Frankenstein monster is kinda like Trans folks or people

[Belacqua]

I can see that my argument on this thread was not well structured, so I’ll summarize and reiterate it here.

I appreciate the feedback of the substantive posts which were made in reply.

So my initial thesis, which I stand by, is that we know about sexuality through subjective means. This includes both our own sexuality and others’.

Thump very kindly made this point for me when he described how he knew that he is straight. He knew, from a young age, because he JUST KNEW. He didn’t take a blood test at a clinic or undergo any other objective examination. He just knew. This is subjective knowledge. The description he gave is subjective testimony, and we all have no reason to think that he’s lying.

Just as I said, what we know about other people’s sexuality comes through their subjective testimony, and we should believe what they say.

Then he was right to say that it is reasonable for us to assume that the same is true for most people. No one made a decision one day to be gay — they just knew. We have testimony on this from enough people by this time that the intersubjectivity of it is persuasive. This is how it works.

Unfortunately, there may be stubborn people who demand objective proof. So for example if someone said “I was identified male at birth but I’m really a woman,” some terrible MAGA-type person might say, “Oh yeah, prove it. Where is the objective evidence? Show me your chromosomes or shut up.” I don’t think this is reasonable.

There were a few suggestions that there are, or might be in the future, biological methods to determine if a person is really trans. This reminds me of years ago when they started mapping the human genome, and people speculated that they might find a “gay gene.” Of course it didn’t turn out to be so simple. The causes of homosexuality, if it’s even reasonable to speak of causes, turn out to be a very complicated blend of genetics, hormones, environmental factors, etc. I suspect there are cultural factors as well, because if we lived in a society where there was no prejudice against gay people, more people would be comfortable being bisexual. Even the categories we use — homosexual or heterosexual — are fairly recent inventions. Before this people spoke about who puts it in and who gets it put in, but the idea of orientation never came up.

The mix of genetic, etc., factors is complicated enough that even weighing lots of such data in balance is insufficient to say with confidence whether a person will be gay or straight. As hard as scientists try to find objective proof, such findings will always be overridden by the individual’s subjective knowledge of himself. So if a scientist would say “I have measured all the factors and I know you are straight,” a gay person could respond with “no I’m not,” and we would have to accept the gay person’s testimony.

I am grateful to Architect of Fate for agreeing with me that the individual’s sincere testimony is more important than any given test.

Earlier Paleo suggested that if a psychologist wanted to determine someone’s gender she could look at that person’s behavior. I don’t think that such behavioral observation would be definitive. In the bad old days people might have thought that men naturally behave one way and women another, but we no longer accept this. There are no behavioral patterns which are intrinsically, inevitably linked to gender. A psychologist who looked at behavior in this way wouldn’t be determining gender, they would be determining the degree to which the subject conformed to social norms. And as we all know, social norms can change.

So I was grateful that someone posted the drawing (or caricature) of French pre-Revolutionary fashion. The fact that in those days the men wore frills and lace reinforces my argument that such customs are determined by custom and not by nature. We can’t say that only women want to wear frills and lace, so this removes another fake-objective bit of evidence — it’s not reasonable to say that because someone dresses in a certain way that this is proof of gender.

Overall, again, I am in favor of listening to what individuals say about their sexuality and gender, taking them seriously, and not attempting to shoehorn objective tests in where they are not appropriate.

And that’s enough of that.