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Such self reports are not evidence of the reality of inherent gender, and are logically incoherent. They are surely attempts to describe an internal state of em

Such self reports are not evidence of the reality of inherent gender, and are logically incoherent. They are surely attempts to describe an internal state of emotional distress, using phrases that the patient has overheard used by others. But they are no more “evidence” than someone saying “god is love” is evidence that “god” is “love”, or that the speaker has any coherent notion at all of what those words could possibly mean.

beaconstudios 5y ago
> They are surely attempts to describe an internal state of emotional distress Yes, they're distressed because of this mismatch. > But they are no more “evidence” than someone saying “god is love” is evidence that “god” is “love”, or that the speaker has any coherent notion at all of what those words could possibly mean. You seem to be making an appeal to transcendental meaning - evidence isn't based on transcendental meaning or equivalence, it's based on observation of material reality. "gender" is a term created to describe the fact that trans people clearly have a mismatch between their sex and an internal property. That's all there is to it.
- leephillips 5y ago
  How do they know that there is a “mismatch” between their sex and an internal property? What is the internal property. What is the material reality that we can observe that corresponds to this internal property? FMRI and anatomical studies are not able to detect this internal property.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    By your framework, we can't assert that minds exist at all, let alone anything beyond like thoughts or feelings. The internal property is called gender.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      I don’t understand why you say that. The fact that people can be deluded is not an argument against the existence of minds. My position would seem to be insisting that there is plenty beyond thoughts and feelings. What is gender, in the sense of an internal property? How do we detect it?
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        How do we detect any self belief or self image? They don't show up on scans. You have to go by reported experience. If you think that gender dysphoria is rooted in delusion, you should probably read into it. There's a reason trans people aren't treated the same as people with anorexia or schizophrenia - it's because trans people are normative outside of being trans. It's the same kind of situation as being gay.
      - kemayo 5y ago
        I think you fundamentally disagree with this, but I'd say gender is your internal sense of how you align with societal constructs that we associate with certain "gender roles". In our society this is "male" and "female", but other societies have done different things here with the same underlying biology. Trans people are, and I'm generalizing here, people who feel their biology doesn't match up with the gender role they identify with. They often then want to align their physical presentation with that associated with the gender role, on the belief that societal roles are more important than biology. (It's very transhumanist, in a sense.) I'll note a fairly easy example of sex and gender differing even in our society, which is intersex people. I.e. those whose physical expression lies somewhere between male or female (which isn't super-common, but certainly happens). They're ambiguous physically, and we historically make them pick (or pick for them at birth) what gender role they'll perform.
  - tzs 5y ago
    https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)30695-0/pdf https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)30695-0/pd... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20562024/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20562024/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19341803/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19341803/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477289/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477289/ http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2013-transsexuality.html http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2013-t... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987404/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987404/ https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/18/8/1900/285954 https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/18/8/1900/285954
kemayo 5y ago
Doesn't this argument work about as well to deny the validity of most psychological conditions? Some have a physical basis, but a lot are entirely rooted in internal experience.
- leephillips 5y ago
  I’m not saying that psychological conditions are not real, but I don‘t know what you mean by “valid”. They’re all rooted in internal experience, and, unless you believe in a supernatural soul, all have a physical basis of some kind. But that doesn’t mean that the language that the patient attaches to the condition needs to be taken literally, or even that it has any meaning at all. A clinician treating an emaciated anorexic patient who insists that she is overweight (a real, well-known condition) may, as part of the treatment, interact with the patient avoiding, temporarily, contradicting the accuracy of the patient’s self-description. Her condition is real and “valid”; her self-description is just another symptom.
  - kemayo 5y ago
    I am using the word "valid" about how you're using "real", I suppose. This is probably a dead end of an argument. I think you're making a value judgement about what could be possible -- you're entering the question accepting as an axiom "sex and gender are the same thing and cannot differ", and so naturally the person's reported experience must be incorrect. If you instead think "sex and gender are different things", you'd reach a different conclusion.
    - leephillips 5y ago
      I’m not accepting that as an axiom. I’m asking you (and others) to explain what gender is, in this context, non-circularly. So far, I haven’t gotten a definition.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity Basically, it's a set of socially prescribed behaviours and expectations based on sex. Men wear trousers and are strong, women wear dresses and are graceful. That sort of thing. There's a few different concepts mixed up in the idea of gender, but it's effectively the social aspects associated with sex.

