Reply to Earp Part 2
In my last post I wrote about why Brian Earp, in his YouTube (‘What is (Your) Gender?), was wrong to conflate the clitoris and penis.
In this post, I’ll point to a few other areas in Brian’s video where I think he has over-simplified things, and in doing so, has mis-characterized what is being debated and what is at stake. I hope that doing so assists the search to identify candidates for ‘lower level facts’ (as Earp calls them) over which there is common agreement, and upon which a fruitful discussion might be able to be based. This is because I agree with Brian that starting from this common ground would be a promising way to try to make progress in this debate, which is very much needed.
In a key part of Brian's video, he provides us with a fictional example of a conversation that he might get into at a bar when he's out on the town. A significant part of Brian's argument turns on how successful he thinks this conversation is in avoiding contentious questions about sex and gender. He thinks that through this hypothetical conversation he demonstrates that he and this person are able to successfully navigate a common social interaction without actually directly asking the question 'what is your sex' or 'what is your gender'?
I don't actually think the conversation is successful, however, for the following four reasons.
1. Simply asking someone “are you capable of engaging in penile-vaginal intercourse” tells us absolutely nothing of interest
Brian says that a potential sexual partner at a bar might ask him the question “are you capable of engaging in penile-vaginal intercourse?” Brian's answer is “yes”, because under the right conditions he says that he would indeed be capable of this activity. But does this question and answer give us any meaningful information about Brian? No, it doesn’t. I too can engage in penile-vaginal intercourse, but this statement alone leaves you none the wiser as to the genitalia I possess (or that Brian possesses). For all Brian’s imaginary interlocutor knows, Brian might be a trans man with a vagina, who could engage in penile-vaginal sex with a person who has a penis. Everyone who has some form of penis or vagina (which is almost every human) has the capability to engage in penile-vaginal intercourse. Saying they have this capability doesn’t tell us which genitals they have, nor what they like to do with them and with which other type/s of genitals, which are important questions for many people when assessing their potential sexual compatibility with another person.
For instance, let’s say this imaginary interlocuter is a non-trans male person and is looking for a sexual hook-up that evening in the bar. Furthermore, let’s say this person is exclusively into having sex with people with penises regardless of their gender or gender expression (e.g. he is opening to having sex with other male persons, as well as AMAB non-binary persons and trans women who have penises). What a person in this situation therefore wants to know is, firstly, what type of genitals Brian has, and second, what type/s of genitals Brian himself is into engaging with sexually (i.e., in short, whether Brian is a potential for a hook up, or whether Brian is just at this gay bar with one of his gay mates).
It was once very easy to signal to potential partners what external genitalia you have (which we for the most part generally accurately read off each other) and that you are sexually orientated to in sexual partners, or that you are simply looking for in terms of a sexual experience that evening. If you were male and were looking for sex with other male persons who enjoyed sex with male persons too, then you went to certain clubs rather than others, and, unlike in our predominantly heterosexual world, you could safely assume that the other male persons present were also interested in sleeping with male persons (this is partly why these places are called ‘safe spaces’). Or you told female persons who hit on you “sorry, I’m gay”, meaning same-sex attracted. Those social signals are now breaking down because our language around sexuality has not changed despite the increasing diversity of bodies that have emerged with technological advances, as well as the move amongst establishment LGBTQ organisations to re-cast sexualities as 'same gender’ sexualities rather than 'same sex’ sexualities.
But we need not be so squeamish about talking about genitals! You will generally find on LGBTIQ dating apps, for example, trans-women informing potential sexual partners that they have had ‘bottom surgery’ or that they have a penis; you will find non-binary persons who describe themselves as ‘AFABs’ looking for other AFABs, etc. And most trans persons tend to say they are trans in their dating profiles and are happy to have those discussions rather than risk awkward situations for both persons at some later stage if the person is same-sex (i.e., monosexual but possibly attracted to multiple genders) rather than same-gender attracted (and attracted to people of multiple sexes or with various configurations of primary and secondary sex characteristics).
