Thread by @jichikawa

This's been a weird couple days! Somehow I suddenly became one of the players in the twitter discussions about transphobia in philosophy. I'd like to share a few thoughts and clarifications and reactions to some of the things I've seen in my mentions this weekend.

This is, umm, gonna be a long thread.

I wrote a thread on Thursday about skepticism and conservativism, bringing a few central ideas from my research to bear on several examples. The point was that skepticism can be used to oppressive ends by reinforcing the status quo.

https://twitter.com/jichikawa/status/1134323822096658433

One of the examples had to do with transphobia in philosophy. A trans student had recently explained how the propagation and normalization of trans-exclusionary ideas within professional philosophy had made her feel unsafe and unwelcome.

The rejection of her testimony as possibly fake was a good example of the way that skepticism can be used to resist calls for reform. That's the role that case took in my thread.

https://twitter.com/jichikawa/status/1134323831265300482

A lot of people reacting to my thread didn't understand this (or pretended not to). They acted like I'd said it one would have to be irrational to deny the that self-ID determines gender. But what I said was evident was that trans-exclusionary discussion harmed this student.

I don't think the trans-inclusionary stance is totally evident, they way these clear facts about harm are. (I think it's true, but it takes some work to get there. Ten years ago I was super clueless about this stuff too.)

My point was that harm is being done. The student who wrote this piece made that very clear. (Many others I've heard from less publicly have too.) medium.com/@transphilosop…

Stock's reply to the complaint, from a trans philosopher, that a trans-exclusionary culture has made her feel so unwelcome that she felt she had to leave: "philosophy doesn't suit everyone".

(Homework: construct parallel dialectics for:
* (cis) women
* homosexuals
* PoC)

One of the key insights of feminist standpoint epistemology is that people occupying marginalized social positions can often develop superior epistemic standpoints with respect to the workings of their oppression.

This is why, for example, if you want to know whether an office has a culture of sexual harassment, you will learn a lot more from asking the women in the office than you will from asking the men.

Pretty common sense, really.

In exactly the same way, if you want to know whether an academic discipline has a transphobia problem, you would be foolish to dismiss the trans voices in favour of cis ones.

But that's exactly what a lot of this rhetoric is doing.

Speaking of axes of oppression... some of the responses I've received call me out for being a man speaking out against Professor Stock, a woman.

I'd be worried about this if I were disagreeing with most, or even many, of the cis women I know. I'm not.

I'm super aware of the position of privilege I occupy, along many different dimensions. One of my most central political beliefs is that privileged people like me — cis, male, tenured — need to be doing a lot of this labour, so that it doesn't fall exclusively on the marginalized

And while we're on the subject, some of these responses characterized me as telling Professor Stock not to speak.

Let me clarify: I'm neither Professor Stock's boss, nor the moderator of this platform. I've never told her to do anything. It's not my place.

I am Professor Stock's professional peer and colleague. And when a member of my profession is doing harm, it is wholly appropriate for someone like me to say so.

That's part of being a good academic citizen.

I'm inspired in significant part by csi-jenkins.tumblr.com/post/905636053…

This should be obvious, but: if my colleague engages in misbehaviour, and I refrain from saying anything because she is a woman and I don't think it's OK for a man to criticize a woman's actions, that's some sexist bullshit right there.

Man, this thread is getting long! Let's take a little breather.

These are my cat's weird spotty paws, aren't they beautiful and weird?

OK, back to it. There's one more thing I wanted to talk about in this context. And after that I think I'm going to take a little time away from twitter.

This morning, Professor Stock tagged me & a bunch of other people in a thread complaining about people who argue that her discussions of trans issues are harmful, without discussing the details of the arguments in her discussions
I replied that this is a correct description of me

While I know of course that lots of people disagree with this stance, I would have thought that it's obviously at least, like, a sensible and coherent position to occupy. Judging by some of my replies, this is less obvious than I'd thought.

Some people suggested that the idea of being uninterested in the details of these arguments is somehow unphilosophical. There's this stereotype of a philosopher who cares for nothing but the details of arguments. I resist it.

See, here's the thing. I AM a philosopher. I'm actually quite a good philosopher, by all the standard measurements. I'm also a tenured professor at a prestigious research university.

That doesn't make me an expert on gender, but it does make me an expert on philosophy.

The idea that to be "philosophical," one must question absolutely anything that someone asks you to, or that you're not allowed to disagree without spending hours deconstructing their arguments, is a huge mistake.

Related: some twitter users suggested that there's something intellectually suspect about the idea of being confident that an argument is harmful, without getting into the details of the argument.

I think even a little bit of reflection shows that this can't be right in general. If I show up with a complicated treatise arguing for the conclusion that you should throw your family off a cliff, you don't have to read it carefully and identify the flawed premise to reject it.

And my ideas would be actively harmful if we lived in a society where a good number of people often feel the urge to throw their families off cliffs. In general, ANY argument with that conclusion would be a harmful argument. You don't have to know its details to know that.

And it'd be pretty extreme to deny that SOMETIMES, conclusions are so noxious that arguments in favour of them shouldn't be taken seriously. Some people are that extreme, but I'd be surprised if my dialectical opponents in this instance are.

There's a philosophy professor in Fredonia who's recently published defences of:

* adults having sex with children
* preferential hiring of men over women
* torture
* slavery
* and more super gross stuff

I don't have to read those works to know they're harmful.

If you agree with me about those cases, then you agree with me that there's such a thing as a pale. Some topics should not be discussed. And you can say that without looking at the arguments.

What we're ultimately negotiating is whether trans-exclusion should be beyond the pale.

I don't think it's an obvious or easy question. I don't think whether you're a good person or a bad person depends on your answer to this question. But I hope that we can at least recognize that it is a question. There is a discussion topic here.

And this is why it's so very relevant that people are being hurt. It's happening right in front of us. They are crying out about it. As philosophers, how will we respond? Explain away their pain as a confusion or a misreading? Or listen to them and make a welcoming space?

OK I'm done for tonight. On the advice of loved ones, for my own sake, I'm going to take a step back from twitter for a little bit. If you yell at me or retweet me or whatever I'll probably see it eventually, but not right away.

Thanks for reading, see y'all later.

(bonus pic for making it this far. This is my dog Mezzo, back when she was super super tiny)

Oops I guess I broke the thread. It continues:

https://twitter.com/jichikawa/status/1135422002469072896?s=19

A few people have educated me about the racist etymology of the expression 'beyond the pale,' which I hadn't previously known about. I would like to apologize for my unreflective use of this phrase in this context. I should have used different words.