{"id":1369,"date":"2022-02-07T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T10:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/?p=1369"},"modified":"2022-02-05T07:09:55","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T07:09:55","slug":"on-choosing-reality-how-public-discussions-of-gender-recognition-go-wrong-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-part-1-arguing-about-what-gender-really-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/on-choosing-reality-how-public-discussions-of-gender-recognition-go-wrong-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-part-1-arguing-about-what-gender-really-is\/","title":{"rendered":"On \u201cChoosing Reality\u201d: How Public Discussions of Gender Recognition Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It: Part 1 Arguing About What Gender Really Is"},"content":{"rendered":"

Content advice: transphobia. <\/em><\/p>\n

On 10th<\/sup> October 2018, a full page-advert ran in the Metro, London\u2019s free commuter newspaper. The topic of the advert was an imminently closing government consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the legislation governing changes of legal gender for trans people in England and Wales. The government was considering adopting a simplified system in which trans people would be able to change the gender on their birth certificate by means of a statutory declaration alone, in contrast to the existing process which was expensive, bureaucratic, and inaccessible to many trans people. This proposal was strongly supported by trans rights campaigners and LGBT charities.<\/p>\n

The advert was run by a group called \u2018Fair Play For Women\u2019, and aimed to encourage people to respond to the consultation with a negative assessment of the proposal, on the grounds that the reform would be bad for women and girls. The advert posed questions such as, \u2018Do you think fully intact, male-bodied prisoners should be allowed to live with women in prison?\u2019, and, \u2018Do you think someone with a penis is a woman?\u2019. Most of the page was taken up with large text reading: \u2018Think about it. #ChooseReality\u2019.<\/p>\n

The advert, with its alarmist tone and prurient focus on trans women\u2019s bodies, was entirely in keeping with much of the anti-reform discourse around the consultation. What happened next, though, was very interesting.<\/p>\n

The clear implication of the slogan \u2018choose reality\u2019 in the context of the advert was that trans women (or at least those trans women who have not had genital surgery) are not really women, and that for this reason they ought not to be treated as women socially and politically.<\/p>\n

However, the hashtag was quickly picked up on social media by people in favour<\/em> of reform who turned it on its head to argue that trans people were indeed \u2018choosing reality\u2019 by choosing to live in accordance with their gender identity \u2013 something that the proposed legislation would make much easier. One tweet stated, \u2018When a person transitions and becomes their authentic self rather than live a lie that is them deciding to #choosereality.\u2019 Another tweet read, \u2018#ChooseReality and choose to fight for women\u2019s rights, because trans women #really are women and trans women\u2019s rights #really are women\u2019s rights\u2019.<\/p>\n

This pushback highlights something very important, which is that arguments like this rest on a distorted picture of the realities of trans people\u2019s lives. In this sense, it provides an incisive critique of the claims made in the advert.<\/p>\n

However, it is noticeable that this way of pushing back at the advert does not challenge an assumption that the slogan \u2018Choose Reality\u2019 implicitly rests upon, which is that the dispute about gender recognition should be settled by establishing what gender really is.<\/em> On this way of thinking, if trans women are \u201creally men\u201d, they should be treated as men, and if they are \u201creally women\u201d, they should be treated as women.<\/p>\n

This is the approach to settling disagreements about gender recognition that I am going to focus on in this series of blog posts. I will call it the \u2018Ontology-First Approach\u2019, since it puts ontological questions (which is to say, questions about what exists) ahead of questions about how we should arrange our social practices.<\/p>\n

What is more, it does this in a way that assumes that our answers to the first set of questions will determine our answers to the second: if we know what gender really is, <\/em>the thought goes, we will also automatically know how to respond to people on the basis of gender in our social lives.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noticing that the social practices in question here go well beyond the legislation of the Gender Recognition Act: the advert mentions sports, changing rooms, and domestic violence refuges, none of which would have been affected by the proposed reforms<\/a>. So in the sense I have in mind, \u2018gender recognition\u2019 is not just about legislation, but is about all of the provisions, formal and informal, for how people should be able to navigate gendered social spaces (like toilets) and take part in gendered social activities (like sports).<\/p>\n

I think the Ontology First Approach is quite common in public discussions of gender recognition. Here is another example. In 2017 the broadcaster Jenni Murray, then presenter of BBC Radio 4 show Woman\u2019s Hour, <\/em>wrote a widely discussed opinion piece that was published in The Sunday Times<\/em>. The piece was headlined \u2018Be trans, be proud \u2013 but don\u2019t call yourself a \u201creal woman\u201d\u2019, and the subheading read: \u2018Can someone who has lived as a man, with all the privilege that entails, really lay claim to womanhood? It takes more than a sex change and make-up\u2019.<\/p>\n

Murray wrote:<\/p>\n

[M]y concern, which I know is shared by numerous women who are now to be known as \u201ccis\u201d (short for \u201ccisgender\u201d \u2014 natural-born women, in the language that\u2019s more familiar to most of us), is for the impact this question of what constitutes \u201ca real woman\u201d will have on sexual politics. And for who has the right to be included in gatherings or organisations that are defined as single sex. (Murray 2017)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here, Murray presents a question \u2013 \u2018what constitutes \u201ca real woman\u201d\u2019? \u2013 and the structure of her remarks imply that the way in which this question is settled will have impacts on people\u2019s rights concerning the organisation of gendered social spaces (\u2018gatherings and organisations\u2019). Thus, establishing what makes someone \u201ca real woman\u201d is treated as prior to <\/em>and as determining <\/em>questions of gender recognition.<\/p>\n

