Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T02:22:10.669Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Misgendering and Its Moral Contestability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Stephanie Julia Kapusta
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I consider the harms inflicted upon transgender persons through “misgendering,” that is, such deployments of gender terms that diminish transgender persons' self‐respect, limit the discursive resources at their disposal to define their own gender, and cause them microaggressive psychological harms. Such deployments are morally contestable, that is, they can be challenged on ethical or political grounds. Two characterizations of “woman” proposed in the feminist literature are critiqued from this perspective. When we consider what would happen to transgender women upon the broad implementation of these characterizations within transgender women's social context, we discover that they suffer from two defects: they either exclude at least some transgender women, or else they implicitly foster hierarchies among women, marginalizing transgender women in particular. In conclusion, I claim that the moral contestability of gender‐term deployments acts as a stimulus to regularly consider the provisionality and revisability of our deployments of the term “woman.”

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , Summer 2016 , pp. 502 - 519
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alcoff, Linda. 2006. Visible identities: Race, gender, and the self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Gender dysphoria. http://www.dsm5.org/Documents/Gender%20Dysphoria%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf (accessed December 29, 2015).Google Scholar
Beemyn, Genny, and Rankin, Susan. 2011. The lives of transgender people. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bettcher, Talia Mae. 2007. Evil deceivers and make‐believers: On transphobic violence and the politics of illusion. Hypatia 22 (3): 43–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettcher, Talia Mae. 2009. Trans identities and first‐person authority. In “You've changed”: Sex reassignment and personal identity, ed. Shrage, Laurie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bettcher, Talia Mae. 2013. Trans women and the meaning of “woman.” In The philosophy of sex: Contemporary readings, ed. Power, Nicholas, Halwani, Raja, and Soble, Alan. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bettcher, Talia Mae. 2014. Feminist perspectives on trans issues. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-trans/#Ter (accessed December 29, 2015).Google Scholar
Brake, Elizabeth. 2013. Rereading Rawls on self‐respect: Feminism, family law, and the social bases of self‐respect. In Feminist interpretations of John Rawls, ed. Abbey, Ruth. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1986. Intellectual norms and foundations of mind. Journal of Philosophy 83 (12): 697–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. 1993. Concepts, definitions, and meaning. Metaphilosophy 24 (4): 309–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corvino, John. 2000. Analyzing gender. Southwest Philosophy Review 17 (1): 173–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitting, Melvin. 2015. Intensional logic. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-intensional/ (accessed December 29, 2015).Google Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2006. Powerlessness and interpretation. Episteme 3 (1/2): 96–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2012. Silence and institutional prejudice. In Out from the shadows: Analytical feminist contributions to traditional philosophy, ed. Crasnow, Sharon L. and Superson, Anita M.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frye, Marilyn. 2011. Metaphors of being a φ. In Feminist metaphysics, ed. Witt, Charlotte. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Garry, Ann. 2011. Intersectionality, metaphors, and the multiplicity of gender. Hypatia 26 (4): 826–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1995. The looping effects of human kinds. In Causal cognition: A multidisciplinary approach, ed. Sperber, Dan, Premack, David, and Premack, Ann J.Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1999. The social construction of what? Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Jacob. 1996/2006. Are lesbians women? In The transgender studies reader, ed. Stryker, Susan and Whittle, Stephen. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hale, Jacob. 2009. Tracing a ghostly memory in my throat: Reflections of FTM feminist voice and agency. In “You've changed”: Sex reassignment and personal identity, ed. Shrage, Laurie. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hardie, Alaina. 2006. It's a long way to the top: Hierarchies of legitimacy in trans communities. In Trans/forming feminisms: Transfeminist voices speak out, ed. Scott‐Dixon, Krista. Toronto: Sumach Press.Google Scholar
Hartsock, Nancy. 2003. The feminist standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. In Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology, and philosophy of science, ed. Harding, Sandra and Hintikka, Merrill. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012a. Introduction. In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012b. Ideology, generics, and common ground. In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012c. What are we talking about? The semantics and politics of social kinds. In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 2012d. Gender and race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be?. In Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyes, Cressida J. 2000. Line drawings: Defining women through feminist practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Karkazis, Katrina. 2008. Fixing sex: Intersex, medical authority, and lived experience. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindemann Nelson, Hilde. 2002. Wittgenstein meets “woman” in the language game of theorizing feminism. In Feminist interpretations of Ludwig Wittgenstein, ed. Scheman, Naomi and O'Connor, Peg. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Mallon, Ron. 2006. “Race”: Normative, not metaphysical or semantic. Ethics 116 (3): 525–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nordmarken, Sonny, and Kelly, Reese. 2014. Limiting transgender health: Administrative violence and microaggressions in health care systems. In Health care disparities and the LGBT population, ed. Harvey, Vickie L. and Heinz Housel, Teresa. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Nordmarken, Sonny. 2014. Microagressions. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1 (1/2): 129–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. 1999. A theory of justice. Revised edition. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Saul, Jennifer M. 2012. Politically significant terms and philosophy of language: Methodological issues. In Out from the shadows: Analytical feminist contributions to traditional philosophy, ed. Crasnow, Sharon L. and Superson, Anita M.Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shelley, Christopher. 2008. Transpeople: Repudiation, trauma, healing. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Stoljar, Natalie. 1995. Essence, identity, and the concept of woman. Philosophical Topics 23 (2): 261–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoljar, Natalie. 2011. Different women: Gender and the realism‐nominalism debate. In Feminist metaphysics, ed. Witt, Charlotte. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Sue, Derald Wing, ed. 2010. Microaggressions and marginality: Manifestation, dynamics, and impact. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Williams, Meredith. 1990. Social norms and narrow content. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 15 (1): 425–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Witt, Charlotte. 2011. The metaphysics of gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2011. Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar