I'm imagining that someone like, how someone might respond to her, someone like maybe Jay
Prosser, and maybe Henry Rubin, or at least Henry Rubin, not himself. I'm worried about
some people might say, I want to start with the second metaphysical view that she wants
to get rid of. Always, I was born a woman. I was born a man. That idea. I was born as
a woman. She started raising this pragmatic worry from a feminist point of view. I believe
this is sort of a view that is also, say, even on Raymond's line.
And it's like a real view.
And I sort of kind of brought that to your attention
in a way before, which is if you think
that a gender identity is innate, right, somehow
imborn, then it seems to lead to all sorts of awful consequences.
I mean, from a feminist point of view, right?
If gender identity is innate, then, well,
suppose it's part of my identity, right, as a woman
to engage in really stereotypically sexist behavior,
right, sort of like, I faint at the sight of blood,
or, you know, all sorts of really goofy stuff, right?
And that's just like, if you say that this is part of my gender
identity, my gender identity includes all this awful sex
and stuff that accrues to women in society.
And I say this builds into my brain or something, right?
That seems really crummy from, right?
That seems for a feminist who's going to want to say, well,
no, you have people with the cells.
And this cultural stuff gets inculcated.
But to have an identity that just sort of naturally uptakes
that harmful stuff seems really bad, right?
So you guys got that.
OK.
Here's what I imagine someone saying,
which is, well, sex-gender distinction, sex-gender
distinction.
So you have, suppose someone says,
you have like, I don't know, biological natural sex, right?
ID male and female, male and female and species.
And then you have cultural, say, artificial,
and that's really right.
But it's kind of arbitrary, right?
Gender.
So that's the famous distinction rule
you're all familiar with, right?
Now someone says, well, we have gender identity, right?
What do you mean by the gender identity?
Is it picking up on gender, or is it picking up on sex, right?
Because if gender identity is picking up on gender,
and you say that it's natural, that's a problem.
What if you say, well, yeah, maybe it does now,
but that's only because of society,
and because society attaches all this crappy cultural stuff
with sex.
But really what's going on is that maybe even this idea
of a gender identity is a misnomer.
Maybe we should talk about sex-body identity.
And there's sex identity or sex-body.
And now we say that the person always knew
that they were really male, or they always
knew that they were really female.
And if they take up this stereotypical bad stuff,
that's only an artifact of the society we live in now.
But as you can plainly see, if you could, as it were,
strip away all the gender from the sex,
then it wouldn't be as disturbing, or maybe even
at all disturbing, from a feminist perspective,
to say that a person had this kind of identity.
Does that make sense to you?
Now, what would that look like?
By the way, overall, and I agree with her,
and this is relevant to why she goes the way she does,
she also thinks that sex is socially constructed.
So she doesn't think that she thinks
that even though this is sex-gender distinction,
there's a distinction between, as it were,
sex-role and sex-body, that this is both
socially constructed as if it constructed is different.
I agree with that.
I didn't just write about that view, but we're not there yet.
Do you see how the person has just sort of evaded the worry?
The pragmatic worry that she raises
is that you're going to naturalize stereotypical behaviors
by sort of building into a gender identity,
and then saying that gender identity is a name.
So what you do is you go, oh, no, no, no, no.
All the bad stuff is like the cultural stuff.
Let it free flow, fly away, and then you take the sex part,
and you say, that's what is really going on in the case
of, like, say, transsexuality.
Now, let's look at the way that she
tries to combat this, her actual,
metaphysical reasons for rejecting this.
Maybe you can help him with this, Jessica,
for different strategies.
Let's just forget the appeal to an immaterial Cartesian ego.
Forget that.
The only other option she considers
is a brain, a sexed brain.
And because we've defined sex in terms of genitalia
and certain, so forth, roughly, genitalia,
that doesn't seem to make any sense, brain sex.
The only other way to make sense of brain sex
is to say that maybe if we look at norms
that there tends to be a difference in terms of male
brains and female brains, but that didn't seem possible.
And I guess the idea is that the different brains would
yield different behaviors, right?
