How conservatives and liberals watch ‘I am Cait’

 https://theconversation.com/how-conservatives-and-liberals-watch-i-am-cait-44877

On July 26, Caitlyn Jenner premiered her new reality show I Am Cait, reigniting the internet debate on the validity of the transgender identity. Which side of the debate one falls on correlates highly with one’s political position.

Liberal politicians like President Barack Obama tend to support Jenner and commend her on her courage. the other hand, conservative politicians like Mike Huckabee have mocked Jenner’s transition, some of them referring to her as mentally ill.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some conservatives support transgender individuals – indeed, Jenner herself identifies as a Republican – and some liberals deny that Jenner is a woman. But we think the conservative–liberal divide is prevalent enough to be worthy of attention.

Getting the facts straight

Those on the left and right seem to believe that they are motivated by a desire to get to the fact of the matter about what constitutes being a man or a woman. That is, they think that they are arguing for an unbiased account about what gender is.

One way they do this is by referring to anatomy. Many on the left argue that gender is “deeply rooted in one’s mind.” They cite psychologists like Columbia’s Derald Wing Sue, who argues that “Caitlyn Jenner is not identifying with being a woman because of (her) upbringing and cultural conditioning”; rather, her gender is biologically programmed into her.

Those on the right often argue that being a man or woman is simply being born with male or female sex organs or that people who are transgender are mentally ill. They cite studies showing that individuals who have undergone reassignment surgery are more likely to commit suicide than those who have not. The increased risk of suicide is thought to show that identifying as transgender is a consequence of depression and, therefore, not a genuine identity.

An intense debate

The debate around these issues is intense. Controversial writer (and cofounder of Vice) Gavin McInnes’ article “Transphobia Is Perfectly Natural”, for example, has elicited over 5,000 comments.

As empirically oriented philosophers with research interests in what motivates individuals’ reasoning, we suspect that the debate is not motivated by a desire to get to the fact of the matter about gender. After all, when individuals disagree on other facts, such as (say) whether Napoleon won at Waterloo, we cannot predict people’s beliefs based on their political affiliation. Our view is that the intensity of this discussion is best explained by what psychologists call identity protective cognition.

Identity protective cognition is the tendency to selectively accept and dismiss information to support one’s identity.

This theory, developed by Dan M Kahan of Yale Law School, argues that beliefs about how society “ought to be” are central to one’s group identity. People discount information if it suggests their group’s picture of the ideal society is lacking.

For conservatives, the ideal society tends to be hierarchical. They want – perhaps subconsciously – resource distribution to depend on factors such as social class, race and sex. Status flows to men who work at well-paying jobs and women who stay at home and tend to the family.

Transgender individuals are dangerous to the hierarchy conservatives desire. They complicate the binary picture of division of labor within the traditional family. The existence of transgender individuals suggests that the assumption that underpins the legitimacy of the hierarchy – that people designated men and women at birth are naturally suited to particular gender roles – is false. So conservatives are motivated to deny the reality of transgenderism.

On the opposite side of things, research has shown that liberals tend to favor an egalitarian society. They want resources to be divided more equally, and they do not want the division to depend on gender. Social status should not be determined by conformity to gender stereotypes.

In such a society, transgender identities must be legitimate. Otherwise, there is a risk of propagating the view that one has to fall neatly into one of two genders, a view that forces men and women into unequal social roles.

We believe that if the debate at hand is to make real progress, we need to recognize that it is not merely about whether Jenner is female. It is implicitly a debate about how we ought to structure society and people’s roles in it. It is a debate not just about what certain words mean; it is about what they ought to mean.

