Featured Law of noncontradiction and is a woman a woman?

The way you have phrased the question seems very social constructionist. If you are not looking at it from this perspective it would simply be chromosomes and reproductive organs that provides a definition.

 

Many truths can be whatever each of us choose and that truly work for us in the great dance. The action of choosing is a process though, not an event.

Personally, I get stuck pondering what a person is, well before the issues of gender. Life is one big adventure of koans really - the more significant ones can be those that don't look like it at first glance, or that are so familiar we never really see them as questions.

 

The essence of a logic chain though is that it rests on given premise concepts that are accepted as true or false by definition. The logical analysis then works on these to its deductive truths. or to inductive most likely implications.

So it seems to me that when it comes to gender the issue of the starting point is one of definition - and different people accept different starting points as truth. Logic is not able to resolve these differences by itself.

Often some of the most profound ethical issues hang off the premises that people disagree about. The issue of whether abortion is murder is an example. If you believe that human life is fully present at conception then it is murder; if you think a foetus isn’t human until much later in the womb then it isn’t. Both of these are valid positions ethically and logically to the people who hold one or other of these divergent views.

So the question of what is a man or a woman seems to me to be similar- different people will have different and contradictory premises which are logically valid because they are chosen by definition.

 

I see where you’re coming from but the world has simply thrown out any conservative ideals or “standards” which had an element of implicitness to them and not just explicit biological markers. Without this implicit nature of what makes a women a women (or a man a man) then we can’t really come to a conclusion using logic because a dualism (male/female) cannot be nondual and dual at the same time (male v female being male/female). I agree it’s nuts. On a more general level men and women are both ying and yang so it doesn’t surprise me one person would identify as male and then identify as female later. I think it’s all very interesting, but I think it has been well established by now that most post-modern though is ridiculous these days and isn’t even tied to reality or logic. It's kinda tragic that randoms on a forum realise this but most people in power don't.

 

I can only say that a biological woman has a different aesthetic to me than a trans woman. But I have no desire to intellectualize this nor do I think that I would find any satisfying answer. It's a purely spiritual matter. You can involve biological factors, but it will be a hollow explanation, like answering "Why are we alive?" by explaining reproduction or the Big Bang. This is never the place whence these kinds of questions come from, and a mechanical answer to an existential question is no answer at all.

As for the LNC, it has been long taken for granted to the point where it seems like that's just how reality works. But there are alternatives. Dialetheism is a foil to classic logic that allows for contradictions in a single instance, and what is known of quantum mechanics suggests than paradoxes and inconsistency may be fundamental parts of the world. Or in other words, inconsistencies can be true in and of themselves. Sort of like a dichotomy that does not resolve in one direction or the other, but is itself true in that both of its parts are necessary for its existence. Schrodinger's cat or Wigner's friend.

 

Just chewing the issue over a bit ...

I can't help feeling that the real life situations are complex, varied and nuanced. It seems to me that many people who decide to identify as a different gender to their native biological one have reached that point only after a long and difficult process and a struggle with their sense of personal identity and of inner peace. On top of that, they also have to cope with the reactions of people close to them who may or may not be supportive, and that can bring additional burdens and influence how their fate unfolds and how quickly and easily they make any decisions.

I think life is full of that sort of gestation and change within us, but for most of us it doesn't lead to a change as spectacular as that of a different gender identification - it might lead to changes in our lives that are just as big, though maybe not so socially controversial. They are often long in the cooking, even if the change when it is actually manifest, comes suddenly.

I can understand why people have problems with the softening of the edges of gender identity though. There are social consequences beyond the individuals who wish to change their identification that need working through, but I suspect that the more spectacular problems are blown up by the media who are more interested in profits and controversy than true social reporting. My own gut feeling is that a balanced approach will work best and that people will come to terms with these gender issues eventually just as they have started to do with the gay world, but it will take a while to sort out and normalise the details. I guess my biggest concern is making sure kids are properly advised and supported because any physical intervention can be irrevocable, and few people know their own minds properly in their teens - yet that is the time when some interventions are essential.

 

There’s being a biological woman by having a different set of chromosomes, and there is which sex you feel you belong to. They can be different or the same.

 

As I've understood it, you are building your inquiry based on time, are you not?

