From: M. Taylor Saotome-Westlake Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2018 05:44:06 +0000 (-0800) Subject: drafting "I Mean, Yes" X-Git-Url: http://unremediatedgender.space/source?a=commitdiff_plain;h=a2b0377cbcb9966e8d285106caa9fd9681b8b0f6;p=Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git drafting "I Mean, Yes" --- diff --git a/content/drafts/i-mean-yes-i-agree-that-man-should-allocate-some-more-categories-but.md b/content/drafts/i-mean-yes-i-agree-that-man-should-allocate-some-more-categories-but.md index f70d5b5..27eb78f 100644 --- a/content/drafts/i-mean-yes-i-agree-that-man-should-allocate-some-more-categories-but.md +++ b/content/drafts/i-mean-yes-i-agree-that-man-should-allocate-some-more-categories-but.md @@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ Similar considerations apply to other social groups or events where some people > The actual category they should be using is not "cis women." The actual category they should be using is "people who would be contribute to the atmosphere you made this a woman-only event for." -_In all philosophical strictness_, I agree. (And I wouldn't want to attend a men-only event.)[ref]But mostly for ideological and gender-dysphoria-related reasons, rather than because I _obviously wouldn't belong_. I've historically been inclined to cultivate a _self-image_ of being "not like the other guys", but self-images [aren't necessarily veridical](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/). If my self-perceived unmasculinity isn't reflected in other people's assessments of my unaffected personality and social behavior, it would be somewhat unreflective of me to protest, "But _I'm_ not gender-conforming—I have a _ponytail_!"[/ref] Outside of a few _relatively_ narrow domains of life (medicine, intercourse, family planning), I find it hard to think of good reasons to care about sex _per se_, as opposed to characteristics which might correlate with sex at some nonzero but certainly-not-so-huge-as-to-be-effectively-binary effect size. Ozy and me and Scott Alexander are all in agreement that categories are in the map, not the territory. There aren't ontologically-fundamental <sex value="F"/> XML tags attached to people's souls—and moreover, we wouldn't have any reason to care if there _were_. +_In all philosophical strictness_, I think I agree. (And I wouldn't want to attend a men-only event.)[ref]But mostly for ideological and gender-dysphoria-related reasons, rather than because I _obviously wouldn't belong_. I've historically been inclined to cultivate a _self-image_ of being "not like the other guys", but self-images [aren't necessarily veridical](/2016/Sep/psychology-is-about-invalidating-peoples-identities/). If my self-perceived unmasculinity isn't reflected in other people's assessments of my unaffected personality and social behavior, it would be somewhat unreflective of me to protest, "But _I'm_ not gender-conforming—I have a _ponytail!_"[/ref] Outside of a few _relatively_ narrow domains of life (medicine, intercourse, family planning), I find it hard to think of good reasons to care about sex _per se_, as opposed to characteristics which might correlate with sex at some nonzero but certainly-not-so-huge-as-to-be-effectively-binary effect size. Ozy and me and Scott Alexander are all in agreement that categories are in the map, not the territory. There aren't ontologically-fundamental <sex value="F"/> XML tags attached to people's souls—and moreover, we wouldn't have any reason to care if there _were_. The problem is that people don't always _have_ the detailed individual information that they would need to act in all philosophical strictness, at least not in an explicit, communicable form. If you're having a private get-together with some your friends who you know very well, you can pick and choose who to invite based on your individual knowledge of each individual, and you don't need to communicate (much less justify) your decision criteria to anyone else. If you don't like Brian, you can just not-invite-Brian, even if you're bad at introspection and don't even _know for yourself_ why you don't like Brian. @@ -76,21 +76,45 @@ It would seem that in a world where psychological traits can't be cheaply, preci _Not_ an infinitely-thin, infinitely-bright line,[ref]As it is said: what about masculine women and feminine men (whose share of the population depends on where you set your sex-atypicality thresholds)? What about trans people (0.3%–[TODO] of the population, depending on how you define your categories and whose statistics you trust)? What about people with [5α-Reductase deficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%CE%B1-Reductase_deficiency) or any of a dozen other specific intersex conditions?