end of article

my comment

I tried to find a sensible, neutral, intelligent article on transphobia in vain until I came across this. I despair at the negative political atmosphere where everyone becomes an extremist around set piece phrases. I have in my horoscope mars opposition sun which predisposes me to avoid confrontation or to argue, as the astrology article said, in a disarming way to offend the least and find the most common ground, having myself no particular stake in the matter. Where I do have a stake I am vicious so I sympathize all this killer instinct out there. But how often is a situation black and white? Are people just eager to pick fights where they are not effected or offended personally. Is it just cowardice on my part to throw up my hands in despair? I grew up in a family with constant fighting, arguing and live in such a situation since my marriage. I play appeaser, jester generally, hoping always for the squall to die down. I know no trans people, have almost no gay contacts so it seems irrelevant to me. One used to joke about 'the price of rice in China' in America or 'Afghanistanism' in England I believe when one wished to denote irrelevancy. Perhaps trans topics are more charged in America.  I just googled this to find that 1.4 million or 0.6% of US population identifies as such. Total LGBT was 4.5% leaving gays and lesbians at 3.9% of total. To obsess with transgender problems seems a stretch to me as a natural moderate. Fights are boring. I avoid horror and action films, preferring comedy and serious drama. Eventually a new normative attitude will be applicable to this group and life will go on. My phobias against spiders, violent dogs, nuclear weapons and strange men in dresses trying to hit on me will likely remain in deep background, unaffected by everyday realities where none of this ever occurs. Dogs remain docile, gay men humourous, spiders small and nukes under control. Maybe the transphobia means not knowing it is not a "real woman' hitting on you. The world has gotten so complicated. So a guy has sex, one night stand or relationship with an ex-guy but never realizes it, finds out and has a crisis, like 'OMG am I gay?' A girl falls in love with a guy who was once a girl and has same doubts. This bears deeper philosophical pondering. People can be quite serious about their choice of partners wrt to income, job, cultural direction, ethnicity and now suddenly we should ignore something very basic. I know women like to pick men from a dating service based on height(,1,68/5'6" no chance here),do janitorial so I am now a real loser. I think all those who won't date a short, fat, poor, stupid guy should stop being so vocal on transphobia until they sleep with one and are less picky on their dating habits. It seems to me like a way of getting out from under guilt for hundreds of years of suppressing minorities, destroying whales, etc to compensate. I think racism is similar. Until you have a black boy/girlfriend and a child of mixed race it should not be your big personal cause. My wife is Russian and I see an inherent antirussian bias in all decisions in Western politics which I consider to be deeply racist. My children are trilingual. I am deeply cynical therefore of people preaching antiracism or talking homophobia where I see no personal history of direct involvement. My poor working class Irish catholic father as opposed to my educated middle class British mother brings similar stereotypical prejudices to mind which have a centuries or millenia long endurance. So I think a gradualist, experiential, nonideological approach is generally best in life. In Russia ten percent or more of the population is muslim. They have a very long coexistence. In the West there is a lot of prejudice and friction. Mostly conservative Russian cultural values fit in better with muslim values. No gay pride marches there for example. One has to understand a bit more than one's own culture, have a deeper sense of history and have lots of personal experience to look at any situation fairly, in perspective. Generally people are born and raised in one culture of parents, grandparents, etc of one country and have no varied background or deep experience or study of history.  Witch hunts, mini civil wars ensue due to shortsightedness at certain points in time historically in all countries. This is due to cyclical factors, perhaps astrological. People from abroad or perhaps aliens would look in wonder at hysteria, mass social dysfunction over pittances.  An Afghan or Syrian arriving in America from endless civil war might be amazed at the intensity of debate over transgenderism when starvation and mass bombing was their main problem for years or decades. The problems of extreme black poverty might be more sympathetic to this immigrant than sexual dysphoria. I am not alien to gay relatives and the general dynamic and I sympathize. But exactly due to this I am no activist. This is family matter, private. If for example one sibling is gay, another turns muslim and a third is transgender or fundamentalst Christian or so and all refuse to talk to one another due to ideology you would understand where I am coming from. Live and let live, don't get political. Abortion rights was maybe a big conscience thing for my catholic dad I believe in the 70s. He worked with blacks and had average attitudes for his age group on race. Sudden radical movements where people riot, tear down statues or ban people, end friendships over ideology is something that happened when I was very small and I bet it seeped deep into my subconscious as the worst possible type of behaviour. The revolution eats its children. My trans- homo-phobia, latent racism against anything slightly different from myself and generally sexist prejudice I see as impossible to root out as my chewing my fingernails and other bad habits. Hypocrisy I see as the worst of all sins. This is why I appreciate an a**hole like Trump. I mistrust professional politicians snake oil salesmen. Here is an idiot who spews out his true subconscious hatred at every opportunity. He is relatively truthful. This is a miracle in politics quite literally. My wife is similarly brutal generally in all respects. I appear amazingly moderate in comparison and hear the worst of the worst first hand but then an honest appraisal when personal contacts of any background are decent people. She adapts quickly to our extremely multiculti city just as I have done. So Trump spews vitriol and starts no wars. He has gotten rid of his subconscious anger by screaming at everyone. A polite politician with hidden neuroses from his childhood just enjoys making bombing raids, CIA coups. So I am used to constantly dealing with simmering conflict privately and considering my own obvious weaknesses and prejudices constantly. Could I be better as a president, a housewife, a boss? Walk a mile in the other man's shoes first.  Go live in the ghetto, frequent the gay, trans scene or live as a homeless person and then write it up for a college dissertation. Perhaps pretending to belong to political parties and hearing their intimate hatred of the other side and discovering its roots would heal one of getting political. Attending churches or getting into religious sects can do similar for one on the religious front. People love to get power, control others, climb the ladder of success in any organization and will say or do whatever they must to appear good, please the crowd. I do that here constantly perhaps. Being honest is a deathly sin if you want to maintain friendships. Better to move with the crowd. Honest discussions of doubts are best reserved for private spaces with intimate long term friends or relatives who are not judgemental. In the Soviet Union my wife says they would make jokes about doddering Brezhnev in the kitchen. Similarly nowadays open discussion of social issues has one branded as x-phobic or friend of Putin, etc depending on which crisis is in vogue this political season. Seasoned survivors of communism in Eastern Europe and China are very malleable and sly and don't get too noisy on any topic unless agreement is universal and they can score social capital. Hard lessons learned over a lifetime for sure. I remember where in the Old Testament a King calls prophets together to say should he go to battle. All say go well. He calls his least favourite who repeats the same. Upon rebuke from the king he says he will die a bloody death and gets thrown in the dungeon but is proven right.