Trans women are real women: a critical realist intersectional response to Pilgrim

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Transgender
• trans woman
• intersectional
• intransitive/transitive
• concrete universal/concrete singular
• mind/body

Introduction

I do not completely disagree with David Pilgrim’s article ‘Reclaiming reality and redefining realism: the challenging case of transgenderism’. For instance, I agree that there is reason to suspect that medical practitioners do not always have the best interests of trans people at heart, due to a conflict of interest over the profit to be made in medical interventions. I also agree that we should not be overly hasty in accepting medical solutions to trans gender problems, as these always entail risk and (as I explain later) ontological realism about identity means that we can potentially be wrong about our self-understanding. We may not be who we think we are. I also agree with Pilgrim, along with the critical realist Gunnarsson (2011), and in contrast to many feminists, such as Butler (2004, 2011) and May (2015), that there is such a thing as an ontologically real woman, and that it is important to be able to talk about women as real women, not as social constructions.

However, I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with Pilgrim’s contention that critical realists should be ‘broadly sympathetic’ to the attitude that we should ‘totally deny any natal male claim to womanhood’. I take the opposite stand. I maintain that trans women are ontologically real women and in discussing this claim I weigh up whether trans women should be allowed to stand for, or represent, women in the political fight for women’s rights.¹ I also offer a critical realist way to approach intersectionality. Before I begin, however, I need to introduce two concepts that underpin my argument: concrete universal/singulars and the intransitive/transitive dimensions of reality.

Concrete universal/singulars

I assume that a certain kind of (concrete not abstract) category is real; and that therefore there are concrete universals such as Women, which are made up of all the concrete singular women. However, there are no abstract universals such as ‘women’ – made up of the abstract idea of the ‘ideal’ woman, where ‘ideal’ has both the philosophical and lay meanings of ‘in the mind’ and ‘perfect’, respectively. As Bhaskar, Danermark, and Price (2017, 67) explain:

1. Every woman is a universal woman (concrete universal)

   As a woman, she will have certain features in common with all other women.

2. Every woman is a mediated woman

   However, she will also have certain features – her specificities – in common with some but not all other women.

3. Every woman has a geohistorical trajectory

   All women are born at different times and places.

4. Every woman is a unique individual (concrete singular)

   Even if two women were born at the same time and place, they would not be the same because every individual is irreducibly unique.

Transitive/intransitive dimensions

I subscribe to the Bhaskarian distinction between the intransitive and transitive dimensions of reality which, ‘registers a permanent wedge between beliefs and what they are about’ (Bhaskar and Hartwig 2010, 62). I also assume that the transitive dimension embraces everything that is currently being affected by human praxis (Bhaskar and Hartwig 2010, 61).² This is unlike Pilgrim who assumes that the transitive is limited to epistemology and the intransitive is limited to ontology. Rather, I see ontology as being ‘maximally inclusive’ (Bhaskar and Hartwig 2010, 77), and therefore it includes epistemology, too. Therefore, Bhaskar assumes not only that mind (which is a necessary part of epistemology) can affect matter, as occurs in inter-personal communication – we ask someone to pass the condiments and they do (Bhaskar 2014, 105) – but also that mind affects facts. Take the following illustration by Bhaskar, Danermark, and Price (2017, 91), in which the question (fact) of how many students are in a room is broached. Bhaskar suggests that the answer is ambiguous and can only be answered if one knows the mind’s (i.e. the epistemological knower’s) reason for asking the question in the first place:

Is it for setting out the tea cups? If this is the case, then we should not include the student on the other side of the phone. Or is it to deliver handouts? If this is the case, then we should include the student present at the other end of the phone.

Thus, facts do not correspond to reality in an objective (not-influenced-by-humans) way. To put it another way, especially in social reality, facts are not merely potentially variable because people may have different perspectives on them, but also because the ontological, intransitive aspect of reality is in some way mind dependent. However, as the condiments and tea cup examples demonstrate, critical realism’s version of the idea that reality is affected by mind is based on commonsense – there is nothing spoon-bending about it – which is significantly unlike the postmodern/solipsistic version in which mind somehow magically creates reality.

