Home Title Index Topic Index Sources Directory News Releases Sources Calendar

Changing the concept of "woman" will cause unintended harms

Stock, Kathleen
http://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/06/changing-the-concept-of-woman-will-cause-unintended-harms

Publisher:  The Economist
Date Written:  06/07/2018
Year Published:  2018  
Resource Type:  Article

There are more things to consider than some trans activists would have you believe, argues Kathleen Stock.

Abstract: 
-

Excerpt:

If we agree, and also accept that trans women should be categorised as women, then ultimately this leaves us with: anyone who isn't a natal woman, and who sincerely self-declares as a woman, should be counted as a woman. Both Theresa May, Britain's prime minister, and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour party, have apparently enthusiastically taken up this conclusion. They want to change the law to allow gender self-identification via an administrative process of self-certification as the only criterion for legally changing the sex recorded on one's birth certificate. However, I'll now suggest that such a move is not cost-free. In particular, certain harms to original members of the category "woman" should be weighed against any gains.

One problem is that, since "woman" and "female" are interchangeable in many people's minds, we're likely to lose a secure understanding of the related concept "female". (Indeed, some activists advocate stretching this concept to include trans women, too.) Yet the existing concept is in good order. It designates a person with XX chromosomes, and for whom ovaries, womb, vagina and so on are a statistical norm, even if some females are born without some of these, or lose one or more later. That intersex people exist doesn't seriously threaten this category, since most categories have statistical outliers.

Nor does the existence of males born with none of these features, who then take hormones or undergo surgery to gain some such features artificially. Maintaining the concept "female" as it is is crucial to an understanding of a particular kind of lived physical experience, already significantly under-investigated in relation to other medical and academic specialties. To put it bluntly: if we were to lose this concept, and with it the concept "male", we would have to reinvent them.

The category "female" is also important for understanding the particular challenges its members face, as such. These include a heightened vulnerability to rape, sexual assault, voyeurism and exhibitionism; to sexual harassment; to domestic violence; to certain cancers; to anorexia and self-harm; and so on. If self-declared trans women are included in statistics, understanding will be hampered. A male's self-identification into the category of "female" or "women" doesn't automatically bring on susceptibility to these harms; nor does a female's self-identification out of those categories lessen it. In a sexist world which often disadvantages females, as such, we need good data. We need good data about trans people too, of course, but the two tasks should be separated.

Topics
Sources-journalists use the sources website to find you


AlterLinks
c/o Sources


© 2023.