genderasfeelingsidenote.md

The Thought:

Actually this is just a side note.

Lately I am planning to write something to introduce my idea of gender abolishment, the reason why and how we could/should achieve it, its limitation and potential problems, and perhaps alternatives. In the process of exploring, I often stumble upon the metaphysics of gender. I have always think that gender is a social construct, something that is ultimately not intrinsic to the subject¹. It seems like this is a vital starting point for me. Because of this, I decided to explore a totally new approach on gender, that gender is not a social construct.

As I was writing this, I find that I lack the tools to talk about feelings and emotions in philosophy, so there might be problems that I do not notice when formulating the properties and qualities of feelings or emotions. The primitive tools I used in analysis is thus based only my naive intuitions. I might revise on this topic and might change my opinion after further study on the philosophy of feelings or emotion.

Back to the Beginning

My exploration on gender overall starts with the TERF, more particularly on this question:

What makes someone a particular gender, and distinct from the other particular gender ?

This particular question is not only meaningful in a metaphysical sense, it also seems that it has its own normative/political implications. How should people treat people with the same gender as them, and how should people treat people with different gender as them? The answer to the above questions varies greatly between different societies, but here are some examples that, at least, I have experienced or heard of:

1. Gender segregation

   it varies greatly from place to place, with some place are more significant than other.

   For example:Toilets, how I form queues in Primary school ("boys are in one row, girls are on the other")

2. Political community formation

   In a very naive sense, the feminist community was formed with the goal of ending woman's oppression. This seems to imply that:

   1. There exists people that has the "woman" gender
   2. They are under oppression

   Thus we need to fight for them publicly (eg: help gaining right etc).

3. Romantic/sexual preference

   We use the world "sexuality" to denote our preference on romantic partners or sex partners based on gender.

The above list are by no means the full extent of differentiating gender treatment nor does it means there are no overlapping cases in those three. However, I don't want to explore whether calling someone by a particular gender and its subsequent treatment can be separated or not (² it will be explored in the main one). The one i want to highlight is that people seems to treat people differently based on whether they are the same or different gender as them. In some sense, we could say that they act based on the labeling of gender.

Gender Realism

It is not surprising to say that these labeling and its subsequent treatment affects our life. And these effects sometimes harms us. Thus so, we need to seek a way to end these harmful effects of the gender system.

A particular problem I want to focus on is the exclusion of others from a particular gender. One infamous example of this is the exclusion of trans by "feminist" such as J.K.Rowling. Roughly put, the "legitimacy" of gender exclusion stems from the assuming that there is one quality/property (for example: womanness) that makes people from a particular gender (woman) that particular gender (woman), and hence, the people who doesn't possess such quality (womanness) are not that particular gender (woman). What, at least in this case, is "womanness" ? Is it the ability to menstruate ? Is it the experience of being under pressure by men's gaze from birth?

This "there is a thing called womanness that makes all woman woman" is called the gender realist approach. I can try to use a metaphor to explain this. On a road with countless pebble, there are pebbles that have a lot of differences, some are granite, some are basalt, limestone etc… They also comes in different shapes. Yet we all called them pebbles because there is a so called pebbleness: they are all small smooth round stone. With this view in the case of a particular gender, people who are that particular gender can be different, but they ultimately have some quality that is common in all of them, which makes them that gender.

Gender realism seems to gives us a very concrete ground for answering the question I raised from the very beginning: "What makes someone distinct from the other particular gender ?". Indeed, I think unless that particular quality is present in all beings, gender realism will leads to gender exclusion. However as we have seen from the above case on TERF, this might leads to problematic oppression and harm towards trans people. How do we deal with this ?

One approach is to give up gender realism and say that gender exclusion, the act of excluding someone to be that particular gender, is indeed harmful or at least unwanted. But I want to explore another approach in this note, what if there is a "fair" or more importantly non-harmful way of gender exclusion?

