Category: Gender

Some years ago, at a road race, a runner entered with a sex of “other” which caused a bit of a problem with the race results. After all, in such competitions people are divided between male and female. They are also divided by age. Because of this, experienced runners tend to check out the competition before the start of the race, looking to see who is present and mentally gauging their chances of being “a have” (runner slang for getting an award).

Since awards are usually divided into categories of sex and age, runners also try to estimate the age of the potential competition. While it is less common, runners sometimes do need to estimate the sex of the competition. While some people advocate avoiding all concerns about age and sex by only having awards for overall top finishers, there are good reasons to have such categories.

One obvious reason is that awards are intended to increase attendance at the race as some people are more inclined to participate when they know they have more chances of winning. If awards were limited to top overall finishers, there would be some decline in participation since people who were not the very top runners would know they had no chance of winning anything.

Another reason is to provide people with a chance to compete in ways that offset advantages. Naturally, almost every race allows people to compete in the overall results, so there is still very broad competition.

Age has a dramatic negative impact on performance. One major factor is that older athletes do not recover as fast, hence it becomes harder to maintain rigorous training while avoiding injury and being well-rested for the competition. People also get weaker as they age, though diligent maintenance can slow this setting of the sun. Because of this, most races have 5 or 10-year age groups for awards to provide runners with a chance to compete against people with comparable temporal challenges. There are, of course, many older runners who can beat younger runners, but the general advantage lies with the youth. For most races, runners are on the honor system, and they provide their age when they sign up. Some races do, however, require proof of age to avoid people cheating.

While there are female runners who can easily defeat almost any male on the planet in a race, males have various biological advantages when it comes to running, such as greater strength. As such, dividing the awards by sex is a way to account for this difference. There are, of course, some races that do not take this approach, but these are very rare and tend to be small races put on by people not familiar with the usual practices of awards.

As with age, runners are on the honor system in regard to disclosing their sex when they sign up. While a male would generally have an advantage if he could pass a female, this could be challenging given the nature of running attire and various other factors. There are, however, some controversial cases. Perhaps the most famous is that of runner Caster Semenya. Semenya is believed to have an intersex condition which causes the production of high levels of testosterone. High testosterone levels are believed to provide an athletic advantage. It must be noted that while testosterone is associated most with males, females also produce testosterone. In the past, some sporting authorities tested female athletes for high testosterone levels, but this practice has largely changed because female athletes, like male athletes, naturally vary a great deal in testosterone levels.

While sex-changes are not common, they do occur often enough that the matter has been addressed in sports. Because the division of the sexes in sports is justified on the grounds of relative advantages, females who transition to male can generally compete without restrictions. The easy and obvious justification for this is that such a male would not have any advantage over other males. In fact, they would probably tend to have some disadvantage relative to people who were born male. A male who transitions to female would potentially have an advantage. Because of this, a transitioned athlete need not have surgery, but she is typically required to have undergone at least a year of hormone therapy. This prevents male athletes from simply claiming to be female on race day and competing with an advantage.

There are also people who want to change their gender identification but do not want to undergo surgery or hormone therapy. Some might wonder what would prevent unscrupulous male athletes from gender identifying as females to win races. The easy and obvious answer is that sex divisions in sports are not gender divisions. They are a matter of physical factors and not a matter of social construction. As such, a male athlete who gender identified as a female would still compete against males. They are still a male in regard to the factors that matter in competition.

It could be objected that a person who gender identifies as a man or a woman should be able to compete in accord with their preferred identity. That person might, for example, want their race medal or trophy to reflect this identity such as being second female in the 20-24 age group. An easy counter to this is to use an analogy to age. A person might identify as “young at heart” or “and old soul”, but this does not impact their actual chronological age. In the case of athletic competition, this is what matters. If people could pick their age identity for races, this would presumably be used to gain an unfair advantage. So, a 26-year-old person who identified as a 40-year-old would not thus be eligible to win the master’s award (for people 40+).

The next to the last matter to be considered is that which started this discussion; a person who wants to identify as “other.” Resolving this would require determining the basis of the claim of otherness. If the person has a biological identity that falls within established rules for competition (being intersex, for example) then those rules would be applied. If the person has a biological identity that falls outside of the existing rules, then there would seem to be two likely approaches. One would be to match the person with the closest biological sex. The other would be to create a new category for sports and establish standards for being in that category. If the person is electing to select other as a gender identity while having a biological sex, then the person would compete in the category of that biological sex, for the reasons given above.

In closing, there is also a practical matter regarding possible legal troubles. Years ago, I would often see race entry forms with “gender” instead of “sex” because the terms were used interchangeably. These days, “sex” is the standard. If an entry form has “gender” rather than “sex”, then a person could presumably use whatever gender they wish to identify with. This would be rather problematic for the awards budget, since Facebook once recognized over fifty genders. As such, race entry forms should go with “sex.” The form might need to include a brief explanation of the difference between sex and gender to help avoid misunderstandings.

In response to a growing general acceptance of LGBT rights, some states have passed laws requiring a person to use the bathroom (and similar facilities) for the sex on their birth certificate.

Being a veteran runner, I am generally fine with people using whatever bathroom they wish to use, if they do not otherwise engage in immoral or criminal activity. Almost anyone who has run a major race probably has a similar view based on pure practicality. Also, like any mature adult, I go to the bathroom to do my business and if everyone else is minding their business, I could care less about who is in the next stall. Or urinal. Obviously, I do hold that assault, rape, harassment, stalking, and so on should not be allowed, but all these misdeeds are already covered by existing law.

Being a philosopher does require that I consider opposing arguments and that they are entitled to whatever merit they earn through the quality of the reasoning and the plausibility of the premises. As such, I will consider a few arguments in favor of bathroom bills.

One of the most compelling arguments is the one from harm. The gist of the argument is that allowing people to use facilities based on their gender identity will allow rapists, molesters, pedophiles and peepers easy access to women and girls, thus putting them in danger. The bathroom bills, it is claimed, will protect women and girls from this danger.

