Gender Fictionalism

Gender Fictionalism

The nature of gender is at the heart of ongoing public conversations occasioned by the increased visibility of transgender people—for example, when someone born with a Y-chromosome and a penis holds the sincere belief that she is a woman, what exactly does she believe herself to be? This question raises a dilemma. On the one hand, any theory on which sincerely believing that one is a woman isn't sufficient for being one entails that some women aren't women. On the other, we can avoid excluding any women by refusing to specify any condition on being a woman beyond believing that one is. But in this case, we wouldn't have a satisfying answer to the question of what someone who believes that she is a woman believes herself to be. We can respond to this dilemma by adopting fictionalism about gender. Broadly speaking, fictionalism is the view that some portion of our ordinary talk is best characterised as not aiming at literal truth, but rather as constituting a fiction. Just as we can be fictionalists about mathematical talk, talk of possible worlds, or talk of morality, we could be fictionalists about talk of gender. This enables us to say that there is simply no fact of the matter as to what womanhood (manhood, etc.) really is. On this view, being a woman can be a matter of believing that one is—it’s just that the belief ascribes a property posited within the scope of a fiction, and so there need be no deep, substantive answer to the question of what someone who believes she is a woman believes herself to be. The main task of this talk will be to develop the details of gender fictionalism, and to respond to some obvious objections.

For further information about Dr Heather Logue, please see: https://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/profile/20042/199/heather_logue