>
> An alternative categorization system is not an error, and borders are not objectively true or false.
-But this is just giving up _way_ too easily. The map is not the territory, and many very different kinds of maps can correspond to the territory in different ways (we have geographical maps, political maps, road maps, globes, _&c._), but that doesn't mean _no map is in error_. Rationalists can't insist on using the one true categorization system, because it turns out that—in all philosophical strictness—no such thing exists. But that doesn't release us from our sacred duty to describe what's actually true. It just leaves us faced with the _slightly more complicated_ task of describing the costs and benefits of different categorization systems with respect to different optimization criteria. There's no objective answer to the question as to whether we should pay more attention to an animals' evolutionary history or its habit—but given one criteria or the other, we can say definitively that whales _are_ mammals but they're also _dag_/water-dwellers. That there exists an element of subjectivity in what you choose to pay attention to, doesn't negate that there is a structured empirical reality to be described, and not all descriptions of it are equally compact.
+But this is just giving up _way_ too easily. The map is not the territory, and many very different kinds of maps can correspond to the territory in different ways (we have geographical maps, political maps, road maps, globes, _&c._), but that doesn't mean _no map is in error_. Rationalists can't insist on using the one true categorization system, because it turns out that—in all philosophical strictness—no such thing exists. But that doesn't release us from our sacred duty to describe what's actually true. It just leaves us faced with the _slightly more complicated_ task of describing the costs and benefits of different categorization systems with respect to different optimization criteria. If different political factions prefer different criteria, we describe that conflict. There's no objective answer to the question as to whether we should pay more attention to an animal's evolutionary history or its habitat—but given one criteria or the other, we can say definitively that whales _are_ mammals but they're also _dag_/water-dwellers. That there exists an element of subjectivity in what you choose to pay attention to, doesn't negate that there is a structured empirical reality to be described, and not all descriptions of it are equally compact.
In terms of the Lincoln riddle: you _can_ call a tail a leg, but you can't stop people from _noticing_ that out of a dog's five legs, one of them is different from the others. You can't stop people from inferring decision-relevant implications from what they notice. (_Most_ of a dog's legs touch the ground, such that you'd have to carry the dog to the vet if one of them got injured, but the dog can still walk without the other, different leg.) And if people who work and live with dogs every day find themselves habitually distinguishing between the bottom-walking-legs and the back-wagging-leg, they _just might_ want _different words_ in order to _talk_ about what everyone is thinking _anyway_.
> If I'm willing to accept an unexpected chunk of Turkey deep inside Syrian territory to honor some random dead guy—and I better, or else a platoon of Turkish special forces will want to have a word with me—then I ought to accept an unexpected man or two deep inside the conceptual boundaries of what would normally be considered female if it’ll save someone's life. There's no rule of rationality saying that I shouldn't, and there are plenty of rules of human decency saying that I should.
-This is true in an uninteresting tautological sense: if you deliberately define your category boundaries in order to get the answer you want, you can get the answer you want, which is great for people who want that answer, and people who don't want to hurt their feelings [(and who don't mind letting themselves get emotionally blackmailed)](/2017/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/).
+This is true in a tautological sense: if you deliberately define your category boundaries in order to get the answer you want, you can get the answer you want, which is great for people who want that answer, and people who don't want to hurt their feelings [(and who don't mind letting themselves get emotionally blackmailed)](/2017/Jan/dont-negotiate-with-terrorist-memeplexes/).
-It's less interesting to people like rationalists—although apparently not all people who _self-identify_ as rationalists—who want to use concepts to _describe reality_.
+But this isn't very interesting to people like rationalists—although apparently not all people who _self-identify_ as rationalists—who want to use concepts to _describe reality_.
-It's important to stress that this should _not_ be taken to mean that transgender identity claims should necessarily be rejected! (Bad arguments can be made for true propositions just as easily as false ones.)
