Trans women are real women

A critical realist intersectional response to Pilgrim

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21159901
AutoresJason Summersell (independent scholar, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen17
Número3
Páginas329-336
Fecha de publicación2018-05-27
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Critical Realism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1476-7430 • E-ISSN: 1572-5138
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14767430.2018.1493884
OpenAlexW2885480023
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas13

In this paper, I explain why I disagree with David Pilgrim’s claim that critical realists should deny any ‘natal male’ claim to womanhood. Specifically, Pilgrim and I have different definitions of the transitive and intransitive dimensions of reality. In my version – which I believe is in the spirit of the Bhaskarian version – the transitive dimension embraces everything that is currently being affected by human praxis. This allows for an intersectional view of gender in which it is perfectly possible for the same human, in different contexts, to be an ontological woman (e.g. for the purposes of their everyday life), an ontological trans woman (for the purposes of a transgender support group); and an ontological person with a prostate gland, some might say a man (e.g. for the purposes of a medical examination). In the same way, it is perfectly possible for a room to contain 17 people for the purposes of setting out tea cups, but 18 people for the purposes of providing lecture hand-outs. For the purposes of everyday life, and even, I argue, for the fight against sexism, trans women have the same claim to being women as cis women

Aesthetics · Asceticism · Epistemology · Everyday life · Pilgrim · Praxis · Sociology · Theology · Transitive relation · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Philosophy