Interlude XV

"Can you believe people are calling my blog transphobic?! Me! That's like calling Christina Hoff Sommers an anti-feminist!"

"Um ... you know, that's actually a pretty good analogy. People like Sommers who agree with a one-sentence literal summary of feminism's goals, like 'women and men should have equal rights', but disagree with seemingly every other belief and instrumental strategy connotationally associated with feminism, and who spend a disproportionate amount of time criticizing central examples of feminists, might reasonably be perceived as anti-feminist, even if they're not literally trying to repeal the 19th Amendment. It's possible to meet the category membership criteria of some simple candidate verbal definition, while not actually being part of that cluster in configuration space along most of the dimensions that people care about and want to use the word to refer to."

"Huh. That argument sounds ... familiar."

"Does it."

"Right, so, I'm pro-trans in the same sense that autogynephilic trans women are women."

"No! I mean, not helping your case!"