Since I also accept the principle of harm, I accept the basic reasoning conditionally: if the law did protect women and girls from harm (and did not inflict a greater harm), then it would be a sensible law. The main problem with the argument lies in the claim that the bills will protect women and girls from harm. Many states and localities have long prohibited discrimination in public facilities and there has not been an increase in sexual assault or rape. As such, the claim that the bills are needed to protect the public is untrue. The imposition of law should, as a matter of principle, be aimed at addressing significant harm.

This is not to deny that a person might pretend to be transgender to commit nefarious deeds in a bathroom. However, such a determined attacker could just attack elsewhere (it is not as if attacks can only occur in public facilities) or could just disguise himself as a woman (the law does not magically prevent that). There also = seems to be an unwarranted fear that bathrooms are ideal places for attacks, which does not seem true. That said, if it turns out that allowing people to use facilities based on their gender identity did lead to a significant harm, then the bathroom bills would need to be reconsidered.

A second argument that has been advanced is the privacy argument. The gist of it is that allowing people in facilities based on their gender identification would violate the privacy of other people. One common example of this is the concern expressed on the behalf of schoolgirls in locker rooms: the fear that a transgender classmate might be in the locker room with them.

While our culture does endeavor to condition people to be ashamed of their nakedness and to be terrified that someone of the opposite sex might see them naked, the matter of privacy needs to be discussed a bit here.

On the face of it, gender restricted locker rooms are not actually private. While I am not familiar with the locker room for girls and women, the men’s locker room in my high school had a group shower and an open area for lockers. So, every guy in the locker room could see every other guy while they were naked. Some boys found this lack of privacy too much and would put their normal clothes on over their gym clothes without showering. Or they would try to cover up as much as possible. As such, the concern about privacy is not about privacy in the general sense. In space, everyone can hear your scream. In the locker room, everyone can see your junk.

As such, the concern about privacy in locker rooms in regard to the bathroom bills must be about something other than privacy in the usual sense. The most reasonable and obvious interpretation is privacy from members of the opposite sex: that is, girls not being seen by boys and vice versa. This could, I suppose, be called “gender privacy.”

Those favoring transgender rights would point out that allowing people to use facilities based on gender identity would not result in boys seeing girls or vice versa. It would just be the usual girls seeing girls and boys seeing boys. Since the main worry is transgender girls in girls’ locker rooms, I will focus on that. However, the same discussion could be made for transgender boys.

The obvious reply to this would be to assert that gender identification is not a real thing: a person’s gender is set by biological sex. So, a transgender girl would, in fact, be a boy and hence should not be allowed in the girls’ locker room. This is presumably, based on the assumption that a transgender girl is still sexually attracted to girls because they are still a boy. There seem to be three possibilities here.

The first is that transgender girls really are boys and are sexually attracted to girls (that is, they are just faking) and this grounds the claim that a transgender girl would violate the privacy of biological girls. This entails that lesbian girls would also violate the privacy of biological girls and since about 10% of the population is gay, then any locker room with ten or more girls probably has some privacy violation occurring. As such, those concerned with privacy would presumably need to address this as well. The worry that a “hidden homosexual” might be violating privacy could be addressed by having private changing rooms and closed shower stalls. However, this would be costly and most public schools and facilities would not have the budget for this. As such, a more economical solution might be needed: no nakedness in locker rooms at all to ensure that privacy is not being violated. People could wear bathing suits while showering and then wear them under their clothes the rest of the day. Sure, it would be uncomfortable, but that is a small price to pay for privacy.

The second is that transgender girls are not sexually attracted to girls and hence do not violate their privacy: they are just girls like other girls. It could be objected that what matters is biology: a biological boy seeing a biological girl in the locker room violates her privacy. Arguing for this requires showing how biology matters in terms of privacy. That being seen non-sexually by biological girls is no privacy violation but being seen non-sexually by a biological boy who is just going about their business is a privacy violation. That is, if the person looking does not care about what is being seen, then how is it a privacy violation? The answer would need to differentiate based on biology, which could perhaps be done.

The third is that transgender girls are just girls. In which case, there is no privacy violation since it is just girls seeing girls.

While the harm and privacy arguments do have some appeal, they do not seem to stand up well under scrutiny. However, there might be other arguments for the bathroom bills worth considering, although I have yet to see one.

In my previous essay I introduced the notion of using the notion of essential properties to address the question of whether James Bond must be a white man. I ran through this rather quickly and want to expand on it here.

As noted, an essential property (to steal from Aristotle) is a property that an entity must have. In contrast an accidental property is one that it does have but could lack. As I tell my students, accidental properties are not just properties from accidents, like the dent in a fender.

One way to look at essential properties is that if a being loses an essential property, it ceases to be. In effect, the change of property destroys it, although a new entity can arise. To use a simple example, it is essential to a triangle that it be three-sided. If another side is added, the triangle is no more. But the new entity could be a square. Of course, one could deny that the triangle is destroyed and instead take it as changing into a square. It all depends on how the identity of a being is determined.

Continuing the triangle example, the size and color of a triangle are accidental properties.  A red triangle that is painted blue remains a triangle, although it is now blue. But one could look at the object in terms of being a red object. In that case, changing the color would mean that it was no longer a red object, but a blue object. Turning back to James Bond and his color, he has always been a white man.

Making Bond a black man would change many of his established properties and one can obviously say that he would no longer be white Bond. But this could be seen as analogous to changing the color of a triangle: just as a red triangle painted blue is still a triangle, changing Bond from a white to a black man by a change of actors does not entail that is no longer Bond. Likewise, one might claim, for changing Bond to a woman via a change of actor.

As noted in the previous essay, the actors who have played Bond have been different in many ways, yet they are all accepted as Bond. As such, there are clearly many properties that Bond has accidentally. They can change with the actors while the character is still Bond. One advantage of a fictional character is, of course, that the author can simply decide on the essential properties when they create the metaphysics for their fictional world. For example, in fantasy settings an author might decide that a being is its soul and thus can undergo any number of bodily alterations (such as through being reincarnated or polymorphed) and still be the same being. If Bond was in such a world, all a being would need to be Bond would be to be the Bond soul. This soul could inhabit a black male body or even a dragon and still be Bond. Dragon Bond could make a great anime.