beaconstudios 5y ago

> They are surely attempts to describe an internal state of emotional distress Yes, they're distressed because of this mismatch. > But they are no more “evidence” than someone saying “god is love” is evidence that “god” is “love”, or that the speaker has any coherent notion at all of what those words could possibly mean. You seem to be making an appeal to transcendental meaning - evidence isn't based on transcendental meaning or equivalence, it's based on observation of material reality. "gender" is a term created to describe the fact that trans people clearly have a mismatch between their sex and an internal property. That's all there is to it.

leephillips 5y ago
How do they know that there is a “mismatch” between their sex and an internal property? What is the internal property. What is the material reality that we can observe that corresponds to this internal property? FMRI and anatomical studies are not able to detect this internal property.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  By your framework, we can't assert that minds exist at all, let alone anything beyond like thoughts or feelings. The internal property is called gender.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    I don’t understand why you say that. The fact that people can be deluded is not an argument against the existence of minds. My position would seem to be insisting that there is plenty beyond thoughts and feelings. What is gender, in the sense of an internal property? How do we detect it?
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      How do we detect any self belief or self image? They don't show up on scans. You have to go by reported experience. If you think that gender dysphoria is rooted in delusion, you should probably read into it. There's a reason trans people aren't treated the same as people with anorexia or schizophrenia - it's because trans people are normative outside of being trans. It's the same kind of situation as being gay.
    - kemayo 5y ago
      I think you fundamentally disagree with this, but I'd say gender is your internal sense of how you align with societal constructs that we associate with certain "gender roles". In our society this is "male" and "female", but other societies have done different things here with the same underlying biology. Trans people are, and I'm generalizing here, people who feel their biology doesn't match up with the gender role they identify with. They often then want to align their physical presentation with that associated with the gender role, on the belief that societal roles are more important than biology. (It's very transhumanist, in a sense.) I'll note a fairly easy example of sex and gender differing even in our society, which is intersex people. I.e. those whose physical expression lies somewhere between male or female (which isn't super-common, but certainly happens). They're ambiguous physically, and we historically make them pick (or pick for them at birth) what gender role they'll perform.
- tzs 5y ago
  https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)30695-0/pdf https://www.jsm.jsexmed.org/article/S1743-6095(15)30695-0/pd... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20562024/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20562024/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19341803/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19341803/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10843193/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477289/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7477289/ http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2013-transsexuality.html http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2013-t... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987404/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4987404/ https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/18/8/1900/285954 https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/18/8/1900/285954

kemayo 5y ago

Doesn't this argument work about as well to deny the validity of most psychological conditions? Some have a physical basis, but a lot are entirely rooted in internal experience.

leephillips 5y ago
I’m not saying that psychological conditions are not real, but I don‘t know what you mean by “valid”. They’re all rooted in internal experience, and, unless you believe in a supernatural soul, all have a physical basis of some kind. But that doesn’t mean that the language that the patient attaches to the condition needs to be taken literally, or even that it has any meaning at all. A clinician treating an emaciated anorexic patient who insists that she is overweight (a real, well-known condition) may, as part of the treatment, interact with the patient avoiding, temporarily, contradicting the accuracy of the patient’s self-description. Her condition is real and “valid”; her self-description is just another symptom.
- kemayo 5y ago
  I am using the word "valid" about how you're using "real", I suppose. This is probably a dead end of an argument. I think you're making a value judgement about what could be possible -- you're entering the question accepting as an axiom "sex and gender are the same thing and cannot differ", and so naturally the person's reported experience must be incorrect. If you instead think "sex and gender are different things", you'd reach a different conclusion.
  - leephillips 5y ago
    I’m not accepting that as an axiom. I’m asking you (and others) to explain what gender is, in this context, non-circularly. So far, I haven’t gotten a definition.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity Basically, it's a set of socially prescribed behaviours and expectations based on sex. Men wear trousers and are strong, women wear dresses and are graceful. That sort of thing. There's a few different concepts mixed up in the idea of gender, but it's effectively the social aspects associated with sex.