As with the Fair Play for Women advert, some of the most prominent pushback against Murray\u2019s piece focused on challenging the claim that trans women are not \u201creal women\u201d whilst appearing to grant that settling this question is important in the ways Murray presents it as being. For example, Rachel Stein, campaigns director of Stonewall, wrote a blog post titled \u2018Trans Women Are Women\u2019 in which she responded to Murray:<\/p>\n

Trans women have every right to have their identity and experiences respected, too. They are women \u2013 just like you and me \u2013 and their sense of their gender is as engrained in their identity as yours or mine. (Stein 2017).<\/p>\n

I take the Ontology-First Approach to be widely held by participants in discussions about gender recognition, including<\/em> by those who support trans-inclusive social practices, as we have seen in both of these examples. I think, however, that this approach is unjustified, and in the next post, I\u2019ll make the case for rejecting it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Content advice: transphobia. On 10th October 2018, a full page-advert ran in the Metro, London\u2019s free commuter newspaper. The topic of the advert was an imminently closing government consultation on […]","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":1372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The first post by Katharine Jenkins 'On \u201cChoosing Reality\u201d: How Public Discussions of Gender Recognition Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It: Part 1 Arguing About What Gender Really Is' an exciting new series on Open for Debate","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[327,124,264],"custom_author":[328],"class_list":["post-1369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-for-debate","tag-gender","tag-justice","tag-transgender","custom_author-jenkins-katherine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KPlM-m5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1386,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/on-choosing-reality-how-public-discussions-of-gender-recognition-go-wrong-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-part-3-beyond-the-ontology-first-approach\/","url_meta":{"origin":1369,"position":0},"title":"On \u201cChoosing Reality\u201d: How Public Discussions of Gender Recognition Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It Part 3. Beyond the Ontology-First Approach","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"March 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Content advice: transphobia. In the previous post, I argued that we should reject the Ontology-First Approach, which is the view that questions about gender recognition should be settled by first establishing what gender really is. This raises the question of how we should approach discussions of gender recognition. In this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/is-jk-rowling-transphobic\/","url_meta":{"origin":1369,"position":1},"title":"Is JK Rowling transphobic?","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Is JK Rowling transphobic? According to many transgender activists and their supporters, including Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Eddie Redmayne she is. The LGBTQ+ organisation GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has said that the author \u201ccontinues to align herself with an ideology which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/BWTrans_Women_are_Real_Women_39819062561-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1051,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/ii-bodily-threats\/","url_meta":{"origin":1369,"position":2},"title":"II: Bodily threats","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"It is the bodily difference between males and females that explains most of the other differences in the roles of men and women in any given society\u2014both in Homeric society and in ours. The social and ceremonial differences in their roles are ritualisations and \u2019containments\u2019 of the difference and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/SGCski54400042_2197279517254787_2521261440451477504_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/SGCski54400042_2197279517254787_2521261440451477504_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/SGCski54400042_2197279517254787_2521261440451477504_n.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/SGCski54400042_2197279517254787_2521261440451477504_n.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1060,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/iii-be-kind\/","url_meta":{"origin":1369,"position":3},"title":"III: Be kind","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I think there\u2019s something rude and unkind, or can be depending on the pragmatics, in the assertion that you often hear, that \u201cTrans women are men really.\u201d It\u2019s rude and unkind in the way that it\u2019s rude and unkind to say \u201cAn adoptive parent isn\u2019t a parent really\u201d\u2014or even more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2020\/11\/sophie-grace-climbingBW-22528212_1862011984114877_2700895398703663270_n.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1376,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/on-choosing-reality-how-public-discussions-of-gender-recognition-go-wrong-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-part-2-rejecting-the-ontology-first-approach\/","url_meta":{"origin":1369,"position":4},"title":"On \u201cChoosing Reality\u201d: How Public Discussions of Gender Recognition Go Wrong, and What We Can Do About It: Part 2 Rejecting the Ontology-First Approach","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"February 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Content advice: transphobia. In the last blog post, I identified what I call the \u2018Ontology-First Approach\u2019 to gender recognition. This approach says that disagreements about gender recognition should be settled by establishing how gender really exists \u2013 its ontology \u2013 as this determines how people should be able to navigate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2047,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/confessions-intersectionality-and-personal-pronouns\/","url_meta":{"origin":1369,"position":5},"title":"Confessions, intersectionality and personal pronouns","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"June 24, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"In the past decade or so, great achievements have been made in the emancipation of genderqueer persons. Not only has there been increased visibility of these individuals in politics and media, but more and more often, practices are instated that aim to include, respect and do justice to genderqueer individuals\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Open for Debate"","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2024\/06\/OpenForDebate_Talbi-_Molteni_Giuseppe_La_confessione_BW.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/02\/Gender-Recognition-Act-715x431-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1369"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1375,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1369\/revisions\/1375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1369"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=1369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}