Seriously, is nobody concerned that the head of the EHRC is a creationist?
It's the 21st Century - how can you be in charge of a non-governmental body and believe that human bodies were 'designed', for sex or anything else?!?
#ehrc #transphobia #Falkner #equalities #whatisawoman #queerphobia #evolution #science #creationism #flatearth
@wabiwalden and... you're mistaken. You need to learn not to trust your assumptions so much.
Bodies might look, to you, like they're designed, but they aren't. Genitals aren't 'for' reproduction, and evolution doesn't care what people do with them.
And yes, assuming a teleology to how humans happen to grow IS to ascribe a religious / creationist design, which I'm afraid is incorrect.
@wabiwalden again, no, genitals aren't 'for' reproduction. I, like every single human on the planet, use my genitals for pleasure far more than to make babies.
You are, and I cannot stress this enough, *incorrectly* attributing purpose to characteristics that have been selected for by evolution. Evolution *does not* design organisms, and it does not imbue them with purpose. Thinking that it does is to make precisely the mistake creationists make.
@wabiwalden I hear your assertion that you're not making a normative claim, and that's positive. And yet I don't see what your reasoning is for why one thing should be the 'purpose' of a fluke of evolution rather than another.
Again: most people use their genitals for pleasure. That's what they're *for* for them, and by this I'm making a functional claim, namely about how people use these body parts. Your simply asserting that they're 'for' something else doesn't make it so.
@wabiwalden I'm really sorry, I think there is no real argument to be had about this. (Especially since we're in fierce agreement about the ethical implications.)
You simply have an incorrect understanding of evolution. Evolution *does not* deliver "purposes", "designs" or "functions". You think it does purely because you're steeped in a religious framework which makes it hard to understand the "unintentional" nature of a world that emerged by chance and aptitudes in particular situations.
@wabiwalden @benross You're arguing past the point I think. The reason the quoted text is transphobic is because 'man = person whose body is designed to do X' excludes trans men from the definition of man, and ditto for trans women.
Cis people's bodies may well 'be designed' for certain purposes (through evolution or what have you), but conceding that point or not doesn't undo the transphobia of the quoted text. Trans men are men, trans women are women, etc etc etc. Defining trans people out of their identified categories _is_ transphobia.
(Never mind that some cis people's bodies cannot perform the 'designed' specifications, but soit.)
@carmenbianca @wabiwalden I appreciate we're all furiously arguing / discussing from a point of agreement, that the #EHRC and its chair are transphobic and that's a big problem.
I also happen to think it's a problem that the chair of the EHRC is a creationist, and if she really believes what she's said then that's certainly the case. #Evolution *does not* 'design' anything for any 'purpose'. That's #IntelligentDesign, which is a cover for #Creationism.
@benross @wabiwalden I don't attach a lot of weight to the word 'design' here. One could reasonably argue that 'the shape of a bird's wings facilitates flight'. To then say that 'birds' wings are designed to facilitate flight' doesn't seem outlandish to me, even in the absence of a creator. For me it's just semantics. It's probably semantically wrong, but to convey the same idea elsewise is a little convoluted. Something like 'birds' wings were shaped by natural selection to facilitate flight' or what not.
In any case I could go both ways on the above. It's the transphobia I can't go both ways on.
Good luck on #TERF island :/
@carmenbianca @wabiwalden Again: asserting genitals are 'for' reproduction is to take a Judeo-Christian, religiously-motivated, creationist attitude. It seems to me not just transphobic, but homophobic and ableist too.
As a gay man, I am not 'using my genitals for something other than their purpose' (procreation), and I'm not using some Cheat-Code, as a bi-product of this purpose is pleasure. I'm using my genitals exactly correctly, as are infertile people or those who just don't want babies.
@benross @wabiwalden I agree. I really don't want to argue semantics here—the world is meaningless and it is we that ascribe meaning to the world.
But I just don't see the word 'design' as short-hand for 'it happened because this trait was naturally selected for by a cold and uncaring physical reality' as especially harmful when in good company. Rephrase that sentence to be the most charitable version of itself; I don't get into conversations about evolution very often.
The process of evolution altered the shape of birds' wings that in turn allowed for better flight. There is _some_ causality there, even if there is no design or purpose or meaning or what have you. But human language wasn't designed to talk about these things from this perspective of agentless physical reality, and I find myself struggling over my words to phrase it from that perspective.
Do you have a good alternative short-hand?
@carmenbianca @wabiwalden I think the important part about this is that evolution works in the exact opposite direction to design.
Evolution means that particular individuals propagate their genes forwards, and some of those genes will be inherited by their progeny.
Design / creation traces backwards from you or me, to a creator, who intended us to be, in some way.
The best we can say under evolution is that I exist because of some facts about my ancestors, not due to any trait of *mine*.
@wabiwalden @carmenbianca - and so there you have it. Your biological essentialism (misapplied in this case because there isn't a single biological criterion for being a cis man or cis woman) leads you directly to transphobia.
Thinking bodies are designed leads you to thinking body parts are either functional or defective leads you to thinking it's possible to categorise people by something arbitrary like body parts, defective or not.
… This makes no sense to me. 'Trans men are not men' is transphobia. That's how this works.
You can very well argue that there is some essential difference between trans men and cis men, and I'd agree like 20% of the way to that point, but trans men are men, and cis men are men. They are all men. The only thing trans men aren't is cis or women.
Do you subscribe to the thought that sex≠gender?
@wabiwalden @carmenbianca The vast majority of all marginalisation is done by people who don't think they hate a group, but just think of them as different or problematic in some way.
Trans people are as completely normal, correct, functioning, worthy, standard, natural people as cis people are. If someone thinks they're abnormal, different, disordered, not-as-nature / the creator / evolution intended, they are transphobic.
@wabiwalden @benross But most well-meaning people _are_ transphobic. You're proving the point.
And the words 'man' or 'woman' do not refer to sex by any reasonable standard. These words are _far_ too caught up in social gender dynamics, or phrases like 'man up' or 'a woman's place is in the kitchen' wouldn't exist. These things (and many others besides) have nothing to do with one's genitals, hormones, or genes.
Some people instead propose that 'male' and 'female' are the words to refer to sex, but I'm not convinced that works, either.
And in any case, what's the harm in saying 'trans men are men, trans women are women'? Why exclude trans people from these categories? What benefit does it bring any of us? I can name many harms for _not_ doing this. Is it for some semantical purity? The problem with that is that words are made up, and we decide what words mean.
(Never mind that the people who insist that 'man = adult human cis male' can't provide a definition that includes all people they mean to include, but excludes all people they mean to exclude. Source: See the quoted text above lol. It's all made up, and we can elect to define our words such that they cause the least harm.)
@carmenbianca @benross
(1) Transphobic only in the sense of the definition you gave.
The definition of the word chair probably wont include all the concrete examples of chairs, but that doesn't mean we should stop using the word chair or that chairs don't exist. I'd say the problem lies in the person making the definition, not the thing being defined.
What are we to refer to men and women then? How are we going to talk about them if we dont have words for them?
@carmenbianca @benross
(2) (a)Man as adult human male has nothing to do with (b)"man up". We could imagine a world where adult human males are the ones who belong to the kitchen. (a) & (b) are separate, we can throw away one and keep the other.
Words are not perfect, not exact as you said in your post about design in evolution. But that doesnt mean theyre meaningless. The fact that were using words here and we understand each other(though not agree) proves that.
Ben Ross
wabiwalden
Carmen Bianca BAKKER