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7/24/2015 11:40 pm  #1


Metaphysics of Transsexualism

Transsexualism seems to be coming to increasing public attention.  

I'm interested in what sort of metaphysical account one might try to use to either defend or discredit the concept.  What is transsexualism?  Popular phrases are "a woman trapped in a man's body" or a "man tripped in a woman's body" (I'll just mention MtF transsexualism for short).   Is there anything to this account?  Are souls gendered (or sexed) as well as bodies?  Can a person have a female soul but a male body?  (we do know that in a fallen world, accidents happen).   Is transsexualism compatable with a hylomorphic account, that is, if the psychē just is the form of the body, is it possible that has actualized the body as the wrong sex?

I'm sure that at least SOME cases of gender dysphoria are pathological, but are they all? 

Can there really be such a thing 'as a woman trapped in a man's body'?  

Neil Gaimon somewhere in Sandman has a story about a MtF transgendered woman named Wanda, who is portrayed in rather saintly way, whom we see after her death as (finally) with a female body (albeit a spiritual one of some sort).  Is there any possible case to be made out that transsexualism is a real phenomenon, and that Christians could plausibly hold that those who are truly and not pathologically gender dysphoric might (say) be given spiritual bodies of the opposite sex they had before, at the Resurrection?
 

Last edited by Jason Grey (7/24/2015 11:44 pm)


to gar auto noēin estin te kai einai
 

7/24/2015 11:55 pm  #2


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

I think that most cases of transsexualism you are simply  dealing with an assertion of the will over the body. Most of our modern identity movements are desperate flailing attempts to deal with the sense of alienation in society, and that for some people this comes to be interpreted as a problem primarily with their gender role is not surprising. Our expectations for gender based behavior are poorly articulated in the mass media and amongst ourselves and are not satisfying as superficially presented to many people. A "sensitive man" is not a man, or at least has no good place for himself that everyone immediately understands, and should you find no place for yourself it does seem to be reasonable in a certain way to conclude that you in fact are not a man and that your body has trapped you in a situation of isolation. The problem is more complicated than that, but that solution is something within your own sphere of control.

Thus, in the bulk of cases, I don't understand you to be dealing with anything metaphysically problematic.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/24/2015 11:57 pm)


Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
 

7/25/2015 12:14 am  #3


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

iwpoe wrote:

Thus, in the bulk of cases, I don't understand you to be dealing with anything metaphysically problematic.

Yes, I'm aware that the peculiar metaphysics of modernity dictate both that my autonomous will can simply "identify" as a woman, and I will be one, my "existence creating my essence" or "constructing my own reality", and that my body is my property, to autonomously do with as I please, to such an extent that if it were biologically possible for me to conceive a child in my body, I would be a have a moral right to have it killed.

And I'm also aware that some people have a pathological kind of gender dysphoria that should be treated as a sickness.

But you got my question backwards. I don't care about the bulk of cases (if your account does apply to the bulk of them).  I am interested in the ones that ARE metaphysically problematic, IF ANY ARE.  



 

Last edited by Jason Grey (7/25/2015 12:18 am)


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7/25/2015 12:25 am  #4


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

Well, we could start with the most obvious case that's a good candidate for a metaphysical gender problem: the medical hermaphrodite. I'm not exactly sure what to do with people who have a problem down to the point of a chromosomal abnormality that results in mixed expression of genitals and sexual characteristics.

Even if they are some kind of deformation of human nature they still would have some kind of proper metaphysical description. They wouldn't have no essence. And in that case you would have to admit that this is a human being or at least something very much like a human being that is not one gender or the other but in some sense analogous to both. Is that an adequate way of talking about it or is there something wrong with that account?

If you don't want to admit that the soul can be neither male nor female (or both/and), then it seems to me that the hermaphrodite would be a genuine case of somebody of some unknown metaphysical gender stuck in a body that does not express it.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/25/2015 12:32 am)


Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
 

7/25/2015 3:19 am  #5


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

iwpoe wrote:

Well, we could start with the most obvious case that's a good candidate for a metaphysical gender problem: the medical hermaphrodite. I'm not exactly sure what to do with people who have a problem down to the point of a chromosomal abnormality that results in mixed expression of genitals and sexual characteristics.