Trans women are ontologically real women

The acknowledgement that it is really, ontologically the case that, for instance, there might be 17 people in the room for the question of tea, but 18 people in the room for question of handouts has important implications for the debate about whether trans women are real women. The solution to this debate lies in the reason for asking why we need to know what characteristics define womanhood. Bhaskar, Danermark, and Price (2017, 68) explain that, if we are asking the question because we are organizing a wedding and want to know what titles (e.g. Mr, Ms) to use to address the invitations without offending anyone, then the answer is: a woman is whoever wants to be a woman. If we are archaeological geneticists trying to decide ‘who is a woman’ for the purposes of carrying out research on the ancestral transmission of mitochondrial DNA (which can only be passed on by ova to each generation), then we would have to define women as those who possess ova. See Table 1 for an illustration of the use of Bhaskar’s first two aspects of womanhood, interpreted for three different questions. This conception is also the basis of a critical realist version of intersectionality. From this table, we can see that possessing ova is merely a possible mediation in the definition of who is a woman if we want to know for wedding invitations; but it is a necessary part of the universal woman if we want to know for genetic purposes. Likewise, identifying as a woman is a mediation in the definition of who is a woman if we want to know for genetic purposes; but it is part of the universal woman if we want to know for the purposes of addressing wedding invitations. Note that acknowledging mediations allows greater nuance of action to achieve one's objective. In the wedding example, knowing that someone is a trans woman will allow her possible need for bespoke footwear to be considered; in the political activism example, it allows the special experience of the trans woman to be acknowledged and incorporated into the staregizing process. The other two aspects of womanhood that I did not include in Table 1, geohistorical trajectory and singular uniqueness, further add to the ability to achieve one's objective using tailored interventions, right down to the individual circumstances of each agent.

Table 1. The effect of context on our labels of universal and mediated (intersectional) women

Context (objective of label) Universal/mediated (intersectional) aspects of label	Address people according to their identity for a wedding	Find people with ova to follow genetic inheritance of mitochondrial DNA	Decide who should count as a woman for the purposes of representing women in political activism against sexism
Every woman is a universal woman	All people who identify as women count as women	All people who have ova count as women	All people who have experienced sexism as women count as women. That trans women experience such sexism is well established (e.g. Roughgarden 2014 in Nordell 2014; Alter 2018)
Every woman is a mediated (intersectional) woman	Some women used to be men. If they used to be men, and they are going to be bridesmaids, they may need specially made footwear	Some women identify as men and vice versa. If a person looks ‘female’, this does not always mean that they have ova (there may be several possible reasons for this)	Some women used to be men. They may not have experience of sexism prior to their transition to a woman, but their experience of male privilege potentially adds to the feminist movement’s ability to strategize against sexism

Bhaskar (in Pilgrim 2018) critiques postmodernism/solipsism when he states that there is no possible warrant for the assumption that ‘genera, species, essences, classes and so on are human creations’ because, taken literally ‘it would imply that a chromosome count is irrelevant in determining the biological sex of an individual’. Pilgrim seems to think that this is proof that Bhaskar would agree with him that trans women can never be real women, but I think it merely shows that ontology is important. Yes, chromosome count is important for one’s classification if one’s objective is to identify whether someone has a Y chromosome because one is trying to decide whether they suffer from Turner’s syndrome in which the Y chromosome is absent. However, it is not important if one wants to decide how to address wedding invitations. For the latter classification, we need to know whether invitees see themselves – really ontologically see themselves – as male, female, or non-specific. Therefore, to paraphrase Bhaskar, ‘there is no possible warrant for the assumption that “genera, species, essences, classes and so on are human creations” because, taken literally it would imply that whether or not a person sees themselves as belonging to the class of women is irrelevant in determining whether or not that person would prefer to be addressed as Mr or Ms’.

It is because Pilgrim has a different understanding of the intransitive and transitive dimensions to the one that I define above that he finds it ‘illogical and confusing’ that some trans women state that their gender reflects ‘an innate (sic) sense of self’. There is plenty of evidence that levels of prenatal testosterone exposure are associated with certain gender identities and gender-related behaviours, regardless of sex (Hines 2006, Kerschbaum et al. 2006, Khorashad et al. 2017). It is therefore perfectly feasible that people might be born with innate tendencies – possibly related to prenatal hormonal influences – to be a certain gender. However, this possibility is inconceivable for Pilgrim because, for him, gender is entirely a matter of the transitive dimension, or of the mind which is a component of epistemology. He therefore cannot conceive that it is part of, or emergent from, the natal body. Another way of explaining this is to say that Pilgrim is limited by his assumption of the dichotomy of mind and body, which Bhaskar took pains to debunk. Bhaskar stated that

