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VoiceOfRa comments on The horrifying importance of domain knowledge - Less Wrong Discussion
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I think sports teams and sporting organizations should make their own decisions. I don't know what's actually best overall; I think transgender people are rare enough that it wouldn't make a big difference in practice to most . My guess is that the best policy for smaller informal sports teams and organizations is to let 'em in, that the best policy at the highest levels where a lot is at stake is to say women's teams/competitions are only for people who are anatomically female by some criterion or other, and in between I'm less sure but lean towards a let-'em-in policy in the absence of compelling evidence that it would do actual harm.
I think that if someone is generally presenting as female we should let them use women's bathrooms if they want to. The obvious objections to this seem to be (1) ewww (which I suggest is not an argument) and (2) that this introduces a danger to women from predatory men dressing up as women in order to sneak into their bathrooms. I find #2 unconvincing because when I try to imagine scenarios where there's an actual difference in the harm done I can't think of one that's actually plausible, and because whatever bathroom policy we adopt there are going to be trans people and they are going to need to use bathrooms, and there are obvious risks of harm from trans women trying to use men's bathrooms too.
I don't think that's clear at all. As I've said before in this discussion, what counts as "closer" depends greatly on context, and for many purposes someone who looks more or less female, presents as female, and considers themself female is "closer" to stereotypical-female than to stereotypical-male whatever is in their chromosomes or their pants.
Someone in this situation is some way from the centre of either the "women" or the "men" cluster, regardless. It seems to me that in fact there is no such thing as the similarity cluster labelled "women" because (have I mentioned this already?) there are any number of similarity clusters corresponding to different notions of similarity, and different notions of similarity are called for in different contexts.
If you pick some particular notion of similarity based on (say) gross anatomy, sex chromosomes, hormone levels, and ability to beget and/or bear children, then indeed our hypothetical person is in the "men" rather than the "women" cluster. But do you really think there's a delusion there? If you ask, say, Bruce->Caitlyn Jenner "What chromosomes do you have?", the answer might be "It's none of your business" or "Who cares?" but it won't be "XX, of course, because I'm a woman".
It seems to me that the actual difference between you and, say, Jenner is a disagreement about what notion of similarity to use. How is that a delusion on a par with thinking you're Jesus?
It makes the women uncofortable. This is the same type of argument you're using that we should endulge the tannys' delusions and there are many more actual women than trannys (by four orders of magnitude and that's assuming current claims are taken at fase value), so do the utility calculation.
First, see my comment above about the relative numbers of the two groups. Also, the harm to trans "women" is lower since most men aren't interested at gawking at (or harrasing, etc.) fake "women". The ones who are tend to be gay, which is potentially a sepertate problem, but one that we have either way.
So is a lion with stripes painted on it a tiger?
You do realise this is an empirical question and not just a piece of attire you can where to be "pro-trans"?
This is not an argument, it's an appeal to nihilism. Yes, you can arbitarily define a set and declare it a "similarity cluster", that doesn't make it so. This is similar to the psychiatric patient I mentioned above who defined the set consisting of himself, Jesus, and John Lenon, and declared it a similarity cluster.
Not to mention physical strength, a bunch of psychological traits, etc.
Honestly, in this case there is probably less delusion and more BS (in the sense of the saying things without caring for their truth value) for the sake of getting another 15 minutes of fame.
I think you're doing the wrong calculation, in two ways.
The rate of sexual assault of trans people is very high.
I wrote a sentence of the form "For many purposes someone with characteristics A, B, and C is more like X than Y". You interrupted after "A" to ask a question that assumes I wrote "For many purposes someone with characteristic A is more like X than Y". This is not the way to have a rational discussion.
(I bet there are in fact contexts in which a convincingly made-up lion should be treated as a tiger. E.g., if you're training a computer vision system. Of course this is far-fetched and irrelevant, but that's what you get for pretending I wrote something I didn't.)
I have tried repeatedly to get you to turn your claims into actual empirical ones and you have so far not obliged, preferring to handwave about "the similarity cluster" even though it's obvious that a key point is that there are different notions of similarity around.
It looks to me as if I have consistently been careful to distinguish between empirical questions, questions of definitions, and questions of what policies to adopt. And if my aim here were to signal as loudly as possible my allegiance to the Blue rather than the Red tribe, I would be responding in a very different way to your repeated use of needlessly provocative terminology. (Which, now that you bring the topic up, looks a lot like signalling your allegiance to a different tribe...)