But, of course, the creator of Bond did not specify the metaphysics of his world, so we would need to speculate using various metaphysical theories about our world.  The question is: would a person changing their race or gender result in the person ceasing to be that person, just as changing the sides of a triangle would make it cease to be a triangle? Since Bond is a fictional character, there is the option to abandon metaphysics and make use of other domains to settle the matter of Bond identity. One easy solution is to go with the legal option.

Bond is an intellectual property, and this means that you and I cannot create and sell Bond books or films. As such, there is a legal definition of what counts as James Bond, and this can be tested by trying to see what will get you sued by the owner of James Bond. Closely related to this the Bond brand; this can change considerably and still be the Bond brand. Of course, these legal and branding matters are not very interesting from a philosophical perspective, and they are best suited for the courts and marketing departments. So I will now turn to aesthetics.

One easy solution is that Bond is whoever the creator says Bond is; but since the creator is dead, we cannot determine what he would think about re-writing Bond as someone other than a white man. One could, of course, go back to the legal argument and assert that whoever owns Bond has the right to decide who Bond is.

Another approach is to use the social conception: a character’s identity is based on the acceptance of the fans. As such, if the fans accept Bond as being someone other than a white man, then that is Bond. After all, Bond is a fictional character who exists in the minds of his creator and his audience. Since his creator is dead, Bond now exists in the minds of the audience; so perhaps it is a case of majority acceptance, a sort of aesthetic democracy. Bond is whom most fans say is Bond. Or one could take the approach that Bond is whoever the individual audience member accepts as Bond; a case of Bond subjectivity. Since Bond is fictional, this is appealing. As such, it would be up to you whether your Bond can be anyone other than a white man. A person’s decision would say quite a bit about them. While some might be tempted to assume that anyone who believes that Bond must be a white man is thus a racist or sexist, that would be a mistake. There can be non-sexist and non-racist reasons to believe this. There are, of course, also sexist and racist reasons to believe this.  As a metaphysician and a gamer, I am onboard with Bond variants that are still Bond. But I can understand why those who have different metaphysics (or none at all) would have differing views.  

Since his creation, James Bond has been a white man. Much to the delight of some and to the horror of others, there were serious plans to have a black actor play James Bond. There has even been some talk about having a female James Bond. While racist and sexist reasons abound to oppose such changes, are there good reasons for James Bond to always be a white man? Before getting into this discussion, I will first look at the matter of the 007.

While James Bond has been known as 007, this is his agent designation and there are other 00 agents.  This is like the number used by an athlete on a team. As such, while James Bond has been 007, another person could replace him and get that number, just the person who was 23 on a baseball team could retire and someone else could get that number (although teams do retire numbers). Within the James Bond universe, it would make sense for someone who is not a white man to get the 007. This could occur for any number of in universe reasons, most obviously that James Bond is not immortal and would eventually be too old or dead to remain 007. From an aesthetic standpoint, it would be interesting to see a Bond timeline in which time mattered, a Bond world in which he grew old, and a new agent took his place. This would have the benefit of keeping Bond relevant to today while also maintaining (in universe) the old Bond. There is, of course, the obvious financial risk: having a new 007 who is not James Bond can be seen as analogous to replacing a star athlete with a new person who gets their number. There is the risk of losing the drawing power. But my concern is with the more interesting matter of whether James Bond must be a white man, so I will leave the money worries to the branding gurus.

One obvious fact about the Bond of the movies is that different actors have played the character. While there are strong opinions about the best Bond, there was little debate about whether a new white man should take the role when the previous Bond aged out of the role or left for other reasons. The actors who played Bond were (in general) accepted as at least adequate for the role and there was no debate about whether the character was James Bond despite the change in actors. That is, there is no general issue with a new actor playing the role. There was also, obviously enough, no effort to explain in the Bond universe the change in Bond’s appearance. I mention this because of another famous character from United Kingdom fiction, Dr. Who. When Dr. Who began, the actor playing the doctor was already old and they ran into the problem of age. They hit on a brilliant solution: Dr. Who regenerates and radically changes appearance, though remaining the same person. This gives the show an interesting feature: continuity of character through changes of actors with an in-universe explanation.

While Bond movies do feature gadgets and plots that border or even cross into science fiction (consider Moonraker), it is unlikely that the Bond cinematic universe would allow for such science fiction devices as alternative realities, such as in Marvel’s What If…? As such, the various Bonds are not explained in terms of being alternative or variant Bonds; they are all the James Bond. Now, if Bond can remain Bond despite the changes of actors, then it would seem that he would remain Bond even if he were played by a non-white actor. After all, if switching from Sean Connery did not mean that Bond was no longer Bond, then changing his race should not do that either. After all, the actors that played Bond are different people, with significant differences in appearance, mannerisms, and voice. Having a black actor, for example, would just be another change of appearance.  It would also seem to follow that having a female actor play Bond would also make as much sense; it would just be another change in appearance. But one could attempt to argue that it is essential to Bond that he be a white man. This, of course, gets us into the notion of essential properties.

In philosophy, an essential property (to steal from Aristotle) is a property that an entity must have or cease to be that thing. In contrast an accidental property is one that it does have but could lack and still remain that thing. To use a simple example, it is essential to a triangle that it be three-sided. It must have three sides to be a triangle. But the size and color of a triangle are accidental properties; they can change, and it will still remain a triangle. So, the relevant issue here is whether being a white man is essential to being James Bond or merely accidental. Given all the changes in actors over the years, there are clearly many properties that Bond has accidentally as they can change with the actors while the character is still Bond. One advantage of a fictional character is, of course, that the author can simply decide on the essential properties when they create the metaphysics for their fictional world. But, of course, the creator of Bond did not do that, so we need to speculate using various metaphysical theories about our world. That is, would a person changing their race or gender result in the person ceasing to be, just as changing the sides of a triangle would make it cease to be a triangle? On the face of it, while such changes would clearly alter the person, they would seem to retain their personal identity. If this is true, then James Bond need not be a white man. But more will be said in the next essay.

