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...