particular principle ('impact, not intent'), but suffice it to say that this absurdity is underscored by the fact that someone like Kant ('nothing can be said to be unqualifiedly good other than a good will') is apparently ruled fully wrong not only a priori, but even without any argument at all.

People are Complicated

The other day when I was in a local small business, a liquor store that shares a storefront and vestibule with a pharmacy, I overheard a woman ask the clerk for permission to put up a flyer on the community bulletin board in the common vestibule.  She was publicizing an upcoming appearance at the local library by author Nathalia Holt to discuss her new book, "Rise of the Rocket Girls," which is one of a few recent installments attempting to reattribute credit where it has long been missing for the contributions black women made as "computers" at NASA in the early days of space travel.

What struck me by this woman's request was the combination of the subject matter, her passion for publicizing this story given the gender and racial dynamics, and that she pointed out to me the conventionally attractive headshot of the author on the flyer as a suggestion for why I should attend.

Iowa

Look at how "adults" make decisions on important things, of course something that can only be accomplished with the aid of the news media:

"The caucus system isn't built to bear the weight placed on it," he said. "There aren't even paper ballots (in the Democratic caucuses) to use for a recount in case something doesn't add up."

Democrats have never released actual head counts, and McGuire said they would not be released this time, either. Determining a winner based on state delegate equivalents rather than head count is a key distinction between how the Democrats conduct their caucuses versus conducting a primary, she said. New Hampshire and Iowa are generally careful to maintain such distinctions as part of their effort to preserve their status as the first caucus state and first primary state.

"Death Panels"

What makes it most obvious that Republicans never believed this "death panel" nonsense--and thus implicates both active participation in this cynical gambit and passive failing to correct it from their allies--is the very slight degree to which they even made this scandalous charge; if it were true, surely it would be their strongest argument against the law instead of what we've mostly been hearing.

It doesn't help that the purported "death panels" are sometimes attributed to IPAB and other times to the provision authorizing reimbursement to doctors for advance care planning consultations.

But just look at how the issue is covered here, not altogether without credibility, including ending with a quote by Rep Steve King (R-IA) to make the charge look more reasonable.

Diagnosing Trump and the Definition of Mental Illness

This piece on the current debate over diagnosing Trump and whether or not to reassess the 'Goldwater rule', etc. is interesting ground on which to retread an issue of ethics and psychology with which I've long felt unsatisfied.

What’s missing in Gartner’s diagnosis, according to Frances, is the key element to diagnosing all mental illness: suffering. 

“Everyone has a personality,” Frances says. “It’s not wrong to have a personality; it’s not mentally ill to have a personality. It’s only a disorder when it causes extreme distress, suffering, and impairment.”

Trump’s willingness to lie and endless self-promotion are traits that have, so far, worked out largely to his advantage. He’s president of the United States, after all. 

But people who have a true narcissistic personality disorder, Frances explains, experience a crash of some sort, even if they can’t see it for themselves. They’ll lose their jobs, their spouses and children will abandon them, and their “bubble of grandiosity [will] burst,” he says. “They feel absolutely miserable, can’t function, can’t face the world.” (Research has found that a narcissistic personality can, to an extent, help you move up in the world.)

The real world can sometimes furnish examples interesting enough to rival thought experiments for their ability to reveal non-empirical principles and or our (isolated) intuitions.  If the definition of mental illness includes that a necessary condition of one is some kind of negative experience derived from the pathology, yet one, who exhibits all the rest of it is so insulated by wealth from any negative experience from it, does he have it?