The Epistemology of Gender

One of the most controversial topics right now is how the government should legislate concerning gender. Recently, our country’s administration has moved to pass legislation that would determine “gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth”. This has sparked a massive amount of outrage across the country. In our most recent Philosophy class, we discussed Socrates’ theory of forms and we defined a few terms including epistemology. Let us imagine that there are such concepts as forms that exist and are true regardless of any belief. In the media, the argument often used against the proposed legislation is that “‘Transgender’ could be defined out of existence” (New York Times Article Title cited below). This strange claim packs a whole host of assumptions about the world that need to be unpacked. The idea that something can cease to exist by virtue of not being defined is in direct contrast to Socrates’ theory of forms. The true form of triangle existed long before any person tried to draw a material representation of one, and likewise, the transgender true form existed before any person attempted to embody it and before anyone attempted to put it in law. The next assumption is that believing to be something demands universal recognition. Note that the administration has not denied the rights of personhood to a single transgender person. There is agreement that the true form of personhood is what determines rights. But that is not enough for people who consider themselves transgender, they want everyone else to affirm their lifestyle. But if belief does not determine knowledge and true forms are not changed by anything in the material world than we have a contradiction. I may believe that I am water, or any other thing that is a part of me, but the true form of water is not changed by my belief. At the same time, I am still a representation of the true form of a personhood defined with rights under the law. Again note that there is no legislation regarding my belief concerning the water part of me. This distinction is extremely vital to understand when we consider transgender legislation. A person may be transgender even if they think they are not, and the true form of transgender is not changed by their belief. At the same time, a transgender person is still a representation of the true form of personhood defined with rights under the law. Thus it is utterly absurd to claim that legislation can determine the existence of something. No transgender person is denied any of the rights that every single other US citizen has by equal virtue of being a person. Note that this is the sense of the true form of the laws that we have; in other words, it is a separate argument to say that those laws have not been enacted fairly and that transgender people have been discriminated against. If that is the case, then we must call for greater law enforcement, NOT different legislation. Also note that this is NOT a partisan claim and that both sides should at least note that the media profits from political divide so they will occasionally make extremely illogical claims that confuse the general populace and stir up a great amount of anger. The real question here is whether or not people’s beliefs about themselves should be legislated and to what extent different people’s opinions should give them more or less or different rights. I do not claim to have an answer that would remotely satisfy such a question but I do hope that people will take it upon themselves to carefully process things logically and see the underlying assumptions that have rendered political discussions into yelling at one another in different dialects that are difficult to parse.