It would be if I went on to say "... so any notion of similarity is as good as any other", but I didn't and won't because I don't believe that. On the contrary, what I have repeatedly said is that what notion of similarity is best depends on context. There are plenty of possible notions of similarity that would be very bad in any halfway plausible context. It's my opinion that for many purposes a purely anatomical notion of gender-similarity (is that what you favour? I've asked before but you still haven't said) works less well than a more social and psychological one. (Not only because it makes people whose internal sense of their gender and external anatomy differ happier, though that's a bonus. Also because in most interactions perceived gender -- one's own and others' -- makes much more difference than anatomy, chromosomes, hormones, etc.)
What is your evidence for that? Anyway, I wasn't referring only to this case (I take it you mean Jenner's) but asking generally: do you really think that trans people are generally deluded about what anatomy they have, how strong they are, whether they are biologically capable of bearing children, etc.?
In the case of every trans person I know enough about to tell, the answer is: no, of course they are not deluded about that; they know the answer and hate it. (Or, in some cases: no, they aren't deluded about it; they knew that they didn't have the anatomy that felt right to them, and took steps to make their anatomy more like that, and now it's nearer.)
No, because if it becomes a social norm that any man who makes a superficial attempt to appear as a women, claims to be a woman and "presents as a woman", whatever that means, can use the women's bathroom, a lot more men are going to be claiming to be "transwomen" just for that purpose.
Well, in this case B was something that doesn't seem to parse as anything beyond a restatement of A (with some steelmanning applied), and C is just a restatement of my assertion that the person is some combination of deluded or BS'ing.
They're deluded about something. To the extent they're making a falsifiable claim at all.
The people cited in this article say you're wrong about that. (The article is on a site that makes no particular pretence of neutrality or objectivity, and the author likewise doesn't, but the reports they've collected from representatives of police departments etc. in places where such rules have been introduced are evidence regardless.)
B is not just a restatement of A; one is a matter of bodily appearance, one is a matter of clothing, given name, preferred mode of address, etc.
C is not a restatement of your assertion that the person is deluded or bullshitting, it is a restatement of what you explain that way (namely that they consider themself female).
Here is a thought experiment (important note: it is intended as an informative thought experiment, not a claim about what is actually happening in the brains and bodies of trans people). Imagine that after a few decades of scientific advancement it becomes possible to transplant brains into different bodies, even somewhat differently shaped bodies. Your brain is transplanted into a woman's body and given no more changes than are necessary to wire up the different bits of anatomy. Are you now a woman? If you say yes: Your brain is now transplanted into a chimpanzee's body with, again, minimal necessary changes. Are you now a chimpanzee?
I suggest that in the second case you're clearly still you and clearly not actually a chimpanzee, for most purposes. If you agree, then I think you should agree with me that what you are depends on internal "mental" factors as well as anatomy and external appearance. This suggests to me that the best answer in the first case is probably that you are still a man. What factors actually make you so? They seem like exactly the sort of factors that might in fact be different in trans people as compared with cis people of similar external anatomy.
(Actually, I think the best answer in the first case is that you get to choose whether you're a man or a woman. Again, I am not claiming that this case is precisely analogous to that of trans people, but it's suggestive.)
Remember the context here: we're looking at your statement that they're wrong about what "similarity cluster" they're in. If you define similarity in anatomical or chromosomal terms, do you really think typical trans people are deluded about their anatomy or chromosomes?
There seems something very unsatisfactory about being sure they're deluded about something, but unable to say clearly what it is they're deluded about. (Not necessarily wrong; I can imagine situations in which it's reasonable to be sure someone is wrong about something but unsure what. But unsatisfactory.)
The answer is that the group of things that we typically mean by "are you a chimpanzee" is not the same as the group of things that we typically mean by "are you a woman". The chimpanzee version contains more things that depend on the mind than the woman version.
Imagine a different version where we transplant your brain into the body of someone with red hair. In that case, you would indeed be a redhead.
Also, imagine that (assuming you're not Chinese) we transplanted your body into a Chinese person's body. Are you then Chinese? It is plausible that you aren't Chinese in this situation--but unlike in the woman example, that does not extend to thinking that a "transracial" person in a non-transplant situation is a real thing.