For years, the right passed anti-choice laws in the hope they would end up in the Supreme Court and lead to the overturning of Roe v Wade. They finally succeeded and anti-abortion groups claimed a major victory over the will of the people.  

While purporting to be motivated by pro-life (or at least anti-death) principles, these laws and bills are fundamentally misogynistic. They have three fundamental functions. The first is to appease a key portion of the base.

Second, couched in pro-life language, these laws provide excellent dog whistles for misogynists. The male misogynists generally understand that the message being sent to them is: “Your baby in her body. Her body in your kitchen. Making you a sandwich to put in your body.” More generally, the laws say to the misogynists in the base “we are misogynists like you, and we will put women in their proper place.”  Naturally, to make these claims is to seem crazy in the eyes of the “normies.”

Third, the laws  codify misogyny by harming women. To be fair, I can add a fourth reason that brings in the Democrats: the abortion debate was something of a battlefield of deceit in which the Republicans falsely claim to be pro-life (or at least anti-death) and the mainstream Democrats agreed to fight the battle on this assumption. The Democrats rhetoric is that they are pro-choice and the mainstream never seems inclined to get into a substantial and complex fight over the core ethical and political issues. That is, of course, broadly true across   mainstream politics: politicians mouthing their fighting words while keeping the status quo stable and themselves in power. But it could be objected that I am mischaracterizing things.

One objection is that while some misogynists might support these laws, proponents of anti-abortion laws, such as Alabama governor Kay Ivey, claim their  motivation is to protect life. As the governor said, “to the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.” But this is a bad faith claim.

Given the professed view that Alabamans regard life as a precious, sacred gift, one should be shocked to learn that Alabama is terrible in terms of maternal and infant health. Alabama is tied for 4th worst in the United States, with 7.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. While it might be argued that this is due to factors beyond their control, there is a consistent correlation between strong anti-abortion laws and poor maternal and infant health. While correlation is not causation, the reason for this correlation is clear: the state governments that enact the strictest anti-abortion laws also show, via public policies, the least concern for maternal and infant health. Texas, as should surprise no one, also has a high maternal mortality rate. While not nearly as bad as Texas and Alabama, Florida also has a high maternal (and infant) mortality rate. 

This is inconsistent with the professed principle that life is a precious, sacred gift. It is also inconsistent with the professed motivation for anti-abortion laws: to protect the life of children. It is, however, consistent with the hypothesis that anti-abortion laws are largely motivated by misogynistic principles. After all, if legislators pass anti-abortion laws because of hostility towards women’s reproductive freedom and wellbeing, then one would also expect them to neglect maternal and infant health in their other policies. On the face of it, this is the better explanation.

Another objection is that the laws are aimed at reducing the number of abortions and this is not misogynistic. Again, it just so happens that it impacts women. The easy and obvious reply is that the most effective way to reduce abortions is to reduce the need for them. Improved sex education and easy and free access to birth control reduces unwanted pregnancies. One might assert that anti-abortion folks also tend to oppose sex ed and birth control; but these are also usually misogynistic positions as well. Defending misogyny with more misogyny is hardly a good defense against an accusation of misogyny.

For those who oppose sex-ed and birth control without being misogynists, one can argue for using social programs to provide women and girls with adequate resources to complete a pregnancy and raise the child. But, as is well known, the anti-abortion folks tend to be savage opponents of programs that help mothers and children. If they were so devoted to life that they think the state should use its coercive power to take control over  women, then they should be on board with providing basic state support to enable more women to choose to complete their pregnancy. But the easy and obvious explanation is that the pro-life claims are bad faith assertions; they are not pro-life but are misogynists.

A final objection is to point to women who support anti-abortion laws. Surely, one might say, women would not support misogynist laws. And, of course, men involved with the laws can point out that they have a mother and some of their best friends are women. So how can they be misogynists?

In some cases, women support such laws from ignorance. That is, they accept the bad faith reasons and think that they are supporting the protection of life, not realizing the misogynist consequences of the laws. Interestingly, women on the right are sometimes shocked that the right is misogynistic. They apparently fail to grasp that racism and sexism are the peanut butter and chocolate of the right. In other cases, they might be aware that the laws are advanced in bad faith but agree with the stated goal of restricting abortion. So, they go along with the misogyny because it gets them something they want.

 A third possibility is that a woman is herself a misogynist—while this might sound odd, it can happen. Finally, a woman might be an opportunist rather than ignorant or a misogynist—she has calculated that she will gain more as an individual by backing misogyny than she will lose as a woman. So, for example, a female judge or politician might recognize that the right is fundamentally misogynistic but decide that she gains a personal advantage by joining them. Just as the folks on the right desire a few minorities to provide them with a “black friend” as a shield against accusations of racism, they also want a few women to provide them with a shield against accusations of sexism.

Somewhat ironically, the powerful women on the right represent something radical that undermines the right: they hold these positions of power because of the past battles fought by the left.  Also, capable women in power give lie to the misogyny of the right (and left).  Not so long ago, the right (and left) was openly misogynistic; but this has changed and there is a strong reaction to this shift. It is, of course, ironic that the women who occupy their positions of power due to the fight against misogyny are fighting so hard to roll back the clock for women in general. Perhaps they think that they will retire before the clock is rolled back. Perhaps they are unaware of the consequences of what they are fighting for. Or perhaps they sincerely believe that they should not have been allowed to be where they chose to be and that future women should not be allowed this choice. Or perhaps they know that they will remain the exception to the oppression they wish to impose on other women.