Gender feelings

One of my way to tackle this is to appeal to the subjectiveness of gender. What if a particular gender is itself a particular distinct feeling ? Basically I am exploring the possibility to interpret the nature of saying "I am X" (X is a particular gender) as just similar to saying "I am sad". There might be something called "gender feelings" that we can feel, and such makes us that particular gender. To put it simply, what makes woman woman, is that "she" feels "woman".

This is to appeal to some transgender experience I have heard of, when they say that they are like a "woman" trapped inside a "male" body. What makes them to have the claim to say so, and why should we treat them as woman ? My most intuitive answer would be they don't feel "like a woman". What they are experiencing is the "woman" feeling, which is what makes a person woman. When they say they feel like a woman, it is actually saying they are.

Gender exclusion is of course, still possible in this interpretation of gender. What makes a person not a particular gender (woman) is that person doesn't feel "that particular gender's feeling" ("woman"). But is this really a problem ? People who doesn't feel they are a particular gender should probably not get hurt when they are told that they are not that particular gender. Hence gender exclusion is not harmful under this form of gender realism. However there might be people who would arguably say that someone is not experiencing that feeling, but this, I think, is simply a weird accusation if we assume that our mind and thus emotions are inherently private, how can we ever know that someone is not experiencing that feeling ?

This leads to the distinction of gender expression and gender identity. While gender expressions(how we act according to this gender feeling) are taught by social factors and hence, in some sense, socially constructed. Gender identity equates to the feeling inside, and hence seems to leaves us the possibility that this feeling is not socially constructed as feeling such as happy, sad and angry seemingly aren't. When people are doing harmful gender exclusion under this theory, they are restricting expression (or having particular features) to a certain gender identity. They mistakenly think that there is a "correct" way for expressing this feeling, or worse, only people who have a particular feature can have this feeling.

Gender stereotype is the restriction of gender expression under this gender feeling. To liberate people from gender oppression (at least in terms of identity) would simply be the freedom of gender expression, to decouple what people think is the "supposed" way of how a "gender feeling" should act. Just as not everyone will laugh when they are happy nor will all of them cry when they are sad, not all woman has the ability to menstruate nor do all of them dress/act out the "feminine" stereotypes.

Attack: But I don't feel that way

People might object this theory by pointing out that they don't particularly feel this form of gender feelings but yet is still classified or treated as that particular gender. I think this objection is not valid. I think under this interpretation of gender identity, we may find that there are a lot more genderless/agender people from what we know of. The problem is that our current gender system forcefully assign everyone to a particular and restricting form of gender. It doesn't deny that there are people who actually feel and thus are that gender.

Confusing with gender dysphoria/euphoria

The above gender feeling I propose is not the same as gender dysphoria/euphoria. Gender dysphoria is the feeling of uncomfort, unhappiness or distress while gender feeling is another completely different type of feelings. While there are numerous type of gender dysphoria, a form of dysphoria namely social dysphoria, the mismatch between your perceived gender by others and your true gender feelings, can be explained simply as a discomfort from people denying your own feelings. This feeling of discomfort can also be parallel to everyday feelings as well, such as when someone is in extreme pain/sadness, if we outright say "Oh you actually loved it" or "Hey it wasn't that bad, quit whining it", there might be discomfort too. The same might be able to explain some forms of gender dysphoria. Perhaps this mechanism of denying everyday feelings is not strong enough to cause the extreme discomfort that gender dysphoria is. But I think there are some convincing reasons as to why this is a plausible explanation.

The discomfort of feelings getting denied varies greatly by the feelings getting denied. We might actually feel ok if our happiness is denied but feel severe discomfort when our pain and suffering got denied/ignored. Maybe gender feelings are the kind of feelings that will cause discomfort while being ignored (at least to a certain groups of people).

Another reason might be that since our political system are designed around gender, and how treatment varied based on the gender identity, getting denied might affect us more than other feelings such as sadness getting denied. And hence our distress on this denial are significantly stronger than other feelings getting denied.

There are also other kinds of gender dysphoria which I couldn't explore in this side note. Briefly put, perhaps another kind of dysphoria stems from not being able to express this feeling with the limited wording provided by our langauge/gender system.

