Philosophy, logic, and the search for trans womanhood

Photo by Tobi: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-sitting-on-bench-592941/

As a social philosopher it is interesting to see the amount of logic thrown at what constitutes a woman, especially when that logic is used to deduce biological sex as the root of what a woman is in essence. Frank Ramsey and Betrand Russell developed logical philosophy as a 20th Century approach for solving life’s issues, something which Ludwig Wittgenstein deconstructed, pointing to the fact that all logical arguments can be reduced down to the human conception of the elements within the logic puzzle. Wittgenstein’s other great observation is that for communication to happen we need to find common ground and agreement with respects to the labels we use, though as with all translational processes there will always be a better translation. It in this translational process of understanding womanhood that biases and self-conception of labels brushes up against logic, namely the human condition cannot be reduced to 1+1 because each 1 is framed differently by each person doing the logic calculation.

However, refuting “logic” is never enough, especially when the logical argument itself is predicated on ideology and entrenched belief structures. If womanhood is rooted in pure biology, namely the large gamete producer, womb bearer, and child incubator, what of those women who lack any or all of that? Under the biological logic they would be reduced to an inferior conception of womanhood, yet the rote 1+1 biological logic is set aside on the grounds that it is about potential rather than absolutes. This is where logic games lead, a series of concentric caveats that attempt a logical positivism to cover all eventualities until the original premise is contorted out of shape.

The human condition is not a logic game precisely because human beings are capable of confounding and irrationalising what people consider ought to be done. At its base mammalian species are dimorphic, with the selfish gene demanding we reproduce and propagate. Therefore, biological logic ought to hold true. Yet, in reality humans transcend their procreative urges either through self-denial or a breakdown in reproductive potential. None of this makes a person less human, especially as humans are conscious actors who have the free will to shape and reshape their environment beyond reproductive urges. If you root womanhood in reproductive potential you essentially strip away this basic aspect of humanity, the right to self-determination of reproductive potential. No woman should ever be treated as a breeder, a walking incubator for the next generation, as that is both fascistic and reduces women to mere chattel.

Yet, this is where the logic problem of human reproductive potential often leads. Incel culture is the latest in a long string of logic traditions which seeks to render womanhood unto man. Yes, many women do have children, but it does not logically follow that having children or the potential to have children automatically makes you a woman. That reasoning has long kept women out of politics, the professions, and the military, as well as rationalising doweries, bride prices, and polygamous marriages. If the male seed is the root of human flourishing, then logically womanhood ought to be subservient to that seed. Logic dictates, and women suffer. Hence why three successive waves of feminism have crashed down upon the rock of the seed to show how hollow and empty it actually is.

Trans womanhood is both a flaw in the logic, namely a willingness to give up the power of the seed, and a reinforcement of the sledgehammer upon the rock. If womanhood is a self-defined and self-expressed concept, then the biological logic used to keep women in their lesser place falls apart. Manhood is not a special logic case, grants no special logical or rational prowess, it is simply an order of things given precedence because that is the way things have always been done. Trans women smash this apart, showing that the old labels assigned at birth are simply an agreed set of communication tools used to reinforce and embed patriarchal control. A boy child is no more special or unique than a girl, yet the boy child invariably is invested in conscious and sub-conscious resources all because he has the seed. To give up the seed because that child conceives of themselves as she defies the logic of those who wish to endow the boy with resources, as girls as perceptually the lesser beings. All of this is irrational, none of it is founded on logic. To be one’s self is to frame one’s self though the irrational societies we live in, and thus the trans girl is as much a free agent to exist as herself as the boy child would have been with the gifts bestowed on him by society.

In this rendering of personhood the body is clay ready to be sculpted by self-understanding, not a piece of stone that society chips away at as we grow older. Mary Douglas observes that seeking purity is rooted in fear of something, and taboos are shaped through a desire to irradicate that fear from society. If we fear giving people the power to sculpt their own conception of self it is logical to make that thing a taboo. Gender and sexuality have long been taboo because they are self-conceptions that get in the way of reproduction. If you make transgender people verboten you are not irradicating trans people, you are making the knowledge and conception of transcending reductive biological logic verboten. Logical arguments only work if the constituent pieces of the argument are irreducible and correctly absolute, yet as Wittgenstein pointed out this is not possible when it comes to human perception of the world.

Asking gender critics to critically engage with their logical reduction of the human condition is a losing proposition because at its heart biological labelling of people is based on assumptions and flawed logic. Deconstructing gender critical logic puzzles takes time and energy, and at this point feels more akin to attempting Vatican Three than it does feminist discourse. Gender critics seek biological purity based on the fears that allowing trans women into womanhood will corrupt it with the seed and the consequences of being treated as a boy child with all the social gifts that brings. No girl child can walk through the world in equity with boys because she will always be seen as something different, and because of this the moment the boy becomes she he cannot shed his skin lizard-like, he can only awkwardly repaint his skin in a facsimile to become her. This is both reductive and patently illogical, as no two women share the same conception of womanhood, yet it is never enough for gender critics because in their logic biology transcends everything and the gifts bestowed on boy children can never be handed back.

Queer and post-modern philosophy has attempted to square transness away as its own discrete thing, especially in the power to self-ascribe and self-proclaim, yet I think this leaves transness hollow and open to attacks from all sides. To be trans is to be a socially illogical being in a world set up for normative behaviour, yet if you reject society it becomes impossible to move through the world without rejection. I am very much a post-modernist, especially when it comes to identity and philosophical approach, which is why when it comes to framing trans womanhood I am mindful that any rejecting of logic needs to be backed up with the right to self-determination and duty to respect the plurality of others. There is no logical solution to transness other than to accept that self + expression + biochemistry = freedom to exist as yourself. This leads to infinite combinations in infinite diversity, something which any rote logic will always fail to resolve because to resolve it requires a caveat for every person alive.