And what she says from there is that just even the female brains
or the brains that all tend to have the same basic characteristics
still vary so much that there's no way of making one.
I want to see what she was saying is maybe there's
no way of making one prototype.
There's too much of a variety.
Too much of a variety.
So I'm going to propose what I think someone, like,
do possible, or maybe we might say about this.
There's another way of making sense of this idea,
which is in terms of bodily dysphoria,
feeling uncomfortable with one's body as is,
having an internal body image, maybe.
So this is the way that, I'm not sure this is right,
but this is the way that Crosser does it.
And I think it's feeling not the only one.
So an internal body image, or internal body sense of self,
if you will, body map.
And if you had an internal body image that
represented your body on the inside to you as, say, female,
but there was an incongruity between that
and how you peered visually, then you'd
have this, as it were, something like a wrong body,
right?
Because you'd have the internal body image in conflict
with the material body, and in conflict
with the visual representation of it.
You guys with me?
And both Henry Rubin and Jay Crosser
appeal to this phenomenon of having your arm is still
part of your body image.
You still think it's there, even though it's not there.
And also bodily amnesia, which different kinds of that.
So in the way that they want to talk about
is the opposite of phantom limb, where
you don't recognize a part of your body as part of your body.
So you might try to come up with an internal body image that
sort of says, you're not recognizing certain body
parts as belonging to you.
And you're feeling as if other body parts do belong to you.
And this is in conflict with an external visual representation
of you, maybe the material reality of your body.
Maybe this is what we mean by the gender identity,
or at least this phenomenon of a conflict between one
and the other.
Does that make sense to you guys?
You might say this.
I'm not saying this is right.
She don't endorse this view.
But I'm just trying to give her a run for her money
by showing how someone might try to pass this point this way.
And then suppose you said, and maybe this
is like an innate condition, that needs to be justified.
I think that we've been able to respond to that
is by saying that we have already established
that we can't knock everyone down as being delusional,
as this could be.
I could see this as being part of body dysphoria.
Body dysphoria is in the DSM as well as in the DSM
somewhere, along with the other personal identity disorders
and things like that.
But I worry that that may be boardlining on us discounting,
again, as just trying to wrap everybody into a neat little
crazy box.
Yeah.
Right.
So what if we didn't wrap it into a crazy box
and disallow this phenomenon to be and describe it this way?
What I'm saying is we've now got an account that
pits an internal sexed body image
versus external sex body image versus the external image
of the body, and maybe even the material body itself.
So now if someone says to overall, well, then yeah,
actually, the second model does work
because there's an internal image that is not aligned
with the external body.
And so do you see how you have the inside and the outside?
You have sort of like the external body misrepresenting,
but the internal body image?
Richard?
I just see some complexity rising up with transgender
that don't change medically over yet.
They're perfectly fine with, I dress like a woman,
I act like a woman, I am a woman.
I think of myself as a woman.
And it seems you have distinctions
about what you're picking a fight with,
whether you're picking a fight with sex or gender,
because it looks like it would work well with the actual sex,
what you're suggesting.
But not so much in the case of?
Yeah, the gender, it doesn't look like it would pick so much,
because then you're back to some kind of mask, or?
Right, I live as right now.
Does she define sex change in here?
Do you remember just the sex change?
I think she just said it's the surgery.
Yeah, perfect.
So it is surgical?
But you actually think you're right.
That's an important point.
I do think that we need to think about that.
I also think that there's also you want to recognize,
and I hate putting it this way, I hate putting it this way,
in between cases that's wrong, but I'm going to put it that way
for now.
So the assumption is you're going to have the full on,
everything, the whole nine yards or whatever.
But you can have, maybe you can have what you do,
you can, like I know people that do,
have the bodily dysphoria may be different
for different people, with the degree to which it's experienced,
how it's experienced, where it's experienced.
So someone may feel uncomfortable with having breasts,
but may feel OK with a vagina, or what other people call a vagina,
maybe to them it's something else.
So that would still be a case of bodily dysphoria.
Any guys with me in this?
