[pjc50]

How are the interlocutors selected?

The "gender critical" discussion, for example, contains Helen Pluckrose, one of the originators of the "grievance studies" paper, and Kathleen Stock, who got fired from being a philosophy professor for being anti-trans. Both of them take the anti-trans position.

[mst]

If you consider Helen Pluckrose to be anti-trans, I worry that means you haven't actually read any of her writing on trans people, and rather only heard her opinions filtered through her very vocal and vitriolic critics from the critical theory swathe of twitter - and I certainly doubt you've seen the vast amount of vitriol thrown at her on a regular basis by gender crits either.

I'm not going to link any of the vitriol because it's mindless and horrible, but she gets called "a traitor to women" and told she wants her daughter to be raped on a fairly regular basis by such people.

To understand Helen's actual position, I recommend people read this:

https://areomagazine.com/2017/09/27/an-argument-for-a-libera...

It's somewhat long and somewhat nuanced, which means most extreme activists at both ends of the argument hate it, but I'd claim that it is, overall, very much more pro-trans than otherwise and the majority of trans people I'm aware of who've read it came away with the same impression.

[damnyou]

That's a shockingly ignorant article, particularly when it comes to nonbinary people — it even uses "transtrenders" to try and separate the good, gender-conforming trans people from those icky blue-haired weirdos.

Thank you for confirming that Pluckrose is in fact deeply transphobic. If you think that is "nuanced" you are seriously mistaken. Consider re-evaluating your priors, in SSC speak.

[mst]

The complete failure to understand enbies is, indeed, unfortunate.

I stand by my estimate that it gets a lot more right than it gets wrong, however.

My priors are based on conversations with a bunch of trans people; a mere assertion of "shocking ignorance" and "transphobia" largely leaves me thinking that you're so certain of your correctness you don't believe arguments need to even be made, which is not a position I can really rebut.

However, I shared the article, unfortunate parts and all, such that people can draw their own conclusions, and I'd continue to invite people to read and decide for themselves.

[damnyou]

It is not just "unfortunate", it betrays their actual views, which is that we should be ready to sacrifice people's lives on the altar of patriarchal gender norms.

A lot of the more polite bigots will be comfortable making concessions to the trans people who conform to patriarchal roles (and hey, good on Pluckrose for being slightly less bad than charlatans like Stock) but will have knives out for anyone whose existence challenges them. This is a problem.

The only way to true gender liberation is through abolishing the patriarchy.

[mst]

> It is not just "unfortunate", it betrays their actual views, which is that we should be ready to sacrifice people's lives on the altar of patriarchal gender norms.

Helen is hardly gender role essentialist and in fact quite substantially non-conforming to many female gender norms and visibly proud to be her.

To assume that her failure (as of the time of writing, at least) to comprehend non-binary identities "betrays" anything except a lack of comprehension is ... unfounded, at best.

[damnyou]

The entire idea of "transtrenders" is a made up one designed to perpetuate oppressive gender roles and work against solidarity within the trans community. The fact that she takes it seriously is pretty goddamn founded, as far as evidence goes.

[Veen]

This comment would appear to be a paradigmatic example of non-nuanced. Neither of those people is anti-trans except according to a narrowly doctrinaire definition. Pluckrose is a left-liberal who writes against critical theory and identity politics from a universalist liberal perspective. She has repeatedly written in defense of trans and gay rights, although she does not believe that "trans women can be accepted straightforwardly as women in every situation". Stock is a feminist philosopher who regards gender self-identity as potentially harmful to the interests of women. Both of these are reasonable and nuanced positions that can't be adequately summarized as "anti-trans" whether or not you agree with them.

[newacct583]

> Neither of those people is anti-trans except according to a narrowly doctrinaire definition.

They certainly aren't "pro" trans either, though. The point wasn't whether or not they were extremists, it's whether they were representative speakers for ALL the relevant perspectives. And they clearly aren't.

[damnyou]

Kathleen Stock is an intellectual fraud whose proposed public policies are straight up fascist: https://twitter.com/LisaTMullin/status/1116865382776590336

How seriously this crowd takes her says a lot about its own values and methods.

edit: as a parody of the sort of meta-level discussion that is more concerned with intellectually bogus, self-absorbed notions of "truth" and "nuance" than the lives of actual human beings, the response is peerless. Well done!

[Veen]

As a parody of the type of nuance-free ideologically driven commentary under discussion, this is peerless. You managed to efficiently cram accusations of fraud and fascism alongside guilt by association and misrepresentation in very few words. Well done!

Edit: it’s a shame you decided to edit your post after I responded. The new version is not quite as successful.

[mst]

I considered saying something similar but everything I've read of Ms. Stock's work is also close to unparodyable so it would've felt a little unfair.

[DayneRathbone]

Letter is open and free for anyone to use, and writers typically choose their own interlocutors.