+It's important to stress that this should _not_ be taken to mean that transgender identity claims should necessarily be rejected! (Bad arguments can be made for true propositions just as easily as false ones.) A _serious_ argument for accepting trans people as their desired gender might look like this:
+ * *Claim*: [brain intersex theory]
+ * *Claim*: [transition actually works]
+ * *Claim*: [social gender is determined by secondary sex characteristics anyway; you don't usually see someone's genetalia, let alone chromosomes, _&c_.]
+ * *Conclusion*: [they actually are of their target gender]
+Notice that this is an _empirical_ argument for why trans people fit into _existing_ concepts of (social) gender, not a redefinition of words by fiat in order to avoid hurting someone's feelings. To the extent that any of the claims _fail_ to be true of self-identified trans people or some subset thereof, the conclusion is correspondingly weakened. Note that these can change over time (_e.g._, if transition technology improves).
+[explain two-type taxonomy; [single paper rec](http://unremediatedgender.space/papers/lawrence-agp_and_typology.pdf)]
+
+[caveats: take care to note that it's possible to believe in a weaker form of it: maybe you argree to the bimodality in the data, but don't think it's two discrete etiological types; or, maybe you [agree that there are two etiologies, but](https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/against-blanchardianism/) don't buy that AGP is the cause]
+
+[note that I'm focusing on MtF because of reasons; analyzing the situation with trans men is left as an exercise to the interested reader]
+
+In less tolerant places and decades, where trans women were very rare and had to try very hard to pass as cis women out of dire necessity, the impact on the social order and how people think about gender was minimal—there were just too few trans people to make much of a difference.
+
+Nowadays, in progressive enclaves of Western countries, this is no longer true, and in communities that form around [non-sex-balanced interests](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/07/contra-grant-on-exaggerated-differences/), the numbers can be quite dramatic. For example, on the 2017 _Slate Star Codex_ reader survey, 9.4% responded _F (cisgender)_ to the gender question, compared to 1.4% responding _F (transgender m -> f)_. So, if trans women are women, _13.4%_ (!!) of female _Slate Star Codex_ readers are trans.
+
+A cis woman friend of the blog, a member of the Berkeley, California rationalist community reports on recent changes in local social norms—
+
+> There have been "all women" things, like clothing swaps or groups, that then pre-transitioned transwomen show up to. And it's hard, because it's weird and uncomfortable once three or four participants of twelve are trans women. I think the reality that's happening is women are having those spaces less—instead doing private things "for friends," with specific invite lists that are implicitly understood not to include men or trans women. This sucks because then we can't include women who aren't already in our social circle, and we all know it but no one wants to say it.
------
+[Alexander cites Emperor Norton as a charming example of the power of kindness, but as fun as the story is to read about on Wikipedia, that kind of "benevolent" gaslighting is not something you would do to someone you actually _respected_; I'm glad my friends didn't lie to me when I was having delusions of grandeur]
+
+[imagine you're Emperor Norton's best friend and he expresses doubt as to whether he's being hugboxed]
+
+[...]
+
+"What if—what if I'm not actually the Emperor?"
+
+"The categories were made for man, not man for the categories, Your Highness," you say.
+
+[...]
+
"Well," you say, sighing, "let's see what we can do." You pull out your notebook, ready to jot down, ideas, strategies—battle plans?
"But," you caution, "I'd be lying if I told you it was going to be _easy_."
------
+**on rewrite, need to clarify between two points**:
+
+ * if there are conflicts about what category to use, we can analyze the conflict without taking sides, but at the same time
+ * some categories really are unnatural
+
+
REMAINING OUTLINE—
* The argumentation in section IV is _uncharacteristically_ weak for Scott:
"Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden" http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885 retained a male pattern re criminality
+_Slate Star Codex_ 2017 survey: 6939 (87.2%) cis men, 733 (9.2%) cis women, trans women 114 (1.4%): 13.4% trans!!!!
+
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / commitdiff