Even if they are some kind of deformation of human nature they still would have some kind of proper metaphysical description. They wouldn't have no essence. And in that case you would have to admit that this is a human being or at least something very much like a human being that is not one gender or the other but in some sense analogous to both. Is that an adequate way of talking about it or is there something wrong with that account?

If you don't want to admit that the soul can be neither male nor female (or both/and), then it seems to me that the hermaphrodite would be a genuine case of somebody of some unknown metaphysical gender stuck in a body that does not express it.

Of course they have an essence: human being.  But we have an imperfect instantiation of that essence.   I would unhesitatingly says "This is a human being." 

You are wrong that it follows from this that I would "have a human being that is neither one gender nor the other."  First of all, there are a good number chromosomal abnormalities, XXX, XXY, XYY, and others.  I know that *what* I am dealing with is a human being that is neither clearly male or female.  But since I know human beings are sexually dimorphic as male or female, and I know "here is a human being with whose development something has gone wrong" it is perfectly reasonable for me to say "this human being is either a male whose development has gone wrong or a female whose development has gone wrong, even if I can't easly tell which I am dealing with."  

BUT

I don't want to talk about INTERSEXED people now (unless we need to).   I am interested in knowing what MAKES one be of a given sex.  The body? The soul? The composite? The body is clearly sexed.  Is the soul? And, if it is, is it possible for there to be a gendered soul in a differently gendered body.  

One's sex is a peculiar property.  Male and female are not sub-species of human being.  But what are they?  Is it like Aristotle when he says "We are neither virtuous or vicious by nature, but by nature we are either virtuous or vicious" ? It seems right to me to say "human nature is such that human beings are either male or female."   One's sex seems like a proper accident, except each human being gets one or the other, which doesn't seem like "capacity for humor" or "memory."  "Female" and "male" certainly seem closer to the human essence than variation in hair characteristics.  

I would really like to hear people's thoughts on the metaphysical status of "male" and "female."   Are they essential to personhood? 
 

Last edited by Jason Grey (7/25/2015 3:27 am)


to gar auto noēin estin te kai einai
     Thread Starter
 

7/25/2015 5:13 am  #6


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

Jason Grey wrote:

One's sex is a peculiar property.  Male and female are not sub-species of human being.  But what are they?  Is it like Aristotle when he says "We are neither virtuous or vicious by nature, but by nature we are either virtuous or vicious" ? It seems right to me to say "human nature is such that human beings are either male or female."   One's sex seems like a proper accident, except each human being gets one or the other, which doesn't seem like "capacity for humor" or "memory."  "Female" and "male" certainly seem closer to the human essence than variation in hair characteristics.  

I would really like to hear people's thoughts on the metaphysical status of "male" and "female."   Are they essential to personhood? 
 

(Truncated response again I’m afraid as I’m having to use a friend’s lap-top)
 
I would incline towards Gender being an Accident. I don’t think it would be impossible for God to alter one’s gender by altering the accidental features of the body which lead to it (if, as Oderberg, we admit that any animal capable of rationality is metaphysically human then it follows one could have ‘humans’ with  no gender system like ours or maybe even genders we don’t have). Given the bracketed sentence above it is at least possible to have a non-gendered person.

The questions now are:
 
1. If God were to change someone’s gender would that person will an unrecoverable lose or misalignment in their new state? If so then it would seem possible that ‘ontological transsexualism’ could arise – it raises questions though as to why God would allow such a thing? Could someone who began life with the wrong-gendered body learn and be a better person from that experience  when some how they realised their correct gender?

2. Is gender tendency ‘body-based’? I suppose this is a another version of the pathological criticism in as much as it makes a yearning to be of Y gender an abnormality of one’s X gendered body.

3. I’m sure some Catholics would like to argument that there is a necessity to gender along similar lines to Origins Essentialism. I don’t see how this could be done in a non-ad-hoc way unless one introduces the idea of individual essences. All fuel for the Scotists.
 