Anyway, so here's my point, though.
One of the reasons as a way in which someone who wanted
to disagree with overall might try to press,
might try to resurrect that second option,
in a way that was more palatable,
and that didn't have the same sexist,
the same sexist upshot.
Carrie?
Couldn't she interpret this into not following
into the second version, but her third version,
just saying this internal body image is kind of the culmination
of this narrative we've been telling ourselves.
It's not the true self.
It's just part of this ongoing narrative
that we tell ourselves.
I think you're right about one thing.
I mean, more than one thing I want to put it that way.
I think you're on to something, so I think.
I think that one of the things that she's been saying is that,
but don't go thinking that this internal body image isn't
culturally mediated through some kind of interpretation.
There's some kind of interpretation.
Even that body image is cultural,
and may involve an active part on the individual sort
of interpreting it that way.
So individual, so this is where she would be talking
about the choice being involved, the kind of narrative
coming down, right?
I think that she would say that, and that's right.
But even if she did, you would still
have this internal sex body image,
even if it was culturally mediated,
and even if the interpretation were partly
active on my part, you would still have this incongruity.
Now, part of the issue that she's going to worry about
is how cultural is this?
How culturally saturated is this?
Is it to what degree is it culturally mediated?
And I think that, and I will try to do this in a bit,
I mean, in the case that it's way culturally mediated.
So I would agree with her on that.
But I want to try to take this where we are now here
and take a stab at worrying about her own position
a little bit.
Even though, in the main, I like a lot of what she says.
I think that what she's onto is sort of right.
But I want to contrast between bodily dysphoria
versus a life-changing aspiration.
Is there really warm in here?
Is it just me undying?
It's actually warm in here.
Maybe there's a difference between bodily dysphoria
and the real life-changing aspiration.
And I think that one can have a life-changing aspiration
based on bodily dysphoria or not.
And this actually gets, Richard, were you,
maybe you were pressing this point, I don't know.
But to bring up this point, let me give you an example, which
is, so she gets the example of the person who
chooses to go to AA or NA.
They have this life-changing aspiration.
Now presumably, they formed that life-changing aspiration
on the basis of the fact that life really sucked for them
when they were addicted to a particular drug.
It was bad.
There's an inherent badness or unpleasantness
or connected to that life for them at that point in time.
And it was on the basis of that that they formed
a life-changing aspiration.
Life-changing aspiration has an end in sight.
Are you with me?
That's got a goal, right?
But the sheer unpleasantness of a drug-addicted life
may not have an end in sight.
It may not be aspirational at all.
In fact, it could be damn hopeless, depending.
But you may not have an aspiration.
Or if you do have an aspiration, it
could be a different kind of aspiration.
It could be an aspiration to get your next hit.
So what aspiration you have writing
on top of the negative sort of experience depends.
Are you with me?
And what I want to suggest is that for some trans people
at any rate, it seems that we might
want to capture the notion of bodily dysphoria.
And that seems like it can be, in some ways,
independent of a life-changing aspiration.
Like, you can feel like not comfortable with parts
of your body, but whether or not you
form a life-changing aspiration or not, may depend.
You may say, well, based on my life,
what I don't really want to change,
I want to do this instead.
I'm going to go with this.
I'm going to just sort of like go this way.
Or you might say, no, I have the aspiration for the surgery.
I mean, you might form an aspiration.
At some point, have an aspiration.
You may just be like caught in the like, oh my god,
I hate my body thing.
Well, there's no aspiration whatsoever.
Does that make sense to you?
I'll get you in.
So anyway, my point is that I would
say that at least in some cases, particularly around issues
of chance folk appealing to availing themselves of surgery,
I think you're going to want a notion of bodily dysphoria.
It's not necessarily assimilatable
into the model of an aspiration.
It seems prior to and motivational with regard
to an aspiration.
And on the face of it, it does seem
to replicate this internal, this versus external thing
that you want to get away from, which
you would get away from if it were just purely
aspirational across the board.
Or you wouldn't think it was just an aspiration
to change sex on par with an aspiration to do something
else, to become a philosopher.