It might be wondered why anyone would bother making the arguments I have made. After all, the right and their supporters are either already aware of the misogynistic purpose of the laws or will not believe me. But there seems to be some value in attempting to reveal that the right’s arguments are in bad faith. There is a slight chance that some people might change their minds about supporting such bad faith laws.

It also seems desirable to try to reveal the bad faith on the right. For example, when they engage in their bad faith arguments and rhetoric about protecting life, that would be the ideal time to call them out on their lack of support (and opposition) to laws that do protect children. These include regulating pollutants that kill children, providing stronger social support for children, ensuring clean water and adequate food for children, providing quality education for children, ensuring quality health care for children, and so on for so many things the “pro-life” right fights. Whenever a right-wing politician proposes a “pro-life” bill, the left should immediately try to add real pro-life components, such as funding for maternal care and the health of children. When a “pro-life” governor is professing their love of life, they should be asked about the infant and maternal mortality rates in their state. And so on.

 

It might seem like woke madness to claim that medical devices can be biased. Are there white supremacist stethoscopes? Misogynistic MRI machines? Extremely racist X-Ray machines? Obviously not, medical devices do not have beliefs or ideologies (yet). But they can still be biased in their accuracy and effectiveness.

One example of a biased device is the pulse oximeter. This device measures blood oxygen by using light. You have probably had one clipped on your finger during a visit to your doctor. Or you might even own one. The bias in this device is that it is three times more likely to not reveal low oxygen levels in dark skinned patients than light skinned patients.  As would be expected, there are other devices that have problems with accuracy when used on people who have darker skins. These are essential sensor biases (or defects). In most cases, these can be addressed by improving the sensors or developing alternative devices. The problem is, to exaggerate a bit, is that most medical technology is made by white men for white men. This is not to claim such biased devices are all cases of intentional racism and misogyny. There is not, one assumes, a conspiracy against women and people of color in this area but there is a bias problem.  In addition to biased hardware, there is also biased software.

Many medical devices use software, and it is often used in medical diagnosis. People are often inclined to think software is unbiased, perhaps because of science fiction tropes about objective and unfeeling machines. While it is true that our current software does not feel or think, bias can make its way into the code. For example, software used to analyze chest x-rays would work less well on women than men if the software was “trained” only on X-rays of men. The movie Prometheus has an excellent fictional example of a gender-biased auto-doc that lacks the software to treat female patients.

These software issues can be addressed by using diverse training groups for software and taking steps to test software for bias by using a diverse testing group. Also, having a more diverse set of people working on such technology would probably also help.

Another factor is analogous to user error, which is user bias. People, unlike devices, do have biases and these can and do impact how they use medical devices and their data. Bias in healthcare is well documented. While overt and conscious racism and sexism are rare, sexism and subtle racism are still problems. Addressing this widespread problem is more challenging than addressing biases in hardware and software. But if we want fair and unbiased healthcare, it is a problem that must be addressed.

As to why these biases should be addressed, this is a matter of ethics. To allow bias to harm patients goes against the fundamental purpose of medicine, which is to heal people. From a utilitarian standpoint, addressing this bias would be the right thing to do: it would create more positive value than negative value. This is because there would be more accurate medical data and better treatment of patients.

In terms of a counterargument, one could contend that addressing bias would increase costs and thus should not be done. There are several easy and obvious replies. One is that the cost increase would be, at worst, minor. For example, testing devices on a more diverse population would not seem meaningfully more expensive than not doing that. Another is that patients and society pay a far greater price in terms of illness and its effects than it would cost to address medical bias. For those focused on the bottom line, workers who are not properly treated can cost corporations some of their profit and ongoing health issues can cost taxpayer money.

One can, of course, advance racist and sexist arguments by professing outrage at “wokeness” attempting to “ruin” medicine by “ramming diversity down throats” or however Fox news would put it. Such “arguments” would be aimed at preserving the harm done to women and people of color, which is an evil thing to do. One might hope that these folks would be hard pressed to turn, for example, pulse oximeters into a battlefront of the culture war. But these are the same folks who professed to lose their minds over Mr. Potato Head and went on a bizarre rampage against a grad school level theory that has been around since the 1970s. They are also the same folks who have gone anti-vax in during a pandemic, encouraging people to buy tickets in the death lottery. But the right thing to do is to choose life.

Transgender people, especially transgender athletes are now among the favored targets of the right. Pretending to be concerned about fairness for women, Republican lawmakers have been busy passing laws banning transgender athletes from competition.

On the face of it, these laws seem aimed at saying to the Republican base “we hate and fear transgender people as much as we think you do so keep voting for us.” Obviously, proponents of these laws do not make this claim; they pretend they are very concerned about women and girls being treated fairly.

Republicans profess to be the party of small government, but these laws expand the involvement of the state and as could have agents of the state looking at genitals. This is the same party that raged against mask mandates as too invasive. But, as they have established, the Republican party has no respect for ethics, consistency or logic.

Like Republicans, I profess a belief in minimal government but differ in being consistent.  I have argued in other essays that the state should limit its use of law to cases in which a harm needs to be addressed by law and the good the law outweighs any harms of the law. Those who back the transathlete bans have been hard pressed to find meaningful harms. While inconsistent with their professed love of small government and freedom, these laws are consistent with their approach to voter rights in that they support imposing restrictions where no meaningful harm exists.  But perhaps they are motivated by their professed principle of fairness to women. Let us test this hypothesis.

If the Republicans believe laws should ensure women are treated fairly, then they should pass other laws aimed at addressing serious inequalities between men and women. One example is the persistent pay gap between men and women. In Florida, women make 85 cents for every dollar made by men. This is a harm being done to women and is unfair, yet while the Republican controlled government of Florida was busy with ant-transgender laws, they have been uninterested in this pay gap. One could counter that this is a concern for the private sector, but one can then point to the gender pay gap in Florida government: something the government could and should address. One could also run down a checklist of the areas where women are treated unfairly relative to men and look for evidence that the Republicans have addressed these cases of unfairness. As such, the claim that they are motivated by concerns about fair treatment of women and girls is just another lie. If they were truly motivated by this principle, they would be actively addressing the significant unfairness faced by women and girls and not just focused on ant-transgender laws wearing the mask of fairness.