I am inclined to believe and I dare cite that even by just everything I could not and could understand about Einstein's theory of general relativity, there is no inarguable scientific law that you can build this upon. This was succinctly mentioned by Sidis here:

To me, that the very logical physical science makes ample room for a lot of things robs us of any chance to philosophically decide what or what does not make a woman. Enso stated that clearly here:

To simplify for my sake, what we know both of science and of ourselves is simply too little. The very recognition of the vast unknown makes an infinite number of truths possible, including simultaneously existing paradoxes, which directly debunks the law of non contradiction if used to argue the spatiotemporal aspects of womanhood or femininity or even the construct of our genitalia. If our very spatio-temporal existence is limitless in its possibilities, to be a man and only a man at a given time is then pure nonsense. If our thoughts manage to be simultaneous among our subconscious and consciousness, how then can we decidedly utter that it is nonsense to be anything in between including non-binary gender?



I interpret that your inquiry is less a philosophical exploration but more an attempt at making sense of pre-existing social constructs. It's complicated because these constructs have been built from a time of lesser understanding compared to what is understood today. While tradition and repetition renders them valuable by virtue of cultural acceptance, it is also apparent that it cannot be a singular construct. Even if all of our personal thoughts and feelings were set aside respectively and if womanhood is interpreted just as a choice or even just as potential biological turnouts, the resulting probabilities are still more than just his and hers. The breadth of the factors that connive to result to our being is wide such that it even mathematically, we cannot just be a result of being an x or xy chromosome at the onset of our existence. Thus, the social construct must be decidedly archaic and equally alienating although still, evidently organized and by that makes it beneficial in some regards.

@John K succinctly and compassionately stated this:

In total, I think that we could simply accept that the paths of one are not the paths of all. Social constructs can still exist if it so wishes to for practical purposes, but it must not alienate. If science and math could argue that we are limitless, why then should we be limited just because of what is accepted by the majority?

If even the laws of humans are subject to revision, why not our minds and our interpretations and acceptance of what gives the other their claim -no matter how temporary- to being a soulful human?

 

It's worth asking here if gender dysphoria stems from some genuinely anomalous qualia of gendered psychological energy, or from gender expression which doesn't fit enculturated prescriptions. I don't think we could tell for sure either way as one shapes the other, but in the case of the former, there is no binary outside of symbolic archetypes to begin with. And speaking of archetypes...

I don't think that's accurate. The rigid gender standards are less a result of poor prior understanding and more a result of enantiodromia, where any popular idea is eventually decontextualized and taken to its extreme conclusion. My interpretation is that the dichotomy was initially one of many expressions of cosmic duality and served a ritualistic or artistic purpose (notice that femininity/masculinity in Western traditions is comparable to Eastern Yin/Yang characteristics, which implies a certain degree of universality in these observations). From a cognitive perspective, these could roughly apply to the duality of Te and Fi (it's hard to determine where Fe and Ti exactly fits in this because they are both part objective and subjective, whereas the former pair is double extraverted and double introverted, and as such carry in themselves the typical assertive proactivity of masculinity and demure passivity of femininity, respectively). Generally I go by the principle that all statistics are wrong, and especially so in the case of MBTI, but for the sake of the argument, Te dominant types tend to be men and Fi dominants women.

You can see how this becomes a problem when taken out of its symbolical concept, as it by no means precludes men from adopting feminine tendencies and vice versa. For example, INFP men almost always have a characteristic feminine tilt to their energy, and it's no accident that some of the most vocal proponents of LGBT rights belong to the FP category. Today, we are in the opposition stage of this collective mentality, where more and more subversion of the rigid taxonomy occurs in the form of new labels which don't actually introduce anything new from the traditional standpoint. They are merely symbols of rebellion that seeks to return to equilibrium.

The question is obvious at this point: is it possible that the recent relative increase in cases of gender dysphoria is caused by a fundamental mismatch between what is culturally imprinted from early childhood and the individual's actual psychological state, resulting in a misled feeling of being "wrongly assigned" to your body despite this apparent incongruity being completely natural?

I don't expect an answer beyond speculation of course, but to me this implies a potential solution to gender dysphoria outside of invasive procedures that may reveal itself in time.