 

7/25/2015 6:11 am  #7


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

Jason Grey wrote:

You are wrong that it follows from this that I would "have a human being that is neither one gender nor the other."  First of all, there are a good number chromosomal abnormalities, XXX, XXY, XYY, and others.  I know that *what* I am dealing with is a human being that is neither clearly male or female.  But since I know human beings are sexually dimorphic as male or female, and I know "here is a human being with whose development something has gone wrong" it is perfectly reasonable for me to say "this human being is either a male whose development has gone wrong or a female whose development has gone wrong, even if I can't easly tell which I am dealing with."

I meant to say “You might have” not “You would have”. Sorry: talk-type with the phone.

I wanted to polish up very clearly how you’re thinking about gender with a less vague case.

BUT

Jason Grey wrote:

I don't want to talk about INTERSEXED people now (unless we need to).

I’ll try it your way.

Jason Grey wrote:

I'm interested in what sort of metaphysical account one might try to use to either defend or discredit the concept.  What is transsexualism?  Popular phrases are "a woman trapped in a man's body" or a "man tripped in a woman's body" (I'll just mention MtF transsexualism for short).   Is there anything to this account?  Are souls gendered (or sexed) as well as bodies?  Can a person have a female soul but a male body?  (we do know that in a fallen world, accidents happen).   Is transsexualism compatable with a hylomorphic account, that is, if the psychē just is the form of the body, is it possible that has actualized the body as the wrong sex? 

[…]

Can there really be such a thing 'as a woman trapped in a man's body'?

Well, I’m having a hard time seeing a case where that wouldn’t be a pathology of some sort: I’m meant as a human being to actualize 2 arms. If I’m born with 1, then I’ve some sort of pathological deformity simply by virtue of the fact that I didn’t develop both. I would think it would be the same for gender problems.

But I suppose you’re asking about the case of a non-hylomorphic dualism also. If the dualist-soul can be considered entirely apart from the body, can it be considered to have a gender? Well, it seems obvious to me that you could stipulate that it can or that you can conclude so on the basis of the assumption of a dualist account of the soul plus certain scriptural evidence and psychological observations, but it’s hard to see the rout directly from dualism *to* dualism with a gendered soul. I’m just thinking about the usual caricature of Descartes: the soul as such seems to be nothing but unextended, immaterial, rational substance. The markers of gender seem all to be non-rational and many seems to be features of matter and extension. The best candidates for gendered markers of the soul on a Cartesian dualist account seem to me to be feminine and masculine habits of thought but I do not see how the Cartesian can settle whether these involve the activity of non-gendered reason as embodied in a gendered body (for even animals show differences in tendency between the sexes) or gendered reason in a gendered body. What would mark the difference? 

On a hylomorphic-dualist account I think it would be perfectly proper to say that souls as forms of the body are gendered in some sense just as they must, in some sense, have red hair or be inclined to run faster than others. For the hylomorphic soul, as I understand it, is a form of this body and not the form of man as such, otherwise, in what sense is it *me* who is immortal?

Jason Grey wrote:

Neil Gaimon somewhere in Sandman has a story about a MtF transgendered woman named Wanda, who is portrayed in rather saintly way, whom we see after her death as (finally) with a female body (albeit a spiritual one of some sort).  Is there any possible case to be made out that transsexualism is a real phenomenon, and that Christians could plausibly hold that those who are truly and not pathologically gender dysphoric might (say) be given spiritual bodies of the opposite sex they had before, at the Resurrection?

I think I’m very confused about what you mean to speak of a non-pathological case. Neil Gaimon is surely suffering a pathology he means to treat by way of becoming Wanda. Do you mean to ask whether that could ever be a proper treatment that could be perfected by God as God might perfect eyes I now treat with lenses or surgery or are you asking whether being MtF need be any sort of pathology in the first place?

Jason Grey wrote:

I am interested in knowing what MAKES one be of a given sex.  The body? The soul? The composite? The body is clearly sexed.  Is the soul? And, if it is, is it possible for there to be a gendered soul in a differently gendered body. 

