Ловушка идентичности - Яша Мунк

profoundly unhappy if they are forced to comply with masculine gender norms. Justice therefore demands that they be allowed, if they so wish, to live as women. (The same holds for biological women who wish to live as men, or for people of either biological sex who, wishing to eschew both masculine and feminine gender norms, are “nonbinary.”)

But as in the case of structural racism, the trouble starts when the well-founded recognition of the importance of a newer concept (in this case gender) turns into an ideologically motivated denial of the importance of the older concept (in this case biological sex). Over the past few years, a growing number of writers and activist organizations have insisted that in human beings there is no utility to thinking about sex as a biological concept; many have also embraced the further claims that there are no reasons to think of sex as a binary and that any policy that takes biological sex into account should therefore be considered transphobic.

In this view, the existence of people who are intersex demonstrates that biological categories like male and female are an oppressive social construct. And because people should be allowed to live in accordance with their internal sense of gender, any recognition that this may not match their biological sex affronts their dignity. As Agustín Fuentes, a biological anthropologist at Princeton University, has argued, “A simple binary view creates a fictitious template . . . that manifests in miseducation about basic biology.” It should be resisted because it might lead to “the creation of anti-transgender laws.” Sometimes, activists even claim that anybody who thinks that a person’s biological sex can retain relevance in certain contexts is denying the right of trans people to exist; this accusation, which is especially popular on social media, uses the different meanings of the word “exist” to insinuate that those who take a different view on the role of biological sex want particular individuals who identify as trans to die.

But the denial of biological sex is wrongheaded. Both scientists and medical professionals, for example, know that biological sex is a key determinant of important human attributes, from the prevalence of heart disease to the ability to become pregnant. A small percentage of individuals—according to estimates, less than one in a thousand people—have an intersex condition that means that they do not clearly fall into the category of a biological male or a biological female. But as is also true in many other contexts, including questions about when free speech blends into blackmail or defamation, it is a mistake to believe that the existence of “hard cases” that do not fall into a clear category means that the underlying dichotomy is incoherent. It would be wrong to say that the existence of people who have some hair means that there is no such thing as people who either are bald or have a full head of hair; similarly, it is wrong to say that the existence of people who are intersex means that there is no such thing as people who are biologically male or biologically female.

Something similar applies to the claim that it is always offensive to distinguish between women who are and women who are not transgender. Take a celebratory tweet sent by GLAAD, one of the most vocal defenders of transgender rights in the United States: “History! Dr. Rachel Levine has been confirmed as the next Assistant Secretary of Health. She is the first out transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate.” This tweet seems straightforward. But it has meaning only because of an implicit assumption, apparently shared by GLAAD: just as it sometimes makes sense to distinguish between women who are lesbian and those who are not, it sometimes makes sense to distinguish between women who are transgender (like Levine) and those who are not (like all the other women whom the Senate has confirmed as federal officials in the past).

Taken together, these insights can help to offer a more coherent account of how to think about public policy and transgender rights. Sex and gender are both important categories. For the most part, this is not a social problem. People whose sense of their own gender does not match their biological sex should be allowed to live as they wish. All of us should treat them in a respectful and welcoming manner. There is good reason to celebrate the rapid growth in social acceptance of trans men, trans women, and people who are nonbinary.

There are, however, some areas of public policy in which the demands of sex and gender do potentially clash. In some medical settings, for example, doctors need to know the biological sex of their patients to be able to diagnose their condition accurately and treat them effectively. In many sports, biological males who transitioned after undergoing puberty enjoy significant physical advantages when they compete against biological females. And finally, there are certain spaces, such as prisons, in which biological women have well-founded apprehensions or understandable religious concerns about having to share intimate spaces with people who have male sexual organs.»

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Этот идеал с самого начала определял американскую мечту. Когда историк Джеймс Адамс ввел этот термин, он писал, что это «мечта о стране, в которой жизнь должна быть лучше, богаче и полнее для каждого, с возможностью для каждого в соответствии со способностями или достижениями. Для верхних сословий европейского общества не так просто в полной мере понять это стремление, и слишком многие из нас сами устали от него, и утратили к нему доверие. Это не просто мечта о автомобилях и высоких зарплатах, а мечта о социальном устройстве, в котором каждый мужчина и каждая женщина смогут достичь своего наивысшего потенциала и получить признание за то, кем они являются, независимо от случайных обстоятельств рождения или положения». Adams J. The Epic of America. Boston: Little, Brown, 1931. P. 404.

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