As a practical response, whenever the Republicans make the fairness argument against transgender athletes, they should be immediately challenged about what else they are going to do to adress fairness. For example, if they are so concerned about fairness, they should ratify the ERA. 

“Bathroom bill” is the popular term for legislative efforts to restrict access to public bathrooms based on gender identity. These bills typically define who can and cannot access these facilities based on how the bill defines sex or Examples include defining sex by assigned sex at birth, sex listed on the person’s birth certificate, or sex based on gender identity. Some states have passed or are considering bathroom bills and this matter is part of the ongoing culture war against transpeople. As Trump himself noted, this front of the culture war is new. As to why it was opened up, the reasonable answer is that the right mostly lost the same-sex marriage culture war, and they needed a new victim to attack for political gain. Transgender people, unfortunately, were the chosen target.

People tend to take a stance on bathroom bills based on how they feel rather than based on a theory of law. This is usually because most people, even politicians, don’t have a theory of law. While my focus in this essay is on bathroom bills, I am using this context to develop my theory of law in more detail. I want to have a principled and consistent method of assessing laws and good faith argumentation involves making this methodology clear.

Good faith also requires me to note that I am operating within a framework of political philosophy based on Mill and Locke. I accept that people have rights, that the purpose of government is the good of the people, and that rights can only be infringed upon based on the principle of harm. I also favor small government: the laws and the state’s use of coercive force should be kept at a minimum. I have other assumptions but laying out my entire political philosophy would require at least one book. Good faith also requires that I make it clear that I generally oppose bathroom bills and my reasons will be advanced in this essay.

My first consideration in assessing a (potential) law is determining whether the subject is fit for law, and this requires determining whether the matter falls under the legitimate use of the power of the state. What counts as legitimate use is a matter of debate and people are rarely consistent beyond thinking that if the state is doing what they want, it is legitimate. Fortunately, the issue of legitimate use can be narrowed down. In the case of the bathroom bill, the issue is whether controlling who can access bathrooms is a legitimate use of the coercive power of the state. In the context of laws that restrict liberty and rights, I generally follow Mill’s approach: liberty can only be justly restricted to prevent harm to another. On this principle, proponents of a bathroom bill would need to identify the harm the bill is intended to prevent: if there is no harm, then there is no justification for restricting liberty. But even if a law is supposed to prevent harm, this does not settle the issue of whether it should be law.

A second consideration is the issue of whether the significance and nature of the alleged harm warrants expending public resources to pass and enforce a law. Harms vary in significance and even significant harm might not be the right sort of harm that justifies the use of the coercive power of the state. Consider, if you will, some harm that can occur in a bathroom.

Like many other men, I feel uncomfortable when other men try to engage me in conversation while I am urinating. I am also a bit offended when people try to make eye contact during these conversations. While I am experiencing some harm (discomfort and feeling offended) these harms are not significant enough to warrant a law against them. They are also not the right sort of harm: the state does not seem obliged to protect us from discomfort or offense. But a person could escalate matters in the bathroom: if the chatty urinator started making threats of violence or tried to touch someone, then the harm becomes both significant enough to and the right sort to warrant state intervention. That is, laws against threatening people and assault fall within the state’s legitimate use of coercive force.

While those advocating bathroom bills might feel uncomfortable around or offended by the people whose bathroom access they wish to control, they generally understand that these reasons do not warrant passing a law. As such, the bills are typically presented as intending to keep women and girls safe in the bathroom. Some proponents of these bills do admit that transgender people are rarely sexual predators. Instead, they express worry that non-transgender sexual predators will exploit laws allowing transgender access to bathrooms to attack women and girls. This does allege harm that would be both significant and the right sort. But is the allegation true? After all, if the harm is make-believe, it cannot justify a law.

Several states and large cities have allowed transgender people to access bathrooms based on their identity for years, thus providing a wealth of empirical data . The evidence is that this access is not exploited by predators. That is, allowing trans people access to bathrooms of their choice does not decrease the safety of women and girls in bathrooms. If it did, there would be evidence. This is not to deny that a sexual predator could dress up as a woman to get into a bathroom, just that it does not seem to be something that occurs with any statistical significance. There is also the obvious fact that  a predator could dress up as a women whether there are bathroom laws in place. A sexual predator could also disguise themselves as a trash can to launch an ambush in a bathroom, but we do not need a law to address this. It is not something that happens enough to warrant creating a law and mandating trash can inspections.

Somewhat ironically, bathroom bills require that transgender men use women’s bathrooms. As such, a sexual predator keen on exploiting the law could simply claim to be a transgender male and freely enter bathrooms. No need to wear a dress or makeup. As such, the fear argument is self-defeating: if a law is needed to keep transgender people out of bathrooms because male sexual predators will put on dresses to pretend to be transwomen, then the law would not work because sexual predators would simply claim to be transmen and have easy access to the bathrooms because the law defines them as women. This could be addressed by employing bathroom police and requiring people to present birth certificates before accessing bathrooms. But this would require a disproportionate expenditure of resources and impose inconveniences not warranted by the alleged harm. In response, one could contend that something must be done to address even the possibility of harm: theoretical transgender predators must be prevented from attacking women and girls in bathrooms no matter how unlikely this is to happen.

My third consideration is the issue of whether the harm is adequately addressed by existing laws or factors other than laws. If the harm is already addressed adequately, there is no need for a new law. Going back to my chatty urinator discussion, we do not need a law banning chatty people from bathrooms because someone might make verbal threats in the bathroom. We also do not need a law banning people who make eye contact in bathrooms because someone might touch someone else in the bathroom. The existing laws already handle this: making threats is illegal and assault is illegal. Likewise, while knowing a trans person is in the bathroom with them might make a person uncomfortable or feel offended, we do not need a law banning trans people because someone might assault or rape someone in a bathroom. The existing laws already handle this: assault and rape are illegal and allowing trans people to use bathrooms as they wish does not change that. As such, there is no need for bathroom bills and on their own grounds of justification they are unjustified.

