Don't know anything, offhand, about his "true trans essence", but kind of think he's a bit of a fraud and a grifter. He had asked for feedback for his "I'm Writing Another Book" -- "about the United States’ youth gender medicine debate" -- but didn't even acknowledge my email to him on the topic:
Don't know anything, offhand, about his "true trans essence", but kind of think he's a bit of a fraud and a grifter. He had asked for feedback for his "I'm Writing Another Book" -- "about the United States’ youth gender medicine debate" -- but didn't even acknowledge my email to him on the topic:
Jesse: "I’ve always understood gender to mostly be something that is imposed on you."
Steersman: "Arguably that's something of a serious if common misperception that tends to cause no end of problems. Try thinking that 'gender' refers to or encompasses BOTH personalities AND personality types. The same way that there is, for example, BOTH the personality type 'introvert' AND people who actually are introverted to a greater or lesser extent."
But what really kind of chapped my hide was his dismissal of Jonathan Stewart's more or less coherent endorsement of gender as a spectrum of personality types and behaviours. Though Singal does have some valid criticisms of Stewart who seems to be conflating sex and gender -- lotta that goin' round these days:
Jon Stewart's performance as critiqued by Jesse and Katie in the BAR episode your reference was absolutely deranged. Even if he did mention at some point that gender is a spectrum, and Jesse may have dismissed that the point of that episode was to point out the garbage that Stewart and Oliver were spewing about "gender medicine", how they were openly promoting the lies of the GAC crowd, and how much of a shit show Stewart and Oliver's own research staff, who writes their material, are.
Jesse and Katie's typical modus operandi is dive into crazy and not well reported media reporting, often occurring on the internet, can be. This episode was just that. It just happened to be about two talk show hosts who thought they could lecture their audience about the virtues of GAC, and Jesse and Katie basically took them down.
I DID say that Singal had some valid criticisms. But point taken -- I quite agree that Stewart's (mis)understanding of sex and gender is a large part of the problem.
In particular, Stewart, along with too many others, seems to "think" that "male" and "female" encompass the "behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits" that are typically associated with one sex or the other, and that are more reasonably the defining criteria for the entirely separate category of "gender":
Much of the transgender clusterfuck -- excuse my French -- turns on the conflation of sex and gender, and on a general reluctance to define exactly what is meant by each of those terms. Hence my falling back on the strict biological definitions for the sexes as the only defensible "line in the sand".
But Singal did have a nice summary of that problem in his preliminary review of Byrne's "Trouble With Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions" -- even if that book is rather badly flawed in many ways:
JS: "... but the fact of the matter is that our national conversation about sex and gender and gender identity is completely hamstrung by dumb and incoherent language games. Some of the biggest and most influential players in this space often refuse to even define their terms, let alone use them consistently, or to even try to make clear exactly what they’re arguing when they argue. .... I do think the present, extremely sorry state of philosophy when it comes to sex and gender can be partly explained by the contagious allergy to debate and discussion of difficult subjects that has been contracted by so many thinkers and activists, especially younger ones. "
Sadly, UB is more or less in that same boat of "refusing to define their terms" -- not quite sure how she thinks that workable laws around women's rights can be created without them.
But you might have some interest in a Substack post by "Eliza Mondegreen", in particular my conversation with Hippiesq -- another NYC lawyer, and mother of a dysphoric teenager -- who endorses that same definition for gender, even if we're "quibbling" over the definition for sex itself. Of particular note:
Hippiesq: "Sorry to go on and on, but, like you, I think the definition of 'gender' is a big part of the problem here. .... I guess [gender] could be hundreds of different intersecting spectrums ... One might fall well into the masculine zone of some of these little spectrums, towards the middle for others, and more towards the feminine on others ..."
Don't know anything, offhand, about his "true trans essence", but kind of think he's a bit of a fraud and a grifter. He had asked for feedback for his "I'm Writing Another Book" -- "about the United States’ youth gender medicine debate" -- but didn't even acknowledge my email to him on the topic:
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/im-writing-another-book
And not terribly impressed that he's put many of his posts -- and comments -- behind a paywall, this one in particular, and my comment thereon:
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/the-traditional-liberal-concept-of/comment/20956987
Jesse: "I’ve always understood gender to mostly be something that is imposed on you."
Steersman: "Arguably that's something of a serious if common misperception that tends to cause no end of problems. Try thinking that 'gender' refers to or encompasses BOTH personalities AND personality types. The same way that there is, for example, BOTH the personality type 'introvert' AND people who actually are introverted to a greater or lesser extent."
But what really kind of chapped my hide was his dismissal of Jonathan Stewart's more or less coherent endorsement of gender as a spectrum of personality types and behaviours. Though Singal does have some valid criticisms of Stewart who seems to be conflating sex and gender -- lotta that goin' round these days:
https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-138-jon-stewart-and-john
Jon Stewart's performance as critiqued by Jesse and Katie in the BAR episode your reference was absolutely deranged. Even if he did mention at some point that gender is a spectrum, and Jesse may have dismissed that the point of that episode was to point out the garbage that Stewart and Oliver were spewing about "gender medicine", how they were openly promoting the lies of the GAC crowd, and how much of a shit show Stewart and Oliver's own research staff, who writes their material, are.
Jesse and Katie's typical modus operandi is dive into crazy and not well reported media reporting, often occurring on the internet, can be. This episode was just that. It just happened to be about two talk show hosts who thought they could lecture their audience about the virtues of GAC, and Jesse and Katie basically took them down.
I DID say that Singal had some valid criticisms. But point taken -- I quite agree that Stewart's (mis)understanding of sex and gender is a large part of the problem.
In particular, Stewart, along with too many others, seems to "think" that "male" and "female" encompass the "behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits" that are typically associated with one sex or the other, and that are more reasonably the defining criteria for the entirely separate category of "gender":
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender#usage-1
Much of the transgender clusterfuck -- excuse my French -- turns on the conflation of sex and gender, and on a general reluctance to define exactly what is meant by each of those terms. Hence my falling back on the strict biological definitions for the sexes as the only defensible "line in the sand".
But Singal did have a nice summary of that problem in his preliminary review of Byrne's "Trouble With Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions" -- even if that book is rather badly flawed in many ways:
JS: "... but the fact of the matter is that our national conversation about sex and gender and gender identity is completely hamstrung by dumb and incoherent language games. Some of the biggest and most influential players in this space often refuse to even define their terms, let alone use them consistently, or to even try to make clear exactly what they’re arguing when they argue. .... I do think the present, extremely sorry state of philosophy when it comes to sex and gender can be partly explained by the contagious allergy to debate and discussion of difficult subjects that has been contracted by so many thinkers and activists, especially younger ones. "
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/win-a-copy-of-trouble-with-gender
Sadly, UB is more or less in that same boat of "refusing to define their terms" -- not quite sure how she thinks that workable laws around women's rights can be created without them.
But you might have some interest in a Substack post by "Eliza Mondegreen", in particular my conversation with Hippiesq -- another NYC lawyer, and mother of a dysphoric teenager -- who endorses that same definition for gender, even if we're "quibbling" over the definition for sex itself. Of particular note:
Hippiesq: "Sorry to go on and on, but, like you, I think the definition of 'gender' is a big part of the problem here. .... I guess [gender] could be hundreds of different intersecting spectrums ... One might fall well into the masculine zone of some of these little spectrums, towards the middle for others, and more towards the feminine on others ..."
https://elizamondegreen.substack.com/p/lies-darn-lies-and-journalism-with/comment/63147198
If we can't agree on what words mean then we haven't a hope in hell of resolving issues that turn on them.