If a young man says to you, “I’m gay,” you know pretty well what sort of person he is claiming to be: one whose sexual desires are only or primarily for men. Of course, he could be lying or even mistaken, but the claim itself is clear in its meaning. The group gay men is arguably a natural and pretty well-defined grouping of human beings.
But what if someone tells you that he or she is “trans”? Matters are not so clear here! You would have to ask him or her many more questions in order to know much about them. The “trans” crowd is very diverse along many dimensions. I happened recently to run across a pretty good characterization of trans diversity in, of all places, the end of a culture-war piece on about that one notorious male swimmer on BreitBart:
The transgender movement is diverse, with competing goals and priorities.
Less than one percent of Americans claim to be transgender. Less than one in ten of the few men who claim to be transgender have their genitalia removed.
The movement includes heterosexual autogynephilic men who demand sex from lesbians, alienated young men fantasizing about being submissive women, lesbians trying to become men, teenage girls trying to flee a sexual environment twisted by pornography, and gay teenagers trying to escape their minority status by adopting an attempted mainstream male identity.
It includes non-political people trying to live as idealized stereotypes of the opposite sex, pre-pubescent children with childish views of sexuality, and ideologues who wish to blur distinctions between the two sexes.
The transgender environment also includes revenue-seeking drug companies and medical service providers, wealthy donors, ambitious politicians, manipulative teachers, and professional advocates.
It also includes sexual liberationists and progressives who are eager to liberate people from their bodies, parents who are eager or willing to endorse transgender claims, and journalists eager to help their social peers.
Setting aside the cheerleaders, what most of these people have in common at some point in their lives is gender dysphoria, which on one popular definition is: “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.” There’s a lot of ideology packed into that definition, but let that go for now. The point is that this can involve intense suffering, and yet arguably their psychological problems run deeper than this symptom.
This movement is overwhelmingly opposed by the public, by doctors shocked at the psychological and healthcare damage, by a growing number of young people who have “de-transitioned” back to their sex, by parents trying to shield their children from transgender activists, and by transsexual, liberal and conservative critics of the transgender ideology.
Quite correct. While many on the “affirmative” side portray their stance as simply what all good and informed people think nowadays, in fact many are not on board for a whole variety of reasons which on the face of it have nothing to do with intolerance, bigotry, ignorance, or hate. And these people are from all political and social persuations.
And till now, these conscientious objectors have had little assistance from analytic philosophers. Genderthink is trying to change that.
