Where did they get the idea that our sexual identity (“gender” was the term they preferred) as men or women was in the category of things that could be changed? Their regular respo
To understand the contours of the renewed culture wars over sex education, sexual orientation and gender identity, start with a Rorschach test.
We argue that “gender affirmation” procedures violate sound medical ethics, that it is profoundly unethical to reinforce a male child in his belief that he is not a boy (or a femal
Questions related to sexuality and gender bear on some of the most intimate and personal aspects of human life. In recent years they have also vexed American politics. We offer thi
The relationship between feminism and transgender theory and politics is surprisingly fraught. The goal in this entry is to outline some of the key philosophical issues at the
n this entry, I discuss the moral rights of transgender persons – that is, of those persons who do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth, or who otherwise cross co
It is becoming increasingly clear that we are now facing with what might accurately be called an educational crisis, especially in the field of affectivity and sexuality. In many p
“Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage
Until relatively recently the idea of transgenderism would have been literally unintelligible. Philosophically and scientifically the only sexual differentiation within human beings was biological, with male and female being marked by primary and secondary sexual characteristics (genitalia and other physiological features). The term ‘gender’ was a grammatical one referring to classes of nouns and pronouns: male, female, neuter, in different languages. In 1949, however, the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir argued that as well as biological differences there are socially constructed cultural identities ‘masculine’ and feminine’. This set the foundations for the idea that there might be a difference between one’s biological and gendered identity and that a biological female might experience themselves to be masculine and vice versa. With that notion in place it then became intelligible to speak of transitioning (through surgery and hormone treatment) so as to align sexual and gender identities. Thereafter the terms transexual and transgender have often been used as equivalents, but terminology is in flux. Defenders of traditional views argue that there has been a confusion between subjective experience and objective fact and that those ‘identifying’ with a gender opposite to their biological sex are suffering from a form of body dysphoria. Since very few people are directly affected by these issues there is a question as to why they have become so prominent.