The transgender controversy: second response to Pilgrim

Abstract

David Pilgrim is, in his words, 'not at all hostile' to transgender people. Nevertheless, in my opinion, his position allows him to provide a veneer of philosophical acceptability to transphobic arguments: such as that, if a person can choose their gender, they should be able to choose their age. In stripping away the veneer, I demonstrate that Bhaskar's (not Pilgrim's) version of the transitive and intransitive dimensions resolves the supposed conundrum. I also take issue with the idea that sex is biological and gender is a social construct, i.e. that there is a duality between object (body, sex) and subject (mind, gender). I argue that this duality does more harm than good in the fight for equality since it gives philosophical resources to those who would bully LGBTIQ, allowing them to blame their victims. I use my understanding of gender to arrive at a compassionate resolution of the restroom debate, in which everyone's wellbeing is considered. I also warn that the debate may have been commandeered by men to achieve a transphobic agenda and that all women (trans and cis) are likely to pay a high price because of it. Furthermore, an unexpected result of my analysis is that Judith Butler's position is, in significant ways and contrary to the opinion of some critical realists, similar to the Bhaskarian critical realist position.

Introduction to the special issue: normativity

“…Admittedly, this misunderstanding of Bhaskar's approach, that it allows 'nature' to be used to justify prejudice, works the other way; for instance, transphobic people may be disappointed to discover that Bhaskar's ethical naturalism will not necessarily justify their idea that transgender people are suffering from an 'ill'. A relevant debate can be found between Pilgrim (2018aPilgrim ( , 2018b and Summersell (2018aSummersell ( , 2018b.…”