[/ref] but a line thin _enough_ and bright _enough_ that the forces of social evolution have coughed up some institutions and other cultural practices that take the line into account for _functional_ reasons. -My goal in writing about this is certainly not to argue _for more sexism_—I'm looking forward to the postgender lesbian transhumanist future of Total Morphological Freedom as much as anyone else. (I already have my new name and outfits picked out!) If we can invent _new_ institutions and practices that serve more people more effectively, we should _do it_. But because I am a rationalist, because I cannot _unsee_ the cold, cisheteronormative logic of [Chesterson's fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence), I have to speak out when people are using clever word games to obfuscate the function of the existing fences. It's not that it's impossible to do better; it's that doing better isn't _trivial_. +My goal in writing about this is certainly not to argue for more sexism—I'm looking forward to the postgender lesbian transhumanist future of Total Morphological Freedom as much as anyone else. (I already have my new name and outfits picked out!) If we can invent _new_ institutions and practices that serve more people more effectively, we should _do it_. But because I am a rationalist, because I cannot _unsee_ the cold, cisheteronormative logic of [Chesterson's fence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence), I have to speak out when people are using clever word games to obfuscate the function of the existing fences. In response to the argument that women's restrooms function as safe havens that women can retreat to and exclude scary or threatening men from, Ozy writes: > I do not understand the relationship between this and psychological gender differences. It seems quite obvious that the relevant category here is "people who look like the vast majority of street harassers" versus "people who do not look like the vast majority of street harassers." The former group uncontroversially includes some trans women (closeted trans women) and some trans men (Buck Angel) and has nothing to do with psychology anyway. No matter how female-typical a trans man's psychology is, if he has muscles like Chris Hemsworth and a beard like a lumberjack, he belongs in the men's room. -It has to do with _probabilistic predictions about_ psychology in a world where [male violence against females is _older than humanity itself_](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexual_coercion&oldid=866576906). We could imagine an alternate universe designed by a loving God, where the people have the same physical forms as the women and men of our own world, but where rape and sexual harrassment and voyeurism are unknown, and in _that_ world, people with female bodies would have no particular reason to be wary of people with male bodies.[ref]Well, except for that _d_≈2.6 difference in muscle mass should a dispute escalate to physical fighting.[/ref] +It has to do with _probabilistic predictions about_ psychology in a world where [male violence against females is _older than humanity itself_](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexual_coercion&oldid=866576906), and with [defensible Schelling points](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelling-fences-on-slippery-slopes). -Certainly _most_ men are nice, civilized people who don't harrass women—and occasional Hemsworthlike, lumberjack-bearded androphilic trans men with a feminine personalities, present even _less_ of a threat. But when designing the social norms for a safe space for the modal cis woman, false positives (including someone who shouldn't be included) are probably going to be worse than false negatives (excluding someone who shouldn't be). If "Does this person look male?" is _easier to assess_ than "Does this person-of-whatever-sex look like a potential threat to my safety, comfort, and privacy?"—and possibly more importantly, is easier for third parties to _agree on_ when third parties are called in to enforce the rules—then the rule ends up being "no men" (or "no male-looking people"). +Certainly _most_ men are nice, civilized people who don't harrass women—and occasional Hemsworthlike, lumberjack-bearded androphilic trans men with a feminine personalities, present even _less_ of a threat. But when designing the social norms for a safe space for the modal cis woman, false positives (including someone who shouldn't be included) are probably going to be worse than false negatives (excluding someone who shouldn't be). If "Does this person look male?" is _easier to assess_ than "Does this person-of-whatever-sex look like a potential threat to my safety, comfort, and privacy?"—and possibly more importantly, is easier for third parties to _agree on_ when third parties are called in to enforce the rules—then the rule ends up being "no men" (or more precisely, "no male-looking people", with corresponding consequences for trans men and non-passing trans women). -Which is _not_ necessarily a great rule! +Depending on your values, this may not be the best rule! This is (despite everything) not a politics blog. I should hope to help clearly identify the trade-offs inherent in the objective reality of a situation, rather than champion one trade or the other; it's not for me to decide what kind of spaces people should demand, or what false-positive and false-negative rates they should accept. -[***] +[TODO: transition sentence (no pun intended)] + +When the _Times_ of London filed some freedom-of-information act requests, they