This morning I remembered the famous quote from Wittgenstein (§ 38): 'For philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.' And then looked at the German: 'Denn die philosophischen Probleme entstehen, wenn die Sprache feiert.' A metaphor reconceptualises reality, ...
...it creates distance - and insight - by linking two disparate realms. But Anscombe creates more distance by changing the metaphor. She may be right to chose 'language goes on holiday', but we could be closer to the German original 'feiert': 'language is having a party' or
'language is celebrating'. Going on holiday gives it a different flavour.
Another issue is that W. used 'die Sprache' and Anscombe omits the definite article. We would have to check the text to see when W. uses the definite article and when he simply talks about 'Sprache'. I would have translated: 'a language' (indefinite article!).
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Teetzel, p. 435/6: 'Despite the ample media attention that
Radcliffe, Navratilova, Davies, Holmes and others have received, they continue to push the narrative that their voices are being silenced and ignored.' Well, the reactions they got for speaking out, shows that they...
...are right. Pressure on sponsors, etc. is an attempt to shut them up. That's why athletes who are still competing will not talk about the issue of transwomen athletes.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK:
Discourses like that of Kathleen Stock 'reinforce the patriarchal status quo'. Au contraire - transwomen who imitate the worst stereotypes of the social role 'woman' reinforce the patriarchy - they have imbibed too much of it.
"Conflating concern about the harms of Stock’s work with threats to academic freedom obfuscates important issues." No. Like many others, Ichikawa conflates disagreement about gender ideology with transphobia and with harm to trans people.
Disagreement doesn't cause harm. But employing a transwomen in a rape crisis centre will continue to traumatise victims of sexual violence. And why would anyone - employer or employee - with real concern for women think that this is a good idea? All in the name of inclusion.
Rachel McKinnon/Veronica Ivy's latest: "In deciding whether trans and intersex women should be allowed to compete as women, who has the burden of proof in the debate? The answer is clear: those who seek to exclude." No. If you want to change the status quo, the burden of proof...
...is on you. Secondly, here is the usual attempt to muddy the waters by including intersex people (whose sex characteristics are atypical) in the debate. We know the sex of transwomen and transmen. They are unhappy with the sex they were born with.
"The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) all clearly state that there is a human right to participate in competitive sport." No. What the IOC and CAS say about human rights and sport has...
Feminism does not have to be trans-inclusive, and transwomen don’t have to be included in the class ‘women’ – provided that you look what’s under the label ‘transwoman’.
Betcher writes that if you don't know trans communities then you are 'incapable of interpreting self-identifies'. But why should their self-ID within the trans community carry forward to the wider community? Why demand this when the standards in the wider community differ?
Bettcher draws the wrong conclusions. She might be right that within trans communities a transwoman may claim that she is a 'woman', but this does not hold within the wider community. There, she can only claim that she is a transwoman.
THREAD: 1/THE LANGUAGE OF LAW
Trans activists in the UK might get confused by the phrasing in the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, section 9 (1), particularly by the phrase ‘for all purposes’. This has a specific legal meaning and history...
2/It is short for ‘to/for all intents and purposes’, going back to English law in the 16th century. It means: ‘in every practical sense’ or ‘virtually’. It does not mean that a transwoman is a woman; it only means that the law will treat a transwoman...
3/...as if she were a (biological) woman, by issuing a new birth certificate. What we have here is a legal fiction, a helpful construct going back to ancient times. Roman law treated soldiers who were captured by the enemy (i.e. enslaved) as if they were free men.
TRANSGENDERISM IS THE ULTIMATE REJECTION OF THE FEMALE BODY.
1/Women have been told for centuries that their bodies are lacking (unclean, impure, weak, inferior – to men). Many of our major religions (unsurprisingly, dominated by men) promoted this view...
2/Recall that Eve was made from one of Adam’s ribs; she is a mere derivation. Perhaps, underneath it all, a woman is really ‘male’? The ultimate rejection of the female body is the claim that being a woman is a psychological state – completely detached from the female body...
3/This could lead to the absurd claim that trans women are the ‘real’ women. And this might explain why some trans women feel called upon to represent women, to become ‘women’s officers’, to accept accolades like ‘woman of the year’...