EP 83 - Gender Ideologies - with Helen Pluckrose

Helen Pluckrose is a political and cultural writer and commentator, addressing current affairs from a liberal humanist perspective. Her particular focus is current Critical Social Justice (woke) scholarship and activism. Helen took part in the Grievance Studies Affair (along with Peter Bogossian and James Lindsay) which submitted shoddy, ridiculous and ideologically biased papers to academic journals known for publishing Critical Social Justice scholarship. In 2020, she co-authored Cynical Theories with James Lindsay, which traced the evolution of postmodern thought into Critical Social Justice scholarship. In that same year, she co-founded Counterweight, an organization for helping individuals push back at authoritarian Critical Social Justice policies and training programs at their place of work, university or child's school. Helen continues to work with individuals and organizations to resist ideological capture. Helen really just wants you to value evidence-based epistemology and consistently liberal principles.

[@liberality]

Smashing the Like button as soon as I saw Helen Pluckrose was the guest. Helen doesn't get nearly enough attention.

[@suedibnorton]

Thank you for offering such level headed conservations and for not putting them behind paywalls.

[@carterrennerfeldt1607]

i just LOVE helen pluckrose...what a treat to see/hear her here!!

[@John-tr5hn]

You're really killing it with the guests lately. I already understood the concepts in a kind of intuitive way, but Helen really laid them out for me and helped me to understand exactly where the meat of my arguments and counterarguments should lie. It's extremely sad that the left has been saddled with this divisive ideology, because it really works against the way most people's common sense does. I feel like this and other wedge issues that for some reason are on the left but shouldn't be are fueling so much of the Trump support in the US.

[@amberredish93]

Thank you so much. When I see your podcasts I always listen because I know I will gain insight and learn something important

[@patricknoble3090]

Great interview Aarons. Helen really has a gift for explaining this stuff

[@dunkel.760]

Helen Pluckrose 💙 She is such a fantastic woman! I love to hear her talks and interviews! We need more women like her in this planet!

[@howmanybeansmakefive]

Another excellent discussion. I am a British (PoC ex-religious gay) lawyer that now lives in the US, and on the point about resolving/acknowledging a genuine conflict of rights, I have been wondering what makes the US discourse so polarized and toxic, especially comapred the UK. Of course there a so many cultural/social/historical factors, and the UK has its own toxicity, but I have become more persuaded that this difference has been due to the failure of a particularly American/Dworkinian (Ronald not Andrea) approach to rights. In the US "Rights are Trumps", and Dworkin who coined this believed that in law and morality, everyone is an objectivist i.e. there can only be "one right answer" regarding the content of rights and judgments of law, and while what that answer is thought to be may be misinterpreted at any given point in history, it is the role of the judge to collate all legal, moral, social knowledge to figure out what *the* right answer is regarding a right's content/definition. In Dworkin's view rights never clash, perceived conflicts are simply due to 'misinterpretations', and when understood properly, rights necessarily all fit together in a harmonious whole. Such a stance transforms judges into quasi-divine figures, arbiters with ultimate wisdom on rights. This necessitates ideological purity, when combined with America's almost sacred regard for its Constitution and the supremacy of its judiciary, elevates legal disputes to existential battles where one side must unequivocally prevail. It becomes impossible to even conceptualise the possibility that rights may conflict, and when a conflict arises one must trump/'win' out over the other. Rights adjudication is not based on factual realities, concrete disputes, and balancing interests, but rather in expounding abstract ideals of what the content of a right contains - aka rights 'categoricalism'. So in a case for instance where it is Gay vs Religious folk (e.g. gay cakemaker or wedding planner cases) the stakes are so high/toxic/ideological for one class as a whole to win over the other to define the right in your favour, and for the other to lose and be excluded. The model of rights in the UK is very different, and is based in 'proportionality', Unlike categoricalism, proportionality honestly accepts and acknowledges from the outset that all rights inevitably conflict, and focusses on resolving the specific dispute in front of it. What a judge must then do is look at the very specific facts of any individual dispute to see (in that exact context/instance) if an infringement of one right is justified by the other. So in gay v religion cases, the court hyper-focusses on the exact facts of the dispute to balance the adjudication of the infringements, without having to define in an abstract/theoretical/ideal sense what the right *is* for *all* future cases. It does not seek to form an abstract ideal formulation/ranking or describe the fundamental nature of a certain freedom, indeed it accepts that a purely legal conception could never do that (that's not to say there isn't lofty rhetoric in the supreme court). The factual analysis/judgment of the specific dispute does not require prejudging the same outcome if the same conflict of rights arises, but under different facts. The judgment is written as an honest explanation of what facts led to the judge to balance the rights coming out one way or another. Whereas in categoricalism, the facts of the case, reality, (even medical/scientific reality) are irrelevant/secondary to explaining the ideal legal conception of rights - this leads to a lot of purely ideological 'impact' cases devoid of factual content/disputes. And in the US with judicial supremacy, cases to strike down laws on their face, without having to argue based on proving actual harms. See the 303 Creative case - where a christian brought a case to the US SC about making a gay wedding website, where there was no gay couple and the dispute was purely theoretical, but the court decided in the abstract that cakemaking is necessarily 'expressive speech' and is guaranteed protection by freedom of religion, as opposed to conducting a factual analysis (there were no 'facts') of whether in that specific dispute, denying a service was due to discrimination. In a similar Northern Ireland case (Ashers Baking Company), a christian cake maker was allowed to deny making a cake with gay writing/icing requested by straight activists; but in basing the judgment in the specific facts, the court left open the possibility of finding discrimination in the future if refusing to bake a certain cake was because a customer is gay. Proportionality is the opposite of a "winner takes all"/trumps approach to rights, and keeps individual parties engaged with the process with a possibility of winning in the future. It also reduces the stakes of litigants/advocates by negating the need to win via imposing their ideal of what perfect rights ideology entails, which requires capturing institutions and judiciaries for it to be effected, and to trump an opposing vision. Th UK approach also focusses energy in political accountability when combined with the fact there is no written constitution to get hung up on (due to textualist fundamentalism) and ultimately Parliament is sovereign over the judiciary. What this results in is an understanding that what a right entails is also largely a political question, requiring engagement of society as a whole to navigate, and where the entire complexity can be taken into account (including social/ethical/scientific/medical experience) without having to always be reduced to the ideological/individualistic/legalistic/adversarial approach of litigation. (This is also difficult in the US given the gridlocked nature of Congress, and formalistic approach to separation of powers; which precludes judicial review of healthcare, and where rights can only be vindicated through the Supreme Court). I'm not saying that the US should be like the UK, the differences make sense given the religious culture of the US since it's inception/puritans and the central role it plays. Now where Canada fits into this a bit more complex, nominally there is parliamentary sovereignty and proportionality, yet judges in Canada do play an outsized role in determining ethical/political disputes, retaining elements of the Dworkinian view, and with rights ideology being directly transplanted from Blue-State America (without any similar conservative counterweight). There seems to be a kind of legal/political-cognitive dissonance where it retains the symbolic complexity of the British mode of unwritten/political constitutionalism, but with the rights/textual fundamentalism/formalism of American constitutional legal rights thinking. That was a biiiit longer than I expected lol. If anyone does read this essay, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

