Erik Becklin

Born and raised in Jämtland, Sweden.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

To the extent that this is about “feeling out of place”, I don’t see how it’s really any different from, say, a boy taking up horseback riding and being the only boy in class or a black kid taking up a stereotypically “white” sport and ending up the only black person on the team (or vice versa). Yeah, there might be some anxiety around that but that’s all. They presumably could get over it. Clearly, it’s just nonsensical to compare this to a homosexual man marrying a woman.

To the extent that it’s about being disadvantaged because of hormone treatments or whatever, the answer is that women and girl’s sports are not meant for anyone who for whatever reason isn’t competitive in the men’s category.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

Oskyddat sex kan ju ha ha helt livsomvälvande konsekvenser — könssjukdomar, graviditet — så det är väl rätt självklart att man har rätt att kräva kondom och då är det väl också rätt självklart att det borde få konsekvenser om det kravet ignoreras. Och ja, om det kan bevisas att någon medvetet har ljugit om p-piller så tycker jag inte alls att det vore konstigt att bestraffa det också. Men det finns ju en skillnad på så sätt att det senare inte på samma sätt ändrar själva sexaktens natur. Det framstår snarare som att det skulle vara ett exempel på ”rape by deception”, som jag förstått är förbjudet i vissa länder men inte Sverige.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@RayAlexWilliams @musta_ankka But clearly that is a bad states-of-affair because it is bound to create confusion. And then that confusion leads to bad consequences. As, indeed, is shown by things like males being allowed to compete in women’s sports and being placed in women’s prisons.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

Indeed, the intelligent way of pursuing the “are trans women women" debate is by discussing what we *should* mean by the term ‘woman’. I think we should mean “adult human female”. (And I think ‘female’ should be defined by reference to gametes.) I think this because (i) it is the traditional meaning and we should not introduce new meanings for words unnecessarily as that just creates confusion (*especially* when there are connections and similarities between the referents of the old meaning and the new), (ii) it seems very difficult for the proponents of a new definition to actually come up with a clear cut and intelligible definition and agree on it and (iii) the traditional definition seems to get at something much more important, relevant and fundamental than whatever a new definition would be getting at.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

Don’t you agree that trans activists are even more confused on these matters? They say “trans women are women” but seem oblivious to the fact that unless you attach some specific meaning to the term ‘women’, this is just meaningless. They, more than anyone, seem to treat ‘womanhood’ as this mysterious Platonic universal that we may ponder and *discover* that trans women are, in fact, women. When the truth is that the *facts* are clear: Trans women are males (according to the gametic definition) who claim to be ‘women’. According to the traditional definitions they are thus men who claim to be women. You might propose some new definitions according to which that is not true. But that changes nothing in reality and it changes nothing about how sports and prisons, etc., are properly segregated. And precisely because of this, there is no point in changing any definitions.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@RayAlexWilliams We need a word to refer to females according to the gametic definition and the established term is ‘females’. If you think we need a term for “looks female and have female-typical hormone levels (whether produced by the body or not)”, I think you should come up with a new term.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

Well, but that trans women “went down the small gametic pathway” is exactly what gender criticals tend to mean when they say that trans women are biologically male. And it is, I think, what we *should* mean, as the gametic or “reproductive organization” definition is the best definition. (Because it is the most explanatorily useful and fundamental.)

More generally, this kind of “definition critical” perspective is clearly much more damaging to trans activists than to gender criticals. Once you see clearly that no matter how we use *words*, human females *are* a distinctive group — out there in reality — and “trans women” are not part of it, their whole project crumbles. They are desperate to claim the word ‘woman’ and sometimes the word ‘female’. But, in and of themselves, these are just empty labels, so the project is absurd. Indeed, if they were successful in claiming the words, what *should* — rationally — happen is that these words/concepts would cease to be very important and useful words/concepts. Instead, whenever we earlier were interested in whether or not you are a ‘woman’ or ‘female’, we would now be interested in whether you are ‘X’. (‘X’ standing in for some new term for woman or female.) Though, before this became obvious, a whole lot of confusion and bad things would likely have happened, so it is worth fighting for the words.