Well, first they might have been selectively collecting them, if not engaging in worse fraud. Second these policies have been in place for less than two years, it takes time for perverse incentives to manifest. The more general problem is that left-wingers are notorious for creating policies with glaring perverse incentives and then refusing to believe anyone would actually behave so as to take advantage of them. Do you also believe that almost no one avoids getting a job so as not to loose welfare benefits or that the policy of "listen and believe" hasn't lead to many false rape accusations?
Ok, so also give the striped lion a collar saying "I'm a tiger".
In that case there is an important difference, namely the structure of my brain and my personality, behaviors etc., are in male rather than female cluster.
Sure. So might anyone quoting anyone about anything. What would fraud look like here? It would mean that actually there are a bunch of cases of sexual assault by trans people, or people pretending to be trans, in public restrooms. It shouldn't be too hard to find some, if so. Please feel free, and I will of course update my opinions in response to whatever you find.
The first few days listed in the article itself: 2008 in Colorado; 2011 in Connecticut; 2007 in Iowa; 2005 in Maine; 1997 in Massachusetts.
Well, as it happens, the only example personally known to me at present of someone who contemplated getting a job and changed their mind because of the impact on benefits did so because of changes to the tax and benefit structure introduced by a right-wing government, and the incentives were much better aligned before that government made the change.
Of course one anecdote isn't much evidence for anything. The general point here is that it's by no means only left-wing governments that create policies with perverse incentives. (Famous examples: "Abstinence-only" sex ed in schools doesn't stop kids having sex, but it does make them more likely to get pregnant when they do. Restricting the availability of contraception increases the incidence of abortion and single-parent families, both of which the opponents of contraception usually say they're more strongly opposed to.)
In any case, what exactly is your argument here? It surely can't be "Allowing trans people to use public restrooms corresponding to their new gender is a policy brought in by left-wingers; policies brought in by left-wingers often have perverse incentives and do harm; therefore this policy has perverse incentives and if you think it won't do harm then you're wrong", but what is it?
Let's continue that discussion when you're prepared to engage seriously with what I'm saying. (If you genuinely can't see highly relevant differences, let me know and I'll point some out.)
OK. So if a trans person's brain structure, personality, behaviours, etc., were found to be nearer typical-female than typical-male, would you then consider them something other than deluded/hallucinating/bullshitting? What sort of differences in brain structure would be most relevant? (Brain structure is kinda hard to explore, beyond the very coarsest features; what if we couldn't tell about brain structure but their personality and behaviours were "more female than male"?)
Ones that correspond to the large observable differences in behavior between men and women.
OK. In most cases, so far as I am aware, we have no idea what brain structure differences those are (or indeed whether they are differences in brain structure rather than, e.g., the behaviours in question being learned or a consequence of hormonal differences). What if the person's behaviour is much nearer typical-female than typical-male in these respects?
Well in the most prominent cases, e.g., Bruce Jenner, this does not appear to be the case. Now are you willing to admit that he's wrong about his claimed gender?
Unless you regularly interact with the type of people who live in underclass ghettos, or the class of people sometimes called "white trash", it's not surprising that you personally haven't met people like this.
Setting aside the validity of these examples, I note that none of them are actually examples of incentives.
I am engaging seriously. I merely applied your epistemology to a slightly different domain and suddenly it becomes clear how silly it is.
Frankly, I have a hard time believing that something would mess up the development of precisely the sexual characteristics expressed in the brain.
Could you briefly describe your own interactions with that segment of the population?
I'd say they're about as much so as your example of alleged-rape-victim policy. (E.g., if you teach teenagers that they must be sexually abstinent and make it clear that any sexual non-abstinence is disapproved of, you intend to give an incentive not to have sex, but you also give an incentive not to have contraceptives, and then when other deeper-rooted incentives lead them to have sex after all they do it unprotected.)
Nope, you applied a straw-man version of my epistemology to a very different domain.
Noted. I don't see why that should make it impossible to answer my questions.
(It seems to me that all kinds of individual things in the brain can get messed up, so it would be rather unsurprising if individual things related to sex/gender did; and that since a lot of sex-related things are surely controlled together (after all, in typical men and typical women they go together) it would not be surprising if they could go wrong together.)
[EDITED to fix a trivial typo.]
Not much either, which is why I don't cite my experience as evidence.
Agreed, and they sometimes do. However when they go wrong together, they effect both brain and body.