If group rights exist, then a group has the right to determine the character and destiny of its collective life. This is one of the arguments presented in the Group Rights entry at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, where a “conception of group rights that is moral in foundation and that might be used to determine what legal rights groups should have,” is explored. We typically see the right of collective self-determination exercised by ethnic and racial groups, political parties, trade unions etc. For example, where this right applies to a religious group, it is free to engage in collective expressions of its faith and that its sacred sites and symbols should not be desecrated.

“It is enough that we have reason to regard a group as an object of moral concern; a group does not have to be a moral agent to be a moral patient. Even if a group is capable of moral agency, not all of its rights need concern or presuppose its agency. Thus Keith Graham points out that we can and do apply a range of moral epithets to groups: groups can be treated justly or unjustly, they can be deceived and treated offensively, and they can flourish more or less well (2002, 89–93). Thinking about groups in this way implies that they have moral status and that we can reasonably ascribe rights to them. For May (1987), McDonald (1991) and Sheehy (2006) the critical consideration is that a group can have interests as a group—interests that are more than the aggregated interests of its individual members. That is why a group is capable of being harmed and of being treated unjustly as a group. In the case of groups, as in the case of individuals, we may think of those harms and injustices as violations of rights (cf. Simon 1995, 2001).”

The social category and group ‘women’ would qualify as an object of moral concern. While individual women do not all think alike, have the same experiences or desires, nor does the group itself function like a political party or trade union etc. it is a group which is treated unjustly, offensively and does not flourish well under current circumstances.

One such injustice is that the group’s right to define and maintain its own boundaries is being denied. This is happening by way of transgenderism. For a male to identify as a woman, and for this to be validated, ‘women’ must go through a process of abstraction to change from “adult human females” to something that can include males who desire to identify as women. By imposing a change to the boundaries of the group, by making women an entirely permeable concept, the right of women to determine the character of its collective life is denied. And we know through simple observation that this is an imposition rather than an organic change from within the group: the overwhelming majority of women in the world are not involved in these discussions. What’s more, it is exactly because the group is treated offensively that a definition which in no way serves its interests can be imposed on it.

๏ O you who have believed! Do not go into houses other than your own houses, until you have perceived and inclined in peace towards its folk; that is better for you so that you may remember. But if you do not find anyone therein, do not enter it until permission has been granted to you. And if it is said to you, “Go back,” then go back; it is purer for you. And God is knowing of what you do. ๏ — al-nūr:27–28

◆◆

Tagged: #transgenderism #gender