Body dysphoria on the other hand, might need to be explored in a completely different paradigm (in the main project: on the subject of sex/gender distinction)

Problems

However there are some real concerns over this theory of gender which ultimately leads to me not endorsing it. Overall it has 3 problems:

1. Challenge from queerness³

Focusing on how different this gender feeling is, comparing with other emotions.

1. Representational Problem

   Since gender feeling is private, how do we represent our feelings ?

2. Political unusable

   If we can't represent our problem we can't actually act around it politically

Challenge from queerness

The gender feeling is very different than conventional feelings. What property does gender feelings hold ?

• Non-targeting

  There are non-targeting feelings such as happiness or sadness. They can be self contained, we don't need to be happy towards a particular subject. There are also targeting feelings such as hatred and love, which seemingly must be towards on something.

  Gender feelings as in this interpretation seems not to be targeting anything. Even when we are assuming other's gender, it is not that we are feeling gender, especially when we can assume people have a different gender than us. To explain it further, I feel that Mx.A is happy, doesn't mean I feel happiness, in fact I can actually feel sadness after knowing zie is happy. The feeling that someone else is happy are very different from feeling happiness by myself. Hence, when someone feel that another one is a particular gender, that is not the gender feeling in the above interpretation that is used to define their own identity but another different feeling/evaluation.

• Semi-permanent/stable

  Gender identity observed are usually stable. While genderfluid exists, people who are not genderfluid exists as well. Their gender identity is mostly stable through a long period of time. Comparing with other non-targeting feelings such as happiness, they are long lived. They are also much more stable and insensitive. Conventional emotions and feelings are sensitive towards the things that person experienced. I can be happy because there is a shinny sun in the morning and be sad in the afternoon because someone yelled at me in the street, and even be angry at the TV at night. However, gender is not like that at all, it is highly possible that my gender identity remain the same in a lot of different situations I experience, yet a person that remains happy all the time are highly unlikely.

• Grouping

  We typically don't form groups around feeling one feelings much. This maybe simply because I never heard of it. But we tends to form groups around gender.

These differences between everyday feelings and gender feeling does not pose a big threat to the above theory. One can assume that since gender is that different, we ought to treat it differently than other feelings. But ultimately they fundamentally share the same core. However, there are other problems that I think is detrimental to the above theory.

Representational problem

Recall that to remove gender stereotype, we need to decouple the restriction of how we ought to express our gender feeling. If such restriction is unwanted, and thus people are free to express their gender feeling in whatever way they want, each individual's has their own full authority on declaring their gender. Gender is only knowable by one self. Gender is private.

This privateness is what drawn us to the theory at the first place. Recall we are appealing to the subjectiveness of gender and through the full authority on declaring one own gender, we seemingly remove the harmfulness of gender realism(exclusion). But such privateness also make us incapable of representing our own feelings. If gender expression and gender feelings needs to be completely seperated, such that when one is feeling a particular gender could theoretically act whatever way they feel like (for example: dressing). We lack the way of knowing other feelings. A person with particular gender A can act exactly like a person with another particular gender B. They might dress like the same, have the same family role, or have the same social position, or even use the same word to express their own gender "men". But actually they are experiencing different gender feelings and hence they are not the same gender.

If so, the idea of same gender and different gender would collapse in a practical sense. Because epistemologically we are incapable of knowing whether someone has the same gender and different gender as us. We might share the same pronunciation, but the meaning and thus the feeling getting referenced are inherently yours only. It might be possible that all people have the same gender, or everyone has their own unique gender, just different/ the same expression from that feeling.

If we allow some expression to be couple with this gender feeling, then either we associate some gender with some very specific set of actions, such as how we dress, thus restricting ourselves or something that is incapable of denote clearly our feelings, such as pronunciation, spelling of alphabet etc.

Political unusable

If we have no way of knowing other's gender, and our expression, even the act of declaring our gender is impossible to communicate this form of identity, then this form of identity is unusable in a political sense.