A fundamental ethical concern in sports is creating fair categories of competition. Age is a non-controversial example of this: elementary school teams do not compete against high school teams. Size is also a relatively non-controversial example in boxing. A heavyweight fighter will generally have a significant advantage over a smaller fighter. But there is a challenge in developing principles of category fairness. After all, there are many factors that can provide one category of athletes an advantage over others that intuitively should not be the basis of categorizing athletes for fair competition.

As an obvious example, some have anatomies and physiologies that give them an advantage. To illustrate, a runner with an ideal body type for running and excellent genetics for speed and endurance will have an advantage over someone with a body that is biomechanically terrible for running and whose genes lack those advantages. One could also consider psychological factors (such as determination) and even economic factors (which can affect diet, coaching, and available training time). While trying to adjust for these factors would make competition fairer, it does lead to a reductio ad absurdum: the ultimate in fairness would be for each person to be in their own category, competing against only themselves. That is, there would be no competition.

The other extreme would be to have no categories: everyone competes with everyone regardless of such factors as age, gender, or weight. This could even be seen as fair: everyone is competing without distinction and the best will win. But this would also be absurd (and dangerous): imagine elementary school students playing tackle football against the Patriots. It can also be argued that this would be unfair: professional football players enjoy far too many advantages over elementary school football players. As Aristotle would say, the right approach lies in a mean between these two extremes: neither too many nor too few categories for fair competition.

One category that seems reasonable in most sports is sex. Males generally enjoy significant physical advantages relative to females and genderless competition would tend to result in males dominating sports. As an example, if the Olympic marathon had no gender categories, all the competing athletes would almost certainly be males. There would, of course, be exceptions at individual competitions as a female runner might beat all the males at a specific marathon. As such, a case can be made that gender categories in sports are fair. While this might seem like a simple matter, it is complicated.

There are world class women athletes, such as Caster Semenya, who have XY chromosomes. While there are many bad faith arguments made about this issue, one can have a good faith debate about the fairness of allowing women with XY chromosomes to compete with XX women since there are some reasons to think XY chromosomes can provide an advantage that XX women lack. It must be noted that the performance of elite XY women athletes does not match that of elite male athletes and XX women athletes can outperform XY women athletes in competition.

The easy and obvious reply to concerns about XY women is to point out that this seems to be almost the only case where people are worried about genetic advantages in sports. Athletes do not get tested to see if they have advantageous genes (or anatomy and physiology) to determine if they can compete. For example, very tall basketball players have an edge over shorter players, and this has a genetic component, but they do not get banned because of that genetic feature. In fact, elite athletes probably enjoy a range of genetic advantages over other athletes, but they do not get banned from the sport even when they greatly exceed even other athletes in their performance.

It can be countered that there are grounds for concern about allowing XY women to compete as women. We have accepted the categories of male and female in sports as a division needed to ensure fair competition. It can be argued that XY women should be excluded from the female category in sports on the grounds that they do not qualify for inclusion. This, one might argue, is based on fairness: XY males are excluded from competing against XX females based on fairness because they do not belong in the female category and would have an unfair advantage. This reasoning can also be backed up by an analogy.

Imagine that Sam has been adopted and is just young enough to be able to play one year of little league baseball before aging out. When he tries out for the little league team, he finds that his somewhat unusual size and strength give him an edge over the other kids and people notice that he seems to be the size of kids a year older. Now imagine that the parents of another child think that something is up, so they hire an investigator to check Sam’s background. The investigator finds out that there seems to have been a mistake in Sam’s records, and he might be a year older than what the official documents say. While Sam and his parents have done nothing wrong intentionally, it would be unfair for Sam to compete against kids a year younger than him. As such, Sam should not be allowed to finish the season because he exceeds the age limit. While this argument does have some appeal, it does raise important concerns.

While I do agree that dividing athletes into the male and female categories can be warranted on the grounds of fairness, to simply assume that XY women are not females would be unwarranted. What is needed is a well-developed and defended set of principles for sorting athletes into these categories. These principles would also need to be consistent and consistently applied.

Going back to the analogy with Sam, he appears to be a large person of his claimed age. But the parents of the other child believe the evidence provided by their investigator and by their standard, Sam is too old to compete in little league and must be excluded on the grounds of fairness. While age is clearly an objective matter, this lack of certainty is intentional to make the analogy fit: while some believe that XY women are not women, this is a matter of what standards one accepts. Just as one would need to argue for which documentation to accept about Sam’s age, one must argue for the standards used to exclude or include people in the male/female categories in sports.

If it is decided that the distinction is based on genetics (which it seems to be) and that XY women must be excluded from the female category because they have an unfair advantage, then consistency would seem to require doing a genetic analysis of all athletes to discern if there are genes that yield similar unfair advantages. If such genes do exist, then allowing people with them to compete with those without would be unfair. If we should exclude XY women based on their alleged advantage, then the same would apply to these other athletes and they would need to be excluded as well. If one says that this should be limited solely to XY and XX, then they would need to provide a principled argument for making this the only genetic distinction that matters. While one could make a practical appeal to the cost of testing; the same would also apply to the XY/XX cases as one must test a person to determine if a woman is XX or XY.  And if there is a need to test for that, then there would seem to be a need to test for other genetic advantages.

One can also argue that the genetic advantages of top athletes are too diverse to identify and categorize and the XX/XY distinction is a simple one that allows the preservation of existing sports competition categories. There would also be degrees of advantage and sorting this all out would be needlessly complicated. But one could reply that we could create broad genetic categories analogous to age groups in sports. This could be countered by arguing that the distinctions and advantages are fuzzy and unclear, so why not let people compete without genetic testing and categorization? This would, of course, seem to also apply to XY women and while they might have some possible advantage over some XX women in sports, this does not seem to warrant creating a special category that excludes them from competing against other women. This does require accepting that the sharp and absolute male/female distinction that some people crave does not exist, that the boundaries are fluid and fuzzy and this reflects reality. While some might want “pure” Platonic concepts of male and female, we do not find them instantiated perfectly in this world. As such, XY women should be permitted to compete as women.

