Stephen Kershnar
Transgenderism and
Truth
Dunkirk Fredonia
Observer
February 15, 2021
There has been an explosion in the
number of teenage females who claim that they are boys or men.
Gender dysphoria is the severe
distress felt by people whose gender differs from
their sex or sex-related physical characteristics. The
Wall Street Journal’s Abigail Shrier points out that in the past, gender
dysphoria typically began in early childhood (ages two to four), affected a
small percent of the population (0.01%), was found almost exclusively in boys,
and usually disappeared (70% of the time).
Shrier observes that for the first time
in medical history natal girls (those born female) are the majority of those
claiming to be transgender. A transgender person claims that his gender differs
from his sex. Clinicians from several countries report that those presenting
with gender dysphoria have dramatically changed from preschool-aged boys to
adolescent girls. In one year, 2016-2017, Shrier notes, the number of gender
surgeries for natal females in the U.S. increased fourfold. They now have 70%
of all gender surgeries.
Brown University’s Lisa Littman argues
that transgenderism spread like a contagion and involves a maladaptive response
to stress and strong emotions. She points to the following sort of features of
those adolescents who identify as transgender. 80% are natal females. Their average
age is 16. The vast majority did not have indicators of childhood gender
dysphoria. Over half had a psychiatric diagnosis. Roughly half were engaging in
self-harm (for example, cutting themselves). 41% said they were not
heterosexual before identifying as transgender.
The public schools have signed onto this.
According to Shrier, many public schools, including those in California, New
Jersey, and New York, have a policy of not informing parents when a student
comes out at school. Some school administrators and staff conceal a student’s
gender change from the parents even while changing the student’s name and
pronoun on school forms.
The metaphysical issue, though, is
whether transgender claims are true. For example, is a transgender man a man or
does he merely present as one? The University of Sussex’s Kathleen Stock and
other gender-critical philosophers discuss the very controversial idea that
female is a biological category. On this account, someone who is a female has
some or all of a cluster of internally caused features, including fallopian
tubes, ovaries, vagina, womb, and XX chromosomes. On this account, an
individual without any of these features is not female, even though no one
feature is necessary to be female. For example, an individual with Androgen
Insensitivity Syndrome is genetically male (XY chromosomes) but resistant to
male hormones (androgens) and so lacks male genitalia and other similar
features. As a result, she does not have enough of the physical traits to be male.
If this account is correct, trans women are not female.
An interesting issue is whether trans
women are women. The issue arises because ‘woman’ might refer to gender rather
than sex. On this account, ‘sex’ refers to biological features found in human
and animals such as genes, physiology, or reproductive function. In contrast, ‘gender’
refers to socially constructed roles. It is concerned with attitudes and
behaviors, such as how one self-identifies and how others view someone. There
is thus an issue as to whether some men are female, and some women are male.
There are conceptual difficulties with
the notion that women should be identified by their gender rather sex. Consider
the notion that a person is a woman if that person identifies as a woman. What
is it that she identifies with that makes her a woman?
A person is not one gender merely because
she sees herself as being that gender. This would be circular. By analogy, a
person is not Jewish merely because she sees herself as Jewish. We still need
to know what makes someone Jewish and thus forms the content of her
identification.
First, consider biological sex. The idea
is that an individual is a woman if she sees herself as a biological female. If
this were what makes someone a woman, then a trans woman would be mistaken. She
is not a biological female and identifying as one does not change the biological
fact.
Second, consider gender. The idea is that
identifying with social stereotypes makes someone a woman. A problem here is
that the stereotypes are not very clear. Do they involve passivity and being
penetrated? Alternatively, do they involve activities such as cleaning,
cooking, dating cute guys, playing with dolls, wearing dresses, and so on? The problem
here is that some women do not identify with many of these stereotypes.
Consider, for example, a lesbian who is masculine in appearance and manner (in a
very-rude-and-outdated term referred to as a “bull dyke”). In addition, these
stereotypes are outdated and often insulting. For example, lesbians who wear
pants and do not want to date cute guys are women.
Another problem is that trans women do
more than identify with a stereotype. For example, what makes natal-girl teenagers
want to transition to boys or men is not that they do not like to be
penetrated, clean, cook, date cute boys, etc. Instead, they see themselves as
men in a deeper sense. The problem is in identifying what that deeper sense is.
Cut off from a connection to a biological category, it is unclear what holds
the stereotypes together or why they are so important to motivate someone to
change his body in significant ways. Some trans men take hormones or have
surgeries such as top surgery (breast removal), hysterectomy (removal of
ovaries and uterus), phalloplasty (surgical construction of a penis), or
metoidioplasty (surgery and hormones that make a clitoris work more like a
penis).
None of this tells us whether we should
allow trans men and women to choose their own name and pronoun, use what
bathroom they want, have surgery, and so on. We should, at least for adults. A
separate issue, though, is whether trans people’s claims are true.