It’s very much like if someone proposed that the word ‘gold’ should henceforth be used for everything that *looks like gold* and not just the element with atom number 79. Clearly, this is a rather useless project because, if successful, it would just mean that the word/concept ‘gold’ would cease to be very important. Though some people might become confused and pay too much for something that merely looks like gold, it would ultimately not mean that now everything that looks like gold would be just as valuable as actual gold or that everything that looks like gold could suddenly be used like actual gold in various industrial applications. Largely it would mean that we would stop speaking of ‘gold’ and instead start speaking of whatever new term would be launched for referring to the element with atom number 79.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

The thing about the gamete focused definition is that it’s the kind of definition that can help unify and explain phenomena. It gets at the heart of why sexual reproduction is a thing in the first place and why there is the different chromosomes, anatomy, etc. And why we see these same phenomena in so many organisms.

It is an interesting and important fact that we — like most animals — come in these two variants and that the members of one type reproduce by combining gametes with those of the other type. Concepts are cognitive tools whose most important function is to enable us to understand and thereby effectively navigate the world. The concepts of ‘male’ and ‘female’ — defined as two reproductive types or body organizations — are clearly useful concepts (as applied to humans as well many other organisms) that help us understand and navigate the world. (Imagine being a horse breeder, say, while having no concept of ‘male’ and ‘female’…)

These concepts are also socially and politically important — because reproduction is socially and politically important and because females and males have different kinds of bodies and tend to have differences in behavior — which is why we also have “legal sex”. (Though that term is somewhat misleading as sex is a biological and not legal phenomenon. ”Legal sex” is not a type of sex, but a legal category that must be understood in relation to the real, biological, notion of sex.)

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@kc_noren @sadeilan Ok, men personligen gillar jag hårda straff. Generellt borde de i Sverige bli mycket, mycket hårdare. Och sex utan kondom kan ju ha väldigt allvarliga och omvälvande konsekvenser som könsjukdomar och graviditet.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@MansCollner @lindbergpolemik Förstås så kan man diskutera exakt var straffet bör ligga. Själv gillar jag hårda straff. Kanske är 2 år i fängelse (som detta i praktiken lär bli) lite väl hårt. Men jag tycker det låter rimligt med någon tid i fängelse och skadestånd.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@kc_noren @sadeilan Med frigivning efter 2/3 lär det ju bli 2 år. Kanske ändå lite väl hårt, men inte helt orimligt. Jag tycker definitivt att det ska vara fängelse i alla fall, förutom skadestånd. Många andra straff i Sverige är helt klart alldeles för låga, men då är ju lösningen att höja dem.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@boreddeleuzian Don’t you realize how this shows that the trans activist use of “sex assigned at birth” is confused? Yes, Khelif was assigned female — but wasn’t actually female. It’s one of those *unusual* cases where the phrase might be useful, but only to get at how doctors got things wrong.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@JadeCatboy @weleasewodewik The most important function of concepts is to be *cognitive* tools helping us make sense of the world. The concepts of ‘male’ and ‘female’ most importantly should help us make sense of SEXual reproduction. But these concepts clearly also are socially and politically relevant.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@SharonaZamboni @TLiterarian Yeah, in many cases I too would appreciate it because of the effort and intention. But I can also imagine contexts where it would make me somewhat uncomfortable to be gifted poetry that I found to simply not at all be good…

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

@InteSosseSe Det är väl helt självklart att det är ett övergrepp att lura någon att du har kondom när du inte har det, ta av den i smyg, eller liknande. Det kan ju ha väldigt allvarliga följder.

[Erik Becklin @ErikBecklin]

I think the truth is that there is nothing that you simply “need”. You always need something *in order* for something to be the case. E.g., you need oxygen and food *in order to survive*, you need to call the mechanic *in order to get your car fixed*, you need friends and romantic love and sex *in order to be happy*, etc. I don’t understand why the word “need” would have to be restricted to only survival-needs.