found that [almost 90% of harrassment/assault/voyeurism incidents in changing rooms took place in the minority of unisex facilities](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/unisex-changing-rooms-put-women-in-danger-8lwbp8kgk). + +[TODO: explicitly acknowledge that I'm not trying to shift goalposts; locker rooms are different from bathrooms, everyone deserves to pee] + +Ozy continues— + +> Even today, and much more so in the past, men's bathrooms are not equipped with changing tables for babies. When in such a poorly-designed bathroom, some fathers will go into the women's bathroom and use the changing table there. [...] Harassers do not carry around babies in order to have plausible deniability in the event that the woman they are harassing enters a woman’s bathroom at the same time the baby happens to poop. +> +> Similarly, early-transition trans women can be placed into the former category. In our culture, it is generally very stigmatized for men to wear dresses, skirts, makeup, and other signifiers of womanhood. In particular, catcallers and sexist harassers essentially never do: if you're a catcaller or a sexist harasser, it is probably because you are invested in a particular style of masculinity that is completely incompatible with wearing a skirt. Therefore, allowing all dress-wearing people to use the women's bathroom has minimal risk of allowing catcallers in. In the event that men wearing dresses and makeup is completely destigmatized to the point that even sexist assholes do so, I am happy to reexamine this statement. + +Although I lack relevant lived experience, I suspect this is _wildly_ overestimating the ideological component of women's discomfort around men. I agree that certain very overt kinds of harrassment (the kind that involves yelling slurs and obcenities) can be attributed to sexist subcultures of _machismo_ and toxic masculinity. + +Unfortunately, I fear the [threat model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threat_model) is a little bit subtler and more expansive than that. + +Imagine a woman telling a man, "This is a space where women are likely to be indisposed and uncomfortable with the presence of a man such as yourself; accordingly, I must ask you to leave." + +Suppose the man replies, "Oh, you-all don't need to worry, it's not like I'm not some kind of _sexist asshole_", and refuses to budge. + +Somehow, I don't think this is likely to make the woman then say, "Oh, okay then—come on in!" It's worth considering why. -[agree that everyone deserves a place to pee] +[...] + +Suppose the man replies, "What do you mean, a man such as myself? I'm a woman, just like you! Surely you don't mean to imply that trans women aren't women?" + +[***] Finally, Ozy makes an analogy between social gender and money. What constitutes money in a given social context is determined by collective agreement: money is whatever you can reliably expect everyone else to accept as payment. This isn't a circular definition (in the way that "money is whatever we agree is money" would be uninformative to an alien who didn't already have a referent for the word _money_), and people advocating for a _different_ money regime (like [late-19th century American bimetalists](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bimetallism&oldid=864176071#Political_debate) or contemporary cryptocurrency advocates) aren't making an epistemic _mistake_. @@ -131,9 +155,6 @@ This reply is perhaps quite rude, and not at all in accordance with the precepts And _that's_ the point. - - - ---------- Unordered scraps— @@ -164,4 +185,12 @@ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demands-for-rigor/ "The reason characteristics common to men and women, like height or hormone levels, are distributed bimodally and not normally is the impact of the sex binary on them.": https://twitter.com/radicalhag/status/1065860508232880128 (actually clarifies my thinking) -https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelling-fences-on-slippery-slopes + + +https://culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/percentages-prevalence-and-why-some-women-are-freaked-out-by-this-whole-locker-room-thing/ + +Sunday _Times_ found that "Almost 90% of reported sexual assaults, harassment and voyeurism in swimming pool and sports-centre changing rooms happen in unisex facilities, which make up less than half the total." https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/unisex-changing-rooms-put-women-in-danger-8lwbp8kgk (Paywalled—can I get library access to the full article?) + +https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bullshit&oldid=868771273#Bullshit_asymmetry_principle + +We could imagine an alternate universe designed by a loving God, where the people have the same physical forms as the women and men of our own world, but where rape and sexual harrassment and voyeurism are unknown, and in _that_ world, people with female bodies would have no particular reason to be wary of people with male bodies.[ref]Well, except for that _d_≈2.6 difference in muscle mass should a dispute escalate to physical fighting.[/ref] But in the Darwinian horrorscape of our world, well ...