Power holders in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. Membership in these groups also seems to confer a degree of advantage relative to people outside of these groups. Yet, as been noted in the previous essays, some claim that the people in these groups are now the “real victims.” In this essay I will look at how a version of the fallacy of anecdotal evidence can be used to “argue” about who is “the real victim.”

The fallacy of anecdotal evidence is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. The fallacy is sometimes taken to be a version of the hasty generalization fallacy (drawing a conclusion from a sample that is too small to adequately support that conclusion). The main difference between hasty generalization and anecdotal evidence is that the fallacy anecdotal evidence involves using a story (anecdote) as the sample.

Here is the form of the anecdotal evidence fallacy often used to “argue” that an advantaged group is not advantaged:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B

Premise 2: A member of Group A was disadvantaged relative to a member of Group B.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B (or Group B is not disadvantaged relative to Group A).

 

 

To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that white Americas are advantaged relative to black Americans.

Premise 2: Chad, a white American, was unable to get into his first choice of colleges because affirmative action allowed Anthony, a black American, to displace him.

Conclusion: White Americans are not advantaged relative to black Americans.

 

The problem with the logic is that an anecdote does not suffice to establish a general claim because an adequately large sample is needed to make a strong generalization. But one must also be on guard against another sort of fallacy:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: Member M of Group A is disadvantaged relative to Member N of Group B.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of M is morally acceptable, or M is not really disadvantaged.

 

To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that men are advantaged relative to women.

Premise 2: Andy was disadvantaged relative to his boss Sally when she used her position to sexually harass him.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of Andy is morally acceptable, or Andy was not really disadvantaged.

 

 

While individual cases do not disprove a body of statistical evidence they should not be ignored. As in the illustration given above, while men generally have a workplace advantage over women, this does not entail that individual men are never at a disadvantage relative to individual women. It also does not entail that, for example, men cannot be the victims of sexual harassment by women.  As another illustration, while white men dominate academics, business, and politics, this does not entail that there are not injustices against specific white men in such things as admission, hiring and promotions. These sorts of situations can lead to moral debates about harm.

One excellent example is the debate over affirmative action. An oversimplified justification is that groups that have been historically disadvantaged are given a degree of preference in the selection process. For example, a minority woman might be given preference over a white woman in the case of college admission. The usual moral counter is that the white woman is wronged by this: if she is better qualified, then she should be admitted, even if this entails that the college population will remain almost entirely white.

The usual counter to this is that the white woman is likely to appear better qualified because she has enjoyed the advantages conferred from being white. For example, her ancestors might have built wealth by owning the ancestors of the black woman who was admitted over her and this inherited wealth meant that her family has been attending college for generations, that she was able to attend excellent schools, and that her family could pay for tutoring and test preparation.

This can be countered by other arguments, such as how the woman did not own slaves herself, so it is unfair for her to not be admitted on the “merit” arising from all these advantages arising from generational wealth. One can, of course, consider scenarios such as cases in which the black woman is from a wealthy family while the white woman is from a poor family. Such cases can, of course, be considered in terms of economic class and one could argue that class should also be a factor. This obviously all leads to the moral issue of whether it is acceptable to inflict some harm on specific members of advantaged groups to address systematic disadvantages, which goes way beyond the scope of this essay.

Fortunately, I do not need to settle this issue here. This is because even if such anecdotes are examples of morally wrong actions, they do not disprove the general statistical claims about relative advantages and disadvantages between groups. For example, even if a few white students are wronged by affirmative action when they cannot attend their first pick of schools, these anecdotes do not disprove the statistical evidence of the relative advantage conferred by being white in America. After all, the claim of advantage is not that each white person is always advantaged over everyone else on an individual-by-individual basis. Rather it is about the overall advantages that appear in statistics such as wealth and treatment by the police. As such, using anecdotes to “refute” statistical data is, as always, a fallacy. But what about cases in which members of an advantaged group do suffer a statistically meaningful disadvantage in one or more areas?

While falling victim to the fallacy of anecdotal evidence is bad logic, it is not an error to consider that members of an advantaged group might face a significant disadvantage (or harm) because of their membership in that advantaged group. As would be expected, any example used here will be controversial. I will use the Fathers’ Rights movement as the example. The central claim behind this movement is that fathers are systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers. While there are liberal and conservative versions, the general claim is that fathers and mothers should have parity in the legal system on this matter. Critics, as would be expected, claim that men tend to already enjoy a relative advantage here. But if the Fathers’ Rights movement is correct about fathers being systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers, then this would not be mere anecdotal reasoning. That is, it would not just be a few cases in which individual fathers were disadvantaged relative to a few individual mothers, it would be systematic injustice. But would this area of relative disadvantage disprove the claim of general advantage? Let us look at the reasoning:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: But Group A is disadvantaged relative to Group B in specific area C.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B.

 

As presented, this would be an error in reasoning because Group A being disadvantaged in one area would not prove that the group is not advantaged relative to Group B when all areas are considered. To use an analogy, the fact that Team B outscored Team A in the fifth inning of a baseball game does not entail that B is leading. It must be noted that a similar argument with multiple premises like Premise 2 could show that Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B. After all, establishing adequate statistical evidence would obviously be adequate. There are, of course, questions about how to determine relative advantage and these can be debated in good faith. One obvious point of dispute would be the matter of weighting. For example, if fathers are disadvantaged relative to mothers, how would this count relative to the pay gap between men and women? And so on for all areas of comparison. This does show the need to consider each area as well as a need for assessing value but this is not unique to the situation at hand and one could, as is often done, assign crude dollar values to do the math.

In closing, while individual wrongs and wrongs done to members of advantaged groups as members of that group can occur, they do not automatically disprove the statistical data.