So the question Brian suggested here needs to be revised to get at the information relevant in conversations between potential sexual partners (and importantly, possibly for there to be full consent to sexual engagement). Questions about genitals and bodies need not be awkward and can be done sensitively. It's strange that there seems to be a push now to return to our societies previous prudish ways when we avoided any open talk about bodies and the sort of bodily (including genital) configurations we do and don't enjoy in bed.
2. Questions that invoke stereotypes also tell us nothing at all about a person’s sex or gender
Another question that Brian suggests would be asking a person a question relevant to their ‘gender’ without asking about it directly is whether they are:
“...intuitively and irrestably drawn towards, and resonate with, ways of behaving, dressing, interacting with others, engaging with cultural artefacts and so forth that are stereotypically and characteristically 'feminized' or seen to be feminine in nature (or masculine) in that culture”
Before I look at what feminists of all stripes (including many trans people) would object to with such a question, the notion of there being ‘a’ culture needs to be problematized. Whilst Brian notes at the beginning that by his culture he means 'the United States in 2020', it’s not clear to me that what is stereotypically and characteristically masculine or feminine is the same in all areas of the United States. What is coded feminine or masculine can differ depending on one’s family, one’s community, one’s socio-economic class, what generation you’re from, whether you live in an urban or rural area, etc. To give just one example, getting one’s hands dirty, or using tools might be coded ‘masculine’ in many urban environments, but in rural areas where it’s common for girls who grow up on farms to do jobs around the farm alongside their brothers, these tasks and what they result in (muddy clothes, dirty hands), won’t be coded masculine in that community or geographic area, or at least as strongly as it is in many urban areas.
More importantly though, I would never ask someone this precise question and assume that it told me anything at all about their ‘gender identity’ (their 'gender'). All this question seems to do is use and entrench stereotypes instead of uncoupling them from bodies. I know many gender non-conforming trans-women who are in no way drawn to any of the stereotypes associated with ‘women’. I know several straight male persons who identify as men who are though! I don’t think this question is helpful – I would prefer just to ask about that person’s interests, and not assume that it tells me anything about their bodily features or their psychology. This is similar for the questions Brian encourages us to ask about each other’s childhoods. Whilst we may be able to plot the degree to which a person was ‘gender non-conforming’ or 'gender variant' in their childhood, we should be wary about using that as a heuristic that tells us anything at all about a person’s gender identity.
3. One’s pronouns don't necessarily tell us about a person’s gender identity either
The pronoun/s one requests others to use is, as Brian notes, a significant indication of a person’s gender identity. But it need not be. Firstly, some people may not possess a gender identity. Although its quite a standard assertion from trans groups that “everyone has a gender identity”, it's not clear to me that they do. What empirical evidence do we have to support this assertion? I don't think we currently have any. Furthermore, it's not clear to me that simply knowing a material and empirical fact about yourself (that you are fe/male, or intersex) can be equivocated with positive possession of a psychological state about a 'gender identity'. Here are two reasons why. Firstly, I know with a high degree of confidence that I am one of the two main sexes; but I have never possessed the gender identity said to 'align' with that sex. I have always felt a sense of incongruence, albeit mostly likely a weaker one that trans persons who decide to transition. This incongruenced distressed me when I was younger but it no longer does. Second, given that Sophie Grace-Chappell has fathered four children, it's beyond reasonable doubt that Sophie Grace Chappell is a male person (or at least was a male person at the time she fathered children and still is unless she's materially invened on her biology in a way that would render her no longer male). But Sophie Grace Chappell asserts she has the gender identity 'woman' (and I believe her testimony). So here are two examples of sex and gender/gender identity coming apart.
Secondly, and following on from the above example, my pronoun does not reflect my gender identity, partly because I feel that it's a private matter that I don't wish to draw attention to or reveal to those i'm not intimate with (similar to my sexuality, which i also don't advertise through a pronoun or marker on my identity documents). I allow others to attribute my ‘sex’ to me, which is something I can't hide, and feel no need to hide (though I understand why others may). Humans attribute sex to others with a very high degree of accuracy and have done so since the dawn of time, I'd say. It's racist to suggest that sex was a 'Western invention' and that no other culture engaged in sexing others within their societies before colonialism. Similar understandings and uses of 'sex' have been widespread geographically and temporally. Many other [cultures] (https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/) recognise more than two genders, but as one will notice if they give these cultures due attention, sex is generally still acknowledged alongside gender, and genders are often still sorted by sex. For example, the Bugi people of indonesia recognise five genders, among them calabai, who are males who embody a feminine gender identity, and calalai, who are females who embody a male gender identity. You can not be calabai if you are female.