The mind-body problem has to be critiqued as part of the emancipatory project of returning to a richer version of ‘whole-body mindedness. (Bhaskar and Hartwig 2010, 84)

I am therefore arguing for an ontological, rather than an epistemological, basis for identity that avoids identity relativism – allowing for a sense in which one’s identity can, and perhaps should for one’s psychological health, be connected to who one really is. This is what trans people consistently try to explain, in the face of suggestions (sometimes accusations) that their way of being is a mere choice and has no basis in reality, such as Pilgrim’s statement mentioned earlier, that it is illogical for a trans person to say that their gender is innate. This is an example of the way that critical realism’s epistemological relativism and ontological realism avoids pejorative Relativism (with a capital R). This also suggests that there may be a way in which we, perhaps especially when we are young, may not know who we really are; or a way in which we may be mistaken about who we are. Therefore, there is likely to be value in giving people, who want to transition medically, time to consider whether the gender that they desire to be is a true reflection of themselves, given how difficult it will be to revert, they change their minds later. For instance, are they perhaps in fact androgynous, but long to be just one gender to be able to avoid the distress of societal disapproval? If they moved to a different community, more accepting of difference, would their need to medically transition disappear? However, given how hard it is to live with disapproval from society, I would not hold it against anyone, who was actually for instance, androgynous, should they transition towards one particular gender in order to save themselves from the fate of being socially marginalized (perhaps vilified is a better word). In which case, we may need to distinguish between two kinds of (interacting not mutually exclusive) gender dysphoria: that suffered because the person is truly not their birth-allocated gender; and that suffered because society does not accept their true gender. The former is likely to require medical transition if it is to be reasonably resolved; the later may not – it may be society that needs to change. Although, given how hard it is to change society, the difference in practice may be moot.

It should be noted that the critical realist approach to gender (or categories in general) can sometimes draw attention to an inefficiency in terms of existing labels. For instance, in Table 1, it is clearly inefficient to look for women, as a geneticist, if what one really wants are people with ova, since many people who may be ‘women’ do not have ova. Therefore, it would be more efficient simply to have the label ‘people with ova’. In other words, trying to fit reality into one’s existing labels might not be the best option, and it might be more productive to fit one’s labels to reality. It is this consequence of realism about categories – that existing labels may need to be challenged to better reflect ontology – which has resulted in the proliferation of labels for gender (around 50 options provided by Facebook according to Steinmetz 2014). Furthermore, things can also get problematic when a label functions in two or more ways. For instance, the label woman, functions both as a way to address people, confirming their gender identity, and as a way to give information to people, say, to a medical doctor. It is therefore often counter-productive to too rigidly adhere to a particular label. Fortunately, for critical realists, there is no contradiction in the claim that one is an ontologically real person with a prostate (some would say a man) for the purposes of one context (e.g. a prostate examination), an ontologically real woman for the purposes of another context (e.g. one’s daily life), and an ontologically real trans woman in yet a third context (e.g. a trans women support group). Whilst theoretically this could unlock Machiavellian possibilities of having the best of all worlds, it seems unlikely that this is what motivates trans women. If one’s objective is to maximize one’s potential for success in the world, why would one give up one’s male status?

This brings me to the next part of my paper in which I put my theory – about what makes a woman a woman – to the test by considering the question of whether trans women are real-enough women to be allowed to represent women in contexts of political activism against sexism.

Should trans women be allowed to represent women in the fight against sexism?

In this case, we want to know whether someone is a woman for the purposes of politically representing women in the fight against patriarchy because we realize that women’s voices are often silenced, and we are wary of infiltration into the feminist movement of trojan horse men, who claim to be women but who might act against the best interests of women. Therefore, we need people to represent women who suffer from sexism as a woman and who therefore can fight from that perspective (see Table 1). However, this should not detract from accepting the assistance of people who want to fight patriarchy and who do not experience it as women, or who previously experienced it as women.The question is more, for example, is it ethical for a trans woman to stand for an elected seat as a representative of women's issues?