Then there would be no difference.
But if there's something else going on,
and there's something else that's precisely
got this kind of conflict between external and internal,
then even regardless of whether or not
it's narratively filtered, it means
that something has been left out of her account.
It's not why it doesn't quite work for me.
Does that make sense to you guys?
Like I say, I think that the shift
from metaphysical identity to existential identity
is crucial.
And I think that the importance of our values
and the choices we make on the basis of values,
those are important too.
But you can't leave out this part.
I mean, here I'm going to bring it back to my discussion
on morality and sexual effectional orientation.
It's kind of like the same thing.
You can have a life aspiration to marry another woman.
That seems like a life-changing aspiration to me.
However, it may right over top of an erotic effectional
attraction to other women.
And that's not necessarily the same thing I don't think
as an aspiration.
Does that make sense to you guys?
And I'm going to try to, I'm going to actually come on back
and worry about the way in which narrative
is involved in this, this interpretation,
because I don't think that it's easy.
I mean, I think that the way that you think about it
is almost like a kind of narrative activity
where you understand, you consciously understand,
so she talks about understanding something
as a sexual desire.
But you need the narrative or the interpretation
to make sense of it as such.
But I do think that there can exist
sexual effectional attractions prior to and independently
of any kind of conscious interpretation or narrative.
What I mean is I'm imagining someone
who is in the closet to themselves.
It doesn't fit with their sense of self.
And so even though they have these desires,
they're popping up maybe on the periphery.
And they're not quite integrated into their narrative
of themselves.
They don't quite fit the interpretation.
They keep bumping into the interpretation.
And maybe sometimes that person acts on it, or sometimes not,
but constantly pushing it away from the interpretation.
It's not integrated yet.
Does that make sense to you?
Similarly, maybe the case that you
can have bodily dysphoria that is not being taken up
into any kind of narrative you haven't quite understood yet.
It's not part of a conscious self-interpretation,
rather pressed to the periphery.
You're not, now notably, you're not
going to get an aspiration, a life changing aspiration,
unless it's informed by a narrative.
Are you with me?
If I have the aspiration of marrying a woman,
that requires that I understand things in a particular way.
It's part of a larger picture of the world that I have.
It's part of my interpretation.
But if I decide, if I have the aspiration of getting off jobs
of going to NA, that's my aspiration.
That's informed by a conscious picture I have, right?
My point is, it seems to me that bodily dysphoria can exist
independently of any kind of conscious narrative.
And therefore, prior to any kind of consciously taken up
aspiration, does that make sense?
Now, in saying that, in saying that,
I don't also mean to say that, therefore, it's not
culturally mediated or culturally interpreted.
I think that it could be still culturally mediated.
But now it's hard to figure out how exactly it is.
It's not working in kind of like this conscious narrative
kind of way.
It's a bit more, it's a bit harder to figure out.
Even if you, I mean, and I do think that it's still
culturally saturated.
Does that make sense to you guys?
Yeah, Richard?
I want to bring up a couple things with bodily dysphoria,
because you might get into trouble,
because it seems like it might want to stretch to include
people who have bad self-images.
Like, they think of themselves as ugly.
So now you start to absorb people that
have bigger breasts or that want to be skinnier.
So you start absorbing people with real mental health issues.
And then there's, from my own personal view,
being not able to do something and having it in my head
that I should be able to do it, and dysphoria there
with a disabled.
So I mean, there's, you got, yeah.
Yeah, those are really good, I mean,
together those two points are really, I think, important.
So how far do you want this to bleed out?
Or how do you want, I mean, how do you tell the story,
do they depend on how you tell the story of bodily dysphoria?
So Prostrate and Rubin tell it in terms
of phantom and bodily agnosia.
That's not going to bleed out in terms of body
image issues, in the same way.
And actually, probably the way that I'm inclined to tell
the story would probably have a little bit of bleed
in that direction.
But I think that they wouldn't.
I think that they'd be wanting to cash it up this way.
So that's a really good, really good point.
Thank you guys for your time, Miss.