4. Who is a recipient of male privilege or female disadvantage is unclear and therefore, not much help, when it comes to questions of ‘gender’
Brian then says that another question that could be asked to understand someone's gender is: are you a recipient of 'male privilege' or 'female disadvantage'? I think this question is very interesting since it is one that is in hot dispute in the debate. Whilst gender critical feminists often seem to cast their charges of male privilege too wide or too deep, trans activists often seem unable to admit that some people who identify as trans-women absolutely do receive and have access to privileges vis-a-vis female persons and other trans-women in some contexts. For example, Sophie Grace Chappell, who is a trans philosopher in the UK, admitted at a philosophy workshop in Manchester in May 2019 that when she arrived into Manchester by train late the previous night, that she transitioned back to 'being a man' to walk from the station to her hotel so as to make the journey safer. Of course, I support Sophie doing what she needs to do to keep herself safe. But what needs to be acknowledge is this: because Sophie does not materially intervene on her body, she is easily able to move in and out of being perceived in different ways – notably, as either a man or a trans woman (as Sophie doesn’t ‘pass’ as a female person, she’s read as a male person still, even if she’s read as a 'trans woman' rather than a 'man' – that she doesn't pass is one of the reasons why it would be unsafe for her to walk to the hotel as such, and perhaps more unsafe that it is for women). Transitioning back and forth, however, is not something that female philosophers and many of trans-women in the discipline have the ability to do. That they cannot reduce their risk of attack in this way is a type of disadvantage relative to those who can. Whilst Sophie is potentially in greater danger than a female person (who is read as such) when she's obviously a trans woman, she's in less danger than female persons when she transitions back and is read as a man.
And what about non-binary male persons in philosophy? Do they have male privilege? Those I’m aware of are often no different, on the outside, from other male persons in philosophy (and that’s totally ok of course – you don’t need to take hormones or dress in a particular way to count as a member of the gender group ‘non-binary’). I also know male philosophers, both gay and straight, who are much more ‘feminine’ than many of the AMAB philosophers using ‘they/them’ pronouns. From my observations within the queer community, it’s quite common for non-binary males to deny and neglect their male privilege. So say they answer Brian’s question: “no, I’m not the recipient of male privilege”. Are they correct? How would a non-binary male person even know, in many cases, or judge this accurately? For example, perhaps they were in fact hired over a female person because the department had had lots of female staff have children recently and the panel were sub-consciously looking for someone who was very unlikely to have this capacity. The non-binary AMAB philosopher wouldn’t know that when they successfully landed that tenure track position. Sometimes (many times) we not in the best place to evaluate the privileges and disadvantages working upon us.
What should a stone butch female person who passes as male provide as an answer to Brian’s question? Perhaps she is the recipient of male privilege in some contexts. For instance, perhaps she’s at less risk of attack on the way from the train station to a hotel at night because she’s ‘clocked’ as male rather than female. But in other contexts she’s surely not a recipient of male privilege – for instance when people yell “dyke” at her across the street, or when she's not hired for a customer-facing position due to prejudice about how female persons 'should' look. The same can probably be said for gay men and feminine male persons – sometimes they will be the recipients of male privilege, sometimes they won't be (and although they're probably subject to other types of poor treatment or disadvantage, it won't be 'female disadvantage'). Whether or not you’re the recipient of male privilege is generally not an ‘all or nothing’ or nothing thing – it’s something you have more or less of if you’re a male person, or pass as a male person in society. Similarly, despite many trans men passing as male people, it’s not clear how they fare over the course of their lifetimes, especially if they give birth at some stage, since this fact is one of the most powerful explanatory features causing the ‘gender pay gap’.
It remains to be seen as to whether trans women or trans men, or non-binary AMABs or AFABs, are more or less disadvantaged in comparison to each other, and in comparison to non-trans males and females, with respect to different social outcomes.
The bottom line is: the search for the 'lower level facts' all can agree on continues....