In terms of whether a trans woman should be able to represent women in political spheres, I think that they can, because they also suffer from sexism and the objective in this context is to find women who suffer from sexism as women.³ Personal testimonies of trans women show how they suddenly find themselves facing sexism – in ways recognizable to women everywhere – once they transition (see for example Roughgarden in Nordell 2014 and Alter 2018). Having read some of their testimonies, I find their arguments particularly persuasive because those people (such as cis women) who have grown up on the wrong side of sexism have often taken on board the idea that their failure is their own fault (Caplan 1993, 4). They therefore find it hard to distinguish between when a door is closed to them due to sexism or due to their own failings. However, trans women know exactly what they should be able to expect as men, and what they do not get as women. This gives them a unique position from which to analyse the situation. Furthermore, having once been men, they have certain insights into male motivation that are not available to women. Therefore, in practice, one of the mediations of trans women – the fact they were once men – suggests that they can bring to the feminist table resources (understandings) that cis women on their own may not have. Similarly, the cis women’s mediation – that they have suffered sexism from birth – and the black cis women’s mediation – of experiences of sexism inflected by racism – also supply different understandings of sexism. I think that these different points of view, related to women’s different mediations, add strength to the feminist movement and enable more nuanced and thus more effective strategies. Ideally though, structures should be in place to ensure that mediations are given proper weight. This is because – as we have seen in the way that the experiences of black women are not always given proper weight – this may not happen spontaneously. In other words, rather than side-lining the trans women feminists as 'not representative', their concerns should be explicitly considered, in exactly the same way, and for exactly the same reasons, that the concerns of black women, mature women and disabled women should be explicity considered.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have suggested that we should use the following steps to decide who counts as a woman:

1. Decide why we want to know who counts as a woman.

2. Define the universal Woman in such a way as to support our objective for wanting to know.

3. Consider intersectional mediations in the ontological nature of women that add complexity to the situation – with the aim of either ameliorating complications or enhancing advantages offered by those mediations – in order to support the original goal.

4. Be aware that some complications may be overcome by choosing different labels altogether, more in line with the original objectives.

I have defended my argument with a type of critical realist intersectionality that makes use of the concepts of the concrete universal/concrete singular and the intransitive/transitive dimensions of reality. However, in using these concepts, it is necessary to avoid conflating the intransitive/transitive with ontology/epistemology. This is allied to the critical realist refusal to endorse the mind/body dualism, since the mind’s approach to epistemology is not unrelated to the body’s ontology but rather emergent from it. I have used these concepts to critique Pilgrim’s argument that trans women can never be ontologically real women.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jason Summersell actively advocated for the rights of LGBTQI in Zimbabwe in the early 1990s. He edited the anthology ‘Sahwira: Being Gay and Lesbian in Zimbabwe’ and his interviews with members of the lesbian community were included in the volume ‘Unspoken Facts’ by Marc Epprecht. He has served as the secretary of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ). For several years, he volunteered as a GALZ peer counsellor, during which time one of his roles was co-ordinator of their transgender drop in centre.

Notes

1 I am transgender, queer and, by some classifications, mildy intersex. Whilst I am not a trans woman, I feel justified to contribute to this discussion because we are all universal, ontological human beings, for whom it is true that no-one is free or can flourish until everyone is free and can flourish (Bhaskar 2002, 142). This means that my motivation to support trans women, whilst based on my desire to see them flourish, is also for the sake of my own wellbeing – not least because I literally suffer when I see them suffer, but also because the mechanisms of oppression that harm them, are the same mechanisms that harm me. Unlike many feminists and social activists who think that the only people who can speak out for oppressed people are the oppressed people themselves – I think that everyone has a responsibility to speak out against abusive situations. To stay quiet when others are abused, is to be complicit in their abuse. I understand why some activists maintain that only the abused must speak for themselves: it is because they have moved from a true premise (that abused people have been, and are, silenced and not given a voice); to a false conclusion (that therefore only the abused must speak for themselves).

2 Rather than defining the intransitive dimension as ontological and the transitive dimension as epistemological, we should define these terms in the same way that we define them in grammatical contexts. An intransitive verb, unlike a transitive verb, does not have a direct object receiving the action. For example, we can say ‘she arrived’ and this makes sense, but we cannot say ‘she opened’ – as the statement begs the question ‘opened what?’. As such, the subject of an intransitive verb is not in relationship with anything else. Similarly, in critical realism, the intransitive dimension of reality is what ‘is’ when ‘it’ not in relationship with a knower. However, the transitive dimension is what ‘is’ when ‘it’ is in relationship with the knower. It is this transitive connectedness, which implies totality, that closes the epistemological circle and explains why reality is potentially intelligible to us (Bhaskar 1993, 273).

3 As New (2001) explains, men also suffer from sexism, but differently from the way that women suffer, whilst also benefitting from sexism.