A Timely Example

I recently observed that empty classes have no morally salient properties, and that this represented a barrier to claims for accommodation on behalf of trans* individuals. Along comes an email from Athlete Ally which concisely illustrates exactly what I'm getting at:

From: Athlete Ally Info
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2019 8:31:21 AM

As an organization, we are committed to upholding LGBTQ equality in and through sport, and advocating for the inclusion of trans athletes is a critical part of that work.

In her article, Navratilova stated that trans women are men who “decide to be female,” and that to allow them to compete with women is “insane and it’s cheating… it is surely unfair on women who have to compete against people who, biologically, are still men.”

Transgender or Trans people are people whose gender identity is different from the gender they were assigned at birth. Trans women did not “decide” to be female. Transphobia is perpetuated by misinformation such as this.

...

The argument that Athlete Ally is making relies on the idea that trans identity is intrinsic to an individual, rather than being something that is chosen. Except... recall Allison's response to Hj Hornbeck on just that topic:

It’s like when people run around “proving” that 1 = 0 — nobody sees any real need to “disprove” it, because it’s obvious that such a proof is BS. (It’s a reductio ad absurdum on the face of it.) But it seems like even those who believe in our existence feel the need to prove it. I was just reading HJ Hornbeck’s post about trans athletes, which has all kinds of “scientific,” “objective” evidence that gender dysphoria, gender identity, etc. are real. The problem with going down that path is not only that it concedes the possibility that it could be “disproven,” but also that trans people who don’t fit into the definitions and criteria in those “proofs” are then implicitly left out of the category “real trans.”

Allison explicitly rejects the idea that trans identity is (necessarily) intrinsic to an individual, and is deliberately and specifically leaving the door open for people who consciously choose a trans identity to be included under the umbrella of "real trans". This would seem to invalidate Athlete Ally's contention that trans individuals do not choose to be trans.

Allison and Athlete Ally are just convenient exemplars; there's nothing particularly unique about either of them. A more generalized form of the conversation above goes something like this:

• "A person is 'trans' if they say they are 'trans'", from which it follows that the class of trans persons has no properties apart from self-identification.
• "Trans people are X".
• "How do you know? Per the definition of 'trans', trans people can be anything."

This, in a nutshell, is what I'm getting at when I complain about "empty classes". You can't make any claims about them, because they have no properties.

This isn't what happens in real life; almost everybody says 'trans' in a way which suggests that the term is laden with meaning (ditto for the term 'woman'). So what gives? At least three explanations come to mind:

• Semantic disagreement: People don't agree what the term 'trans' means, and some significant fraction don't accept the "you're trans if you say you are" definition.
• Imprecision: When people says 'Trans people are X' they actually mean 'Some non-trivial fraction of trans people are X'.
• Motte and bailey argumentation: Some people are tactically fudging their definitions as necessary to achieve desired outcomes.

It's almost certainly a combination of all three, plus some more I haven't thought about.

Anyway, as I said before, definitions have consequences.

Empty Classes Have No Morally Salient Properties

On reflection I realize that my previous post omitted an important critique: empty classes have no morally salient properties.

For example, arguments that trans individuals should be treated according to their self-identified gender usually hinge (sometimes implicitly) on the notion that do otherwise would be harmful to their mental well-being. However, the class of trans persons as defined by Allison (see my previous post) has no characteristics that would lead us to conlude that this would be the case.

An obvious rejoiner to the above observation is "They say they're X, so they should be treated like X". But we don't typically accept that sort of reasoning in other situations; there's a tremendous amount of boundary policing that goes on for many common group membership claims. What is it about identity claims asserted by trans individuals that makes them unique? Again, if we use Allison's definition we're left scratching our heads; trans individuals have no characteristics that would support this treatment.

The above observation is, I think, a pretty dig deal, much more so than other problems that I outlined previously. Refusal to put any sort of bounds on what it means to be "trans" actively undermines claims for equal treatment (or special accomodations) made by trans activists.

Hj Hornbeck and Empty Categories, Redux

So, Hj Hornbeck posted an interesting reflection on eir recent post about gender dysphoria. Rather than excerpt the entire second half I recommend that everybody go read it... I'll wait.

Done? Good.

I'd like to focus on one, specific sentence/sentiment which a commenter, Allison, voices:

The problem with going down that path is not only that it concedes the possibility that it could be "disproven," but also that trans people who don't fit into the definitions and criteria in those "proofs" are then implicitly left out of the category "real trans".

A straightforward reading of the above is that Allison is unwilling to place any bounds on the term "trans" because to do so would inevitably end up excluding someone who believes that they are trans. It's pretty much a restatement of the "you're X if you self-identify as X" definition of gender.

To borrow a phrase: definitions have consequences.

Restating my previous observation, "you're trans if you self-identify as trans" leads to a class with no information content. This is a problem. If we believe that trans* folx deserve justice, how can we tell if they're actually getting it? Who do we look at, and what do we look for? The same holds true for women: What does "feminism" look like when anyone can be a woman, and how is it different from, say, humanism?

It's very difficult to form a coherent program of improvement around a group that has no identifiable characteristics.

At this point you're probably accusing me of being tendentious, or obtuse, or both, but hear me out. We can poll a representative sample of trans* people about their desires for justice, and then form a program around that, but in doing so we're going to inevitably fail to meet someone's needs. They're going to be erased and excluded. Which, per Allison, is the original sin.

I mean, that's really the crux of the issue: Definitions exclude. They draw boundaries. They mark things as "in the set" or "out of the set". It's possible to expand a defintion to the point where it ceases to be useful as a tool for reasoning; that really seems to be what's happened here.

I can create a program around "uterus-havers": People with uteruses (uteri?) should have access to quality uterus-care. See how easy that was? But creating a program around "women"... hic sunt leones. "Gender" is a mess, as are all 112 gender classes; we should really just stop referring to "gender" entirely.

Moving on, I want to support Hj and give Allison a metaphorical "wag of the finger":

Frankly, for a trans person, there’s something surreal and erasing in seeing cis people feuding with cis people over whether we exist.

No, no, a thousand times no. Here's, let me assure you: I accept that you exist! (and I'm pretty sure that Hj does too!) The question is not whether you exist, but what exactly you're asserting when you say "I'm trans". Which is where I think Hj should have stood eir ground, just a little bit: asking people to define their terms isn't an act of aggression, its a baseline for conversation. And now Allison has been so obliging as to provide us with a definition (and all the consequences which it entails).

Finally, I'll end with a tiny bit of trolling: I'm self-identifying as trans for the purposes of this post. Now I'm not a cis person feuding with other cis people, but a trans person helping to educate the world about trans experience. Ridiculous? Maybe... but on what grounds? Y'all made the rules, I'm just following them. Is there a new definition in the offing? "You're trans if you self-identify (in good faith) as trans"? C'mon... do it... I dare you...