[@Skuffy777]

Very good on the whole but I disagree with Helen’s characterisation of GC, given that the hardcore gender abolitionists reject the GC label. That same label is happily embraced by others like Helen Joyce who is not a gender abolitionist but takes a position much closer to Helen’s own.

[@annamyob4624]

Absolutely. I don't inhabit the ivory tower so I cannot comment on what elitists are busy theorizing about. But here on the ground, everyone I know who is having to defend women's spaces, sports, autonomy and rights, is gender "critical" in the sense of evidence-based critique-- arising not from some ideology, but in desperation of trying to bring back reason and mutual respect to the debate. This abolitionist characterisation may neatly fufill her little triad of "ideologies," but massively misrepresents what is going on here in the trenches.

[@joane24]

Helen's just excellent. Thank you for hosting her.

[@liberality]

6:00 While postmodernists are meant to be sceptical about meta-narratives, in truth this principle is only applied to other people's meta-narratives. Foucault himself started this process by writing a multi-volume History of Sexuality, constructing a new narrative within a postmodern framework which could supposedly destroy and rebuild all existing narratives. If that's not a meta-narrative, I don't know what is.

[@joane24]

Well, yes but they also don't see it that way, and would deny that it is so. That's why it's all permanent deconstruction, because you're hiding your meta-narrative behind the premise of deconstructing. If everything is constantly in motion, you don't have to admit that you have anything fixed/stable.

[@davidkennerly]

I was intrigued by Aaron K.'s comment about seeing a greater expression of trans gender identity, if I understood it correctly and if I can characterize it that way, arising from Christian fundamentalist homes. That would be very much my intuitive expectation and would also be congruent with my very limited experience. I would also hazard a guess that it is more likely to arise in chaotic and histrionic, often threatening or violent, family units which are often also religiously extreme.

[@John-tr5hn]

I think a big reason that many teens from conservative homes transition is they might intuitively know that they're gay, and they're ashamed of it. I don't necessarily believe that conservatives would accept trans people more than gay people, but at least within the realm of your outward appearance to society (especially a conservative community that doesn't know you), you might be able to pass, especially as a transman married to a woman. So whereas both Aarons might be unwelcome in their communities as lesbians, as long as no one knows they're biologically female, they could pass and, possibly, thrive in a conservative community that saw them as men.

[@davidkennerly]

@@John-tr5hn I agree, John, although we do have evidence that at least some Christian fundamentalists HAVE latched onto the idea that their gay sons or daughters are not really gay but born into the wrong body and take them down that transitional path rather than to accept them as gay. In either case, whether it be the parents or the kids, Christian shame plays a determinative role in casting same-sex attraction as gender mismatch.

