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Jenkins 2018 gender identity account - Coggle Diagram
Jenkins 2018 gender identity account
Why does she want to know what gender identity is / have a concept for it?
Concept of GI plays prominent role in campaign for trans rights
GI not well understood - common definitions suffer from a problematic circularity
The concept of GI plays an important role in campaigns for trans rights which have come into greater prominence in recent years
Plays a crucial definitional role - being trans is typically defined as 'having a gender identity that is different from the gender one was assigned at birth'. Thus the concept of GI is used TO DEFINE BOTH TRANS IDENTITY AND, BY EXTENSION, TRANS RIGHTS
Campaigns for trans rights call for GI to be used as the basis for people's access to, and treatment within, gendered social spaces eg for trans people to use the bathroom facilities that correspond to their GI
Her political aims guiding the project are promoting the rights of trans people, and countering transphobia.
What does her paper aim to do?
Undertake an ameliorative (what would be the most useful) inquiry into the concept of GI, taking as a starting point the ways in which trans rights movements seek to use the concept
In ameliorative inquiry we seek to identify which concept would be the most helpful for us to use given certain political aims.
Since we know something about how trans rights movements NEED TO USE the concept of GI, we can assess various possible ways of extending the folk definition in terms of how well suited they are to those uses, with a view to selecting the one that is best able to do the required work.
More precise aim: to identify the target concept of gender identity, given the shared aims of trans rights movements, where this is understood as a prescriptive endeavour
But.. I treat it as an open possibility that no definition exists that can do all the work that trans rights movements need it to d, in which case it might be necessary to adopt multiple definitions
Folk definitions
The most widely accepted definition of GI characterises GI as 'a sense of oneself as a man, woman, or some other gender'
It is not complete until some account is offered of what it is to have a sense of oneself as 'a man, woman or some other gender'.
No account is offered as part of the definition - difficulty compounded by fact that many people who use the language of GI hold an understanding of what it is to be a 'man, woman, or some other gender' that is highly unsuited to supplementing the folk definition of GI.
This is the view that GENDER TERMS SUCH AS MAN AND WOMAN OUGHT TO BE UNDERSTOOD IN TERMS OF GENDER IDENTITY.
What does she believe about gender identity and gender terms
Even someone who thinks that gender terms should in general refer to gender identity must, on pain of circularity, allow that in the context of the definition of gender identity, the idea of having sense of oneself 'as a man, woman, or some other gender' must be explained without reference to GI.
So it would be beneficial to be able to explain what GI is to people who do not already understand the concept in order that they can participate in movements for trans rights in an informed way.
In her 2016 paper she argues that gender terms should be used in general primarily to refer to gender identity but in her 2018 paper she intends to not take a stance
Jenkins's approach to her task
I am simply aiming to establish which concept of GI is best able to do the work that trans right movements, as they currently exist, need it to do. I am taking the aims of trans rights movements as a starting point for my inquiry
Desiderata One: The definition should render plausible the idea that gender identity is important and deserves respect
The claims of trans rights movements would be substantially weakened if they depended on the idea that trans people who are misgendered only suffer harm on the basis of their own disproportionate responses. Rather, the harms suffered by those who are misgendered are an accurate reflection of the personal and social significance of GI.
A definition of GI that makes it difficult to see why GI is important, significant or deserving of respect would seriously undermine this premise.
Desiderata Two: The definition should be compatible with a norm of FPA
People should have the right to declare what their DI is and to have this declaration treated as decisive. EG trans rights movements typically advocate for legal frameworks that allow people to change their official gender by means of a straightforward declaration rather than having to produce evidence of eg gender dysphoria
A key aspect of transphobic oppression, and one that ties together many different manifestations of transphobia is the mistaken belief that trans identities are inauthentic or invalid. The ethical imperative for adopting a norm of FPA then stems from the need to counteract these transphobic dynamics.
Desiderata Three: The definition should be compatible with the idea that some trans people have a need for transition-related healthcare that is based on their GI
If the target concept of gender identity were completely detached from the need for transition-related healthcare, it would be hard to uphold the seemingly obvious claim that good access to transition-related healthcare is properly understood as a trans rights issue
Desiderata Four: The definition should be clear and non-circular.
