Simon Paynton

Maybe it’s me who’s confused.  I can’t tell the difference.  In any case, the biologist Frans de Waal would say they’re wrong to reject the sex binary.

I was going on Frans de Waal’s conclusion after writing “Different: what apes can teach us about gender”.  He says “sex is approximately binary”.

I read the article.  I found it a bit confused.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Biological Science rejects the Sex Binary, and that’s good for humanity.

Surely biological science supports the Sex Binary, but psychological and social sciences reject the Gender Binary.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Is moral expertise possible?

This is an interesting and well-informed article.  I learned a few things and don’t find much to disagree with, except the idea that morality is there “for the good of the group”: it originated as “for the good of the individual”, otherwise it couldn’t have evolved.  It seems plausible t…[Read more]

Autumn wrote:

In nearly every case the clash with women’s rights is much like the way abolition, desegregation, and racial equality clashed with white rights or the way women’s suffrage and the right to work clashed with men’s rights.

Is that not a false analogy?  Because women aren’t the oppressors of trans people: society in general is.

I think maybe there are two kinds of “trans rights” in the world, in that some are asserting the right to be who you are every day; and some are extreme (i.e., unlikely) border conditions that could clash with women’s rights.

OK then, not necessarily more help, but different help.  The point is that people’s needs are respected equally.

Autumn wrote:

Not really, no.

What then?

Autumn wrote:

What does that mean?

Like I said (above), there are a number of different varieties of fairness, all based on the idea of equality.  This one specifies equal respect for people’s needs, so that the greater the need, the greater the help, in order to make opportunities equal.