“Men Should not Be Allowed in Women’s Spaces, but Transwomen Are Not Men”
Argument Submitted by: D.B., PhD
Person A: “I’m worried about men harming women. They shouldn’t share women’s spaces.”
Person B: “I’m not saying men should be allowed in women’s spaces. Women aren’t at risk of being attacked by men if trans-women enter their restrooms because trans-women are women.”
This is an example of Incommensurability. This isn’t a fallacy, but it can constitute an instance of willful obtuseness as a rhetorical strategy. Incommensurability occurs when good faith argument and compromise are rendered impossible by incommensurable premises. In other words, if two people can’t agree on fundamental definitions or assumptions then they cannot engage in productive dialogue. One person can blockade discussion by refusing to hold enough definitions and/or assumptions in common with their interlocutor to make reasonable conversation possible.
Person A has defined woman to mean “adult human female” and Person B has defined “woman” to mean any individual identifying as a woman. Person A and Person B cannot have a good faith discussion because Person B is being willfully obtuse about the point Person A is making and blockading good faith discussion by refusing to share terminology.
When this situation occurs one strategy is to be clear and assertive about the meaning of terms. One could instead substitute the term “biological males” and “biological females” for “man” and “woman.” Rhetorically this can put one at a disadvantage since it could be taken to imply a concession that gender is distinct from sex (i.e. that the term “man” is not equivalent to the term “biological male” and that a person could be a man without being male). However, this strategy does have the advantage of clarifying if one’s interlocutor believes that sex and gender are different since some adherents of gender identity theory appear to believe that sex itself can be changed, while others appear to believe biological sex cannot change but gender can such that sex may be incongruous with gender. If one’s interlocutor believes that biological sex is immutable, while gender changes, then one may be able to achieve some compromise by insisting that the term “sex” rather than “gender” be used in the conversation. If one’s interlocutor believes that biological sex can be changed then the best strategy would be to ask that person to define the meaning of “sex” and possibly to use the (laborious) phrase “individuals-with-a-penis” (or variants) if you really must to discuss the issue of segregated spaces.