Since the concept of GI plays a prominent role in accounts of what it is to be trans or cis, one key function that the concept of GI should perform is to help increase understanding of these terms among those not yet familiar with them. Having a clear and non-circular definition of GI is also necessary if the concept is to be deployed in legal contexts something which trans rights campaigns regularly aim at doing
BUT- a widespread attitude takes thee legitimacy of trans identities to be dependent on the recognition of cis people. This is at odds with countering transphobia
Desiderata Five: The definition should apply equally well to binary and non-binary identities
Since some trans people are non-binary, it is clear than an account of GI that did not fit well with the identities and experiences of non-binary people could not be effective in securing and improving the rights of all trans people
Desiderata six: The definition should combine well with broader critiques of current gender norms and social structures
An account of GI that was incompatible with trans feminist approaches would instigate a significant split within trans rights movements, and would also make it difficult for those movements to work in concert with other feminist movements- this would be highly counterproductive
In order to be compatible with trans feminist approaches, a definition of GI must be friendly to critiques of current gender norms and social structures that go beyond the fact that these norms frequently miscategorise trans people
The Dispositional Account (McKitrick 2015)
McKitrick thinks that GI concsists of a disposition of cluster of dispositions to behave in ways that are perceived as gendered in the social context within which the subject is situated
Strengths of the Dispostional Account
Avoids circularity that threatens the folk concept of GI by giving independent content to the gender terms that appear in the definition of GI.
Applies equally well to non binary and binary
Weaknesses
The shared beliefs about typical behaviour for different genders (gender stereotypes) that serve as a point of reference for the dispositions on which McKitrick focuses are both contingent and regarded by many as highly problematic. Yet if we adopt a critical stance towards these stereotypes, it is also difficult to view our dispositions to behave in ways that align with certain of these stereotypes as either important or deserving of respect.
The Self-Identification Account (Bettcher 2017)
About claiming or being disposed to claim in relevant circumstances that one is a person of a certain gender
Strengths
Meets the need to be compatible with a norm of FPA - TREATING PEOPLE'S DECLARATION OF THEIR OWN GENDER AS AUTHORITATIVE
Weaknesses
Fares poorly at showing that GI is important and deserves respect. Account seems trivial - why should we care about dispositions to utter certain sentences
Struggles to be compatible with the possible need for transition-related healthcare - it is difficult to perceive any relationship at all between a linguistic disposition and the sort of felt need for one's body to be different that would prompt the desire to access transition-related healthcare.
The NORM-RELEVANCY ACCOUNT (Jenkins 2018)
To say that someone has a female gender identity (is a woman) is to say that she experiences that norms that are associated with women in her social context are relevant to her.
The account begins with thinking about the way that an individual interacts with the norms governing social space - think about it like the metaphor that of an embodied map of social space that is calibrated relative to one or another set of social norms. The idea conveyed by this metaphor is that a person typically has an internalised sense of the norms operating in social spaces that they regularly navigate, and the implications of those norms for the status of their own behaviour as norm-compliant or norm-violating.
The map is tacit in the sense that people are not always explicitly aware of the way they experience social spaces, and it is embodied in the sense that responses to interactions with norms can produce bodily response.
A person's gender map need not correspond to the way one is seen by others' a person might know that other people judge their behaviour by reference to norms of masculinity but their own sense of whether their behaviour is norm-compliant and norm-violating may take norms of femininity as a reference point
The definition makes reference to a notion of gender 'classes'; by this I mean social roles that a coercively imposed on basis of perceived relationship to possibilities of biological reproduction and hierarchical in nature such that members of the masculine category are privileged and members of feminine category are subordinated.
OVERALL PICTURE: there are social practices that position people as members of certain hierarchical gender classes. Each of these gender classes is the locus of a complex set of norms about how occupants of that class ought to be and ought to behave. When they experience their own behaviour as norm-compliant or norm-violating, one or another set of these norms is functioning as the benchmark for (non-) compliance.
As I intended the norm-relevancy account, for a person to have a female gender identity, she simply needs to take some significant subset of the norms associated with women be relevant to her .
Account focuses on a relationship to these norms that is much looser than a disposition to comply with them, namely, the fact that someone experiences those norms as relevant to them.
Strengths
She understands 'experiencing a norm to be relevant to oneself' to be perfectly compatible with behaving in contravention of that norm and with disapproving of that norm
Does not suggest that a person would take ALL of the norms associated with women be relevant to her
Shows that gender identity is important and deserves respect because disrespect for a person's gender identity leads to disenfranchisement of the kind identified by Lugones and Bierria.