[@joane24]

Just because they're religious doesn't mean they're violent or extreme, though. There's a difference between strict (sheltered, etc.) and abusive. My take is rather the same old story: kids grow up in a morally sheltered environment and when they go out to the world (eg college, especially when moving to the city), and realize that there's all types of lifestyles out there and you won't get strike by a lightning the minute you something (doesn't even have to be wrong or sinful, but just more liberal), then you might fall into all in. Today's season is LGBT/trans. I have a friend brought up in such environment and she's the one who came up with the lightning metaphor I've just used. Most likely they feels some non-conformity and they open the door to a broader view. But it doesn't have to mean there was anything violent or extreme at home. Just the difference of cultures, and the realization that the world doesn't end when you step out of fundamentalism, so then, what do you do with that realization? Especially when you're at woke college, you hear all the discourse that seems to contradict your upbringing. Especially when they're young, and still develop their worldview.

[@liberality]

@@davidkennerly A faction within the Church of England has latched on to the same idea, going by the transgender pride flags hanging in some churches. That church has been heretical since day one, when its founder King Henry VIII ordered the killing of church leaders such as the Abbot of Glastonbury. The view of the Catholic Church is that souls do not have genders and so inversion theory, the idea of the gendered soul being born in the opposite sex body, is false.

[@ksb935]

Seems like there’s always a struggle between labeling groups (in an effort to point out bigotry so that they may be supported) and labels that become repressive and limiting.

[@River10081]

Hi, thank you for the work that you’re doing. I so much want you guys to reach a broader audience Your experience, insights, and mission might really move the conversation forward and help to inform the large group of moderates who sit between the the two extremes of belief about transgenderism. I have a question for each of you. In hindsight, do you think that not undergoing medical transition might have been the better choice for you? Do you see your medical transition as the better choice, though you might have changed the specifics and how you handled it with friends, family, professionals, etc? Do neither of my questions really get at your perpective now?

[@jillindathomson5126]

Helen has little understanding of radical feminism. Helen’s liberalism is also ideological. I think Genspect needs a Feminist / women’s right consultant.

[@liberality]

15:20 Queer theory can be reconciled with gender identity ideology, and vice versa. If the performance of gender is completely arbitrary, why would some females feel compelled to perform masculinity specifically? That lack of personal choice in gender presentation implies an innate gender identity, if inversion theory is also valid. This implication is compatible with the queer idea that the specifics of masculinity can be constructed in different ways at different times in history or in different cultures, as queer theory does not do away with the concept of masculinity entirely. It accepts that a female can perform masculinity. This performance would be declared to be as valid as any other, because that transgender presentation would be disruptive to cisheteronormativity; it would be useful to the cause. In short, trans men who believe they have an innate gender identity are queering masculinity, and are therefore welcomed by queer theorists. Trans men also benefit from the queer idea that masculinity is not the exclusive preserve of biological males. The problem arises when people equate gender performativity with theatrical performance, which is why those people now assume a special significance for drag acts. In Judith Butler's world view, gender performativity is inherited from the culture, it isn't a costume the individual can choose to wear. Queering masculinity is therefore a radical political act, even when in the guise of entertainment.

[@liberality]

@elijahmarie77444 I don't know which church you belong to, but that is an atypical interpretation of Christian teachings. Deuteronomy 23:1 says "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord." So if you're looking for support for transgender people in the Bible, you might be disappointed.

[@EricLane85]

Is this available as a Facebook video (as opposed to using a KZbin link)?

[@liberality]

@elijahmarie77444 Pasting the same content into every thread makes you look like a bot.

[@liberality]

@elijahmarie77444 I said your posts look like a bot made them because they are unoriginal.

[@marysalluce9685]

HP!!

[@miroirs-jumeaux]

_primus_

[@vivienneb6199]

By now, Helen, you should have leaned the correct pronunciation of "Lyotard." To be honest, your focus on postmodernity is outdated, so you the missed the boat. All these debates happened in the 90's.

[@daughter_of_earth]

I dislike Helen Pluckrose's assertion that those who identify as "liberal" in this debate are the only fair, level-headed ones. Some of those so-called liberals seem like libertarians, for one. And the gender critical/radical feminist side are not all unhinged extremists. To some on the "anti-woke" side, the slur of "liberal" is being taken back. I used to call myself a liberal when it was a slur, but I am not sure what kind of liberal Pluckrose is referencing from the history of intellectual thought really is. I don't trust Pluckrose entirely.

[@annamyob4624]

sheeyit, it is the liberals who helped get us into this mess. Feet firmly planted in midair, following the latest fad of what purports to be "woke," uncritically accepting and enabling the trans ideology. Allowing and even participating in the marginalisation, cancelling, and attacking of the radical feminists who from the very start have been questioning the medicalisation of children, appropriation of women's spaces and sports and support systems, and elimination of sex-based protections. How else could this ideology so thoroughly have colonised the left!