One's sex is a peculiar property.  Male and female are not sub-species of human being.  But what are they?  Is it like Aristotle when he says "We are neither virtuous or vicious by nature, but by nature we are either virtuous or vicious" ? It seems right to me to say "human nature is such that human beings are either male or female."   One's sex seems like a proper accident, except each human being gets one or the other, which doesn't seem like "capacity for humor" or "memory."  "Female" and "male" certainly seem closer to the human essence than variation in hair characteristics.

Can you tell me whether it belongs to *my* soul that *I* be redheaded? I understand that, on a hylomorphic account, that does, in some sense belong to my soul because the soul is to be the form of my body and that is one of my essential features (while the scar on my left hand isn’t such a feature and doesn’t belong to my soul).

Jason Grey wrote:

I would really like to hear people's thoughts on the metaphysical status of "male" and "female."   Are they essential to personhood?

Well, can you better tell me what you mean by ‘person’ or do you simply want my answer?
I submit that it would be right to call by ‘person’…

1.    Rational monosexual aliens
2.    Angels, devils, and demons
3.    God

…by virtue of their intellect alone. Since I see no reason that it be necessary to consider 1 metaphysically impossible or 2 and 3 to be gendered then I would be in need of further elaboration to accept some version of the claim that “gender is essential to personhood”.

I could argue this way, it seems:

1.    If something has the faculty of intellect then it has “personhood”.
2.    Intellect seems to have nothing to do with gender (there is no particularly feminine intellection of “triangle” and male intellection of “triangle” only intellection itself as performed by people who are, in the case of human beings, gendered male and female).
3.    For gender to be essential to personhood as such it would have to be essential to the intellect.
4.    But gender isn’t essential to the intellect.
∴    Gender isn’t essential to personhood.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/25/2015 6:15 am)


Fighting to the death "the noonday demon" of Acedia.
My Books
It is precisely “values” that are the powerless and threadbare mask of the objectification of beings, an objectification that has become flat and devoid of background. No one dies for mere values.
~Martin Heidegger
 

7/25/2015 8:30 pm  #8


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

On hylemorphic dualism, a human being is one substance with both corporeal and incorporeal parts. The body is corporeal and the intellect is incorporeal. As a result, when the body dies, the substance still exists because it still has its actualized incorporeal parts[1]. 

Since the being's substance persists after death, the form of that substance also persists after death. But if the being's soul is the being's substantial form and that form is male, it makes little sense to say the being could somehow be not-male. It's also prima facie implausible that if the substantial form is male, the being could have all the corporeal properties of a female (the substantial form is male; it's not like they come off separate assembly lines and sometimes get mismatched).

In contrast, if the substantial form doesn't have a sex, it's hard to see what it means to talk about a human having a “wrong-sexed” body. If humans can't (for example) be essentially male, then they can't be essentially male in a female body either. 

Moreover, since identity is tied up with the substantial form and not any of the substance's components, I would see no reason to prefer any one component of the substance over another in deciding the being's “true identity”.

Substance dualists (ie. Descartes), however, are in a more complicated situation.


[1]Thomas calls it an “incomplete substance”, but an “incomplete substance” isn't a non-substance.

 

7/25/2015 8:39 pm  #9


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

I am really not sure about transexualism. It is certainly a phenomena that does have some precedent in traditional societies across the world.

I think that we would have to have a more worked out metaphysics of the sexes (I really wish people wouldn't use the term gender in this sense!).  Then, obviously, we'd have to look at the actual empirical evidence for those claiming to be transexual to see how this fits out metaphysical understanding of sex. Such evidence is far weaker than is often bandied about in the media - there is for example, no real proof that a transexual has the brain of the opposite sex or anything like that. To the traditional philosopher or amateur, it is an area rich in opportunities for furthering our understanding.

 

 

7/26/2015 4:41 am  #10


Re: Metaphysics of Transsexualism

I really don't know the answer to this, but I can contribute that in the Talmud the discussion is made of the legal properties of the hermaphrodite. The conclusion is that it is "a creation unique unto itself" and bears the stringencies applied to both sexes. That would imply that sex is not some sort of inherent property of the soul, but is rather an accidental property of body.


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