The account meets the less-demanding standard of compatibility with ethical FPA
The norm-relevancy account of gender identity spells out the folk concept in more detail: it equates 'having a sense of oneself' as a particular gender with experiencing the norms associated with that gender in one's cultural context as relevant to one. It avoids circularity because these norms are not defined in terms of GI but in terms of gender classes, which are understood to be based on social practices, structures, and arrangements
Fits D5 with some alterations
Things that you could maybe solve
It seems that some people might have a gender map that is not aligned with the norms of the gender with which they consciously identify. In light of this, and contrary to my previous claims, it is clear that the norm-relevancy account does NOT entail that everyone is always right about their own gender identity, and therefore does not secure the strong epistemic privilege needed to support an epistemic norm of FPA.
Defending the account
Cisnormativity
Andler argues that account is cisnormative because it requires us to problematically conceptualise all GI through a cisgender frame.
This charge is partly based on a misconception about how the norm-relevancy account would respond to cases of trans people who have embodiments that are non-normative for their identified gender but who experience this as unproblematic
The charge of cisnormativity can also be seen as a response to the fact that the norm-relevancy account defines gender identity by reference to gender classes, which are currently highly cissexist in character, which is to say that they privilege the experiences of cis people whilst undermining the experiences of trans people, and thus systematically function to the detriment of trans people.
BUT...although it treats current gender classes as a point of reference, and although these roles are cissexist, it does not endorse these standards.
If any centring of cis experiences suffices for an account to be cisnormative, whether appropriate or inappropriate, then the norm-relevancy account's use of current gender roles does render it cisnormative, but it is not clear why this should be considered a problem: since these classes are the ones that currently exist and we must all contend with them, taking them as a point of reference seems appropriate.
It is not clear to me what a substantive account of gender identity could successfully use as a reference point other than some feature of our gendered social structure, such as gender classes or gender stereotypes - all of which are at present cissexist. IN WHAT SENSE WOULD AN ACCOUNT BE AN ACCOUNT OF GENDER IDENTITY IF IT WAS NOT LINKED TO THE MATERIAL REALITY OF GENDER AS A FEATURE OF SOCIAL STRUCTURES.
Essentially this term does not constitute a genuine defect.
Epistemic vs Ethical FPA
Bettcher points out that the norm-relevancy account does not give the expected results about GI in the case of some trans people
One way to read this worry is to interpret it as an objection not to the norm-relevancy account as a solution to the inclusion problem, that is, the question of how to define the subject of feminism, which is how I previously presented it. In this case, the worry is not relevant to the ameliorative project I am concerned with here, which does not aim to address the inclusion problem
We may ALSO interpret this worry as Bettcher claiming that a target concept of gender identity ought to have an extension that perfectly matches people's descriptions of their own current gender identities. This means that D2 should be altered so that as to require compatibility not merely with ethical but epistemic FPA.
Certainly, an account of GI that entailed that everyone has the GI that they think they have whilst also meeting all of the desiderata would be preferable to the norm-relevancy account - but no such account offered so far- so I continue to think that the norm-relevancy account is a good candidate for the target concept of GI.
Gender Classes and Desiring Subordination
"According to the norm-relevancy account, trans women are people who have been classed as men whilst having a female gender identity, and who often seek to change their social position so that they are classed as women"
Given the account's reliance on an analysis of gender classes as intrinsically hierarchical, this means that many trans women actively seek to become members of a subordinated social group- this seems to imply either trans women must be confused about the nature of their gender, or that they must desire their own subordination; both implications are unpalatable.
What is needed is a way of showing that a trans woman could accurately understand the hierarchical nature of gendered social roles, not desire to be subordinated, and still desire to transition
One obvious option is to say that what such a trans woman may desire is congruence between the norms she experiences as relevant and the norms others apply to her. Given the explanation of the significance of such congruence for social agency, this seems like a very reasonable and intelligible desire.
Is desiring to do the things that are markers of subordinate status the same as desiring that one be subordinated. I think not. One can desire the markers for their own sake without desiring to have the status that they serve to indicate. Here, we able to say that the trans woman does not desire her own subordination, but merely desires something which, unfortunately, brings subordination along with it.
Concluding remarks / what she has hoped to have done
The main contribution I hope to have made in this paper is not so much to advocate for a particular target concept as ro clear the ground for better and clearer discussions of gender identity in the future by providing a framework for further investigation.
Those who disagree that the norm-relevancy definition captures the target concept of gender identity for an ameliorative inquiry based on the aims of trans right movements must either a) disagree with me about what the desiderata for that ameliorative inquiry ought to be b) disagree with me about how one of the accounts I have considered fares relative to these desiderata or c) have a novel account to offer that fares better than the norm-relevancy account.