It seems to me that the existence of people that identify as a gender that doesn’t match their sex implies that there are distinct qualities that are necessary to the identities of men and women that go beyond physiological differences; there is an element of subjectivity, which I will define as: “knowledge of one’s own mental characteristics arising out of or identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes.” This is if you grant that trans people exist, and we have no reason to doubt them when they tell us if they are men or women.

Of course, some men display feminine traits, and some women display more masculine traits, but they still qualify as a man or woman nonetheless - if only because that is what they identify as. But that is somewhat circular to say that one is a woman merely because they identify as a woman. Am I John Cena merely because I identify as someone who doesn’t have spaghetti arms? If anything, this claim is more clearly verifiable than me identifying as a woman because I have man-breasts or like Sex and the City.

One might say that it doesn’t matter; there are no adverse consequences for recognizing that someone is a man or woman merely because they identify as such, and, thus, we should not interfere with people’s gender expression.

We all know, however, that there can be severe consequences - but only in a very narrow way. I wouldn’t claim that trans women aren’t women (they are definitely real women), but I do claim that they should not be allowed to crush women who have been training for many years to go up against cisgender women in sports - especially fighting. No one wants to see cisgender women getting battered and severely injured by some mediocre trans athlete. Not sorry; such displays are disgusting.

So, we know that men are generally bigger, stronger, and faster. Upper body strength is definitely different between men and women, and men tend to have more of it, and thus greater upper body strength is one of many traits that, when considered, is something that could differentiate oneself from certain, or even most, women.

I think whether or not one is a man or woman is a function of how their characteristics allow them to relate to other people, especially the opposite gender, and those people’s characteristics, be they more masculine or feminine. These traits, which are on a continuum, while not absolutely necessary for one’s gender identity, influence it as something holistic which is then parsed by one in terms of man/woman.

So, what we have is a partially essentialist view of gender and sex. I don’t really know what specifically makes a woman a woman or a man a man, and that isn’t the focus of this post. The point is that gender identity is both essentialist and subjective.

And when someone like Ben Shapiro militates against the limited but still existent subjectivity inherent to something like gender, he claims he does so in the name of biology and to try to establish some hard truths. I think he is at least partially honest when he states his motivations, but he must know that gender is at least partially subjective; we know there is more to being a man than “lifts heavy things” or “has broad shoulders”, such as strong paternal instincts.

I think that people, especially men, want to protect women, or at least feel like they are protecting them. This is understandable, but it can turn sinister when it comes to disenfranchising a group of people. We should all respect people’s identities even if we are made uncomfortable by them, and this issue is almost totally unrelated to trans women in sports. If you cannot wrap your head around that you are being stupid - not bigoted, but rather stupid.

And yes, I haven’t addressed that gender isn’t binary and that we can make up genders all day - mostly because they are only worth what people recognize them for being worth; I can claim I have the most expensive model train set ever and that people ought respect me for it, but in that context it is only worth what people recognize it to be - not a sign of status but rather a waste of money. Or maybe you love trains. Or lots of unnecessary punctuation and overly complex comment formats. That seems to be worth quite a bit around here.