A Response to Hj Hornbeck vis-a-vis "Trans Atheletes and the Existence of Gender Identity"

Quoth Hj Hornbeck:

So: is gender dysphoria a thing?... I argue yes, via two avenues. The first is an argument from absurdity: almost all the arguments made against gender identity also work against sexual orientation, and since we accept the latter we must accept the former.

This is an insightful observation, and worthy of engagement.

The first thought which comes to mind is that the validity of the comparison depends quite a bit on how you define "gender dysphoria". As I recently noted, you can't take it for granted that terms like "gender dysphoria" enjoy anything like a consensus definition these days. So, here's a sampling of definitions:

• Hj says "If gender identity exists, then it becomes plausible to have a mismatch between your body and your identity; gender identity and gender dysphoria aren’t synonyms, but the existence of the former strongly implies the existence of the latter". Ey seems to be defining "gender dysphoria" as a mismatch between a person's body and their gender identity.
• Wikipedia: "Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth. In this case, the assigned sex and gender do not match the person's gender identity, and the person is transgender".
• DSM-5: "DSM-5 states that the initial condition for the identification of gender dysphoria in both adults and teenagers is a noticeable incongruence between the gender the patient believes they are, and what society perceives them to be."
• The UK's NHS: "Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there's a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity."

There seems to be a general consensus that gender dysphoria is defined as a mismatch between gender identity and something else, but that something differs from definition to definition:

• Present state of a person's body.
• Historical perception (usually by a single individual or very small group. -GG), of a person's sex and gender at birth.
• Present perception of a person's gender by a large group ("society").
• Biological sex

You can see already that there are several areas where the defintions don't agree:

• Present state vs. historic state
• Others' perception of a person's gender vs. a person's physical/biologic features.

Lest I be accused of pointless pedantry, these variations do have practical implications. For example, under the DSM-5 definition a person who is successfully "passing" does not have gender dysphoria (which I expect would be a contentious claim), whereas under both Hj's and the NHS' definitions, which do not hinge on societal perception, someone who is successfully passing may still have gender dysphoria. While it remains to be seen whether these differences are material in the comparison with sexual orientation, it's important to note that they exist.

The definition of "gender identity", at least, seems to be pretty consistent:

• Hj doesn't provide an explicit definition of "gender identity", but ey excerpts an article which defines it as "the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender".
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression in Social Work Practice, as cited by Wikipedia: "Gender identity refers to an individual's personal sense of identity as masculine or feminine, or some combination thereof."
• DSM-5: "Gender identity - is a category of social identity and refers to an individual's identification as male, female or, occasionally, some category other than male or female. It is one's deeply held core sense of being male, female, some of both or neither, and does not always correspond to biological sex".
• NHS: "Gender identity is the gender that a person 'identifies' with or feels themselves to be."

Given the definitions above, it's pretty clear that gender dysphoria is "a thing" (is a real phenomena); it's easy to point to individuals (as Hj does in eir post) which meet each of them. So what gives? Why did Hj bother to write a post in the first place? The devil is in the details:

This argument should be the focus when discussing trans athletes. It doesn't matter if every single one of them are fifty feet tall, what only matters is if you accept the existence of gender dysphoria as at least partly grounded in biology. If so, then the above argument demands you let them compete in the gender category they identify with. If that leads to situations you think are unfair, then you shouldn't be using gender as a proxy for athletic ability, instead relying on metrics like muscle mass or height. (Bolding mine -GG)

Whether gender dysphoria is "a thing" is a much different question than whether it's "a thing" "partly grounded in biology"; minus points for conflating the two. Some observations in this regard:

• Not all definitions of gender dysphoria necessitate any sort of physical component. The DSM-5 definition, for example, is based purely on a mis-match between a person's self-perception of gender and society's perception of that person's gender.
• It's doesn't require much of a stretch to posit a physical basis for gender dysphoria if "gender" is limited to "masculine", "feminine", and maybe a few intermediate conditions. It becomes much harder if "gender" is broadened to include 32 or 51 or 63 or 112. I will go out on a limb and posit that not all 112 genders presently recognized by Tumblr have an identifiable, physical cause.
  • A counter-argument is that "There aren't really 112 genders". Recall, however, that all the definitions of gender identity cited above agree that gender is asserted solely via self-identification. A consequence seems to be that we're bound to recognize at least 112 genders, because at least one person has asserted each of them.
• Can it be the case that gender has both a biological component and is entirely socially constructed? Hj seems to be commiting to at least a weak form of gender essentiallism.
• It's not obvious that the "mismatch" definition which Hj appears to be using can be reconciled with work of Talia Mae Bettcher, which Hj cites approvingly here.

Now, to be perfectly clear, at this point I am being both pedantic and a bit of a troll, but with a point. The philosophical angle is a mess because key terms such as "gender identity" are defined so weakly that it leads to absurd results. Scientifically ey's on firmer ground, but at the same time positing a physical cause to gender dysphoria logically entails a certain level of support for ideas which are typically seen as "not progressive". On the plus side, however, I have to give him points for recognizing that taking trans* identity seriously requires us to do away with "gender" as a meaningful attribute for categorizing people.