Conclusion

Due to the problems presented above, I personally won't endorse this theory. While I personally lean towards the opposite of gender realism, the failure of this theory doesn't mean we should give up gender realism. There are other gender realism that I would like to explore. Perhaps at the end of the main project lol.

Footnotes

1. For more please reference Judith Butler's theory on gender performativity ↩

2. According to my tiny knowledge on Judith Butler: The differential treatment is what caused gender labeling to exist, not the other way around ↩

3. Please be aware that although I have used the word "queerness", it has nothing to do with gender queer. The reason I used the word is to acknowledge inspiration from J.L. Mackie argument against moral realism: argument from queerness ↩

• 半永久性/穩定
  性別認同通常是穩定的。雖然存在性別流動，但性別不流動的人也存在。他們的性別認同在很長一段時間內大多是穩定的。與幸福等其他非針對性感覺相比，它們似乎很長。它們也更加穩定。傳統的情緒和感覺會隨人所經歷的事情而變。我可以因為早上有燦爛的陽光而高興，而在下午因為有人在街上對我大喊大叫而感到悲傷，甚至晚上對著電視生氣。然而，性別很多時候不是那樣，我的性別認同在我經歷許多不同情況下很大可能仍然保持不變，而一個一直保持快樂的人是極不可能的。

• 分組
  我們通常不會圍繞一種感覺來分組。這可能只是因為我見識少，沒有聽過什麼開心組。但我們傾向於圍繞性別形成群體。

日常感受和性別感受的這些差異對上述詮釋並沒有構成很大的威脅。有人會說正因性別如此不同，我們才會歷史上以不同於其他感覺的方式對待它。但最終它們從根本上共享相同的核心。但是，我認為還有其他問題不利於上述詮釋。

表徵問題

回想一下，為了消除性別刻板印象，我們需要解除對我們應該如何表達我們的性別感受的限制。如果這種限制是不需要的，人便可以自由地以任何他們想要的方式表達他們的性別感受（例如透過衣著）。於是每個人都會壟斷自己是什麼性別的發現權。性別只有自己一個人知道。性別是私密的。

這種私密性其實就是我探討這個理論的原因之一。一開始，我們強調性別的主觀性，並透過獨段宣告自己性別的話語權，我們似乎消除了性別實在主義（性別排斥）的禍害。但這種私密性也讓我們無法表達自己的感受。如果性別表達和性別感受需要完全分開，那麼當一個人感受到特定性別時，理論上可以自由表達他們的感覺（例如：穿搭任何衣服）。我們將缺乏瞭解他者感受的方法。一個特定性別A的人可以和另一個特定性別B的人一模一樣。他們可能穿得一樣，有相同的家庭角色，或有相同的社會地位，甚至用相同的詞來表達自己的性別”男人”。但實際上他們正在經歷不同的性別感受，因此他們不是同一個性別。

如果是這樣，同性和異性的想法在應用層面上就會崩潰。因為在知識論上，我們無法知道某人是否與我們具有相同的性別和不同的性別。我們可能有相同的發音，但意義（被引用的感覺）本質上只是你的。可能所有人都具有相同的性別，或者每個人都有自己獨特的性別，只是對那種感覺有不同/相同的表達方式。

如果我們放棄上述自由，允許一些行為只能夠被某種性別的人去表達，那麼我們要么將某種性別與某些非常具體的行為聯繫起來，例如我們如何穿衣，導致性別定型，要么就是將某些不能清楚地表示我們的情緒的東西與感覺聯繫，例如發音，字母的拼寫等，導致不能溝通

政治上不可用

如果我們無法知道別人的性別，甚至當我們說出我們正感受什麼性別感覺時，也不能夠表達出自己是否跟他人相同或不同性別時，那麼這種身份在政治意義上似乎完全沒有用。

結論

由於上述問題，我個人不會贊同這個理論。 雖然我個人傾向反對性別實在主義，但該理論的失敗並不意味著我們應該放棄性別實在主義。 我想繼續探索其他性別實在主義。 也許在長文的最後，哈哈。