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Breaking Labels (under contract with Oxford University Press)
Gender systems and categories are complex, contingent, and dynamic. What's more, these categories are morally and politically thick: what categories we construct, how we construct them, and when we use them have real world implications for persons' lives. A metaphysical model of gender should capture these features. Breaking Labels offers such a model. In it, I develop and defend a `dynamic system model' of gender, on which gender is understood as a self-reinforcing system ('patriarchy') with a system equilibrium of `real men' dominance. Moreover, I argue, this system is continually reproduces or challenged by forces that stabilize or destabilize it.
'Real men', on my view, are not simply males. Rather, they are persons who sufficiently exemplify the features taken in a given context to be ‘natural’ for men, where this set of features spans physical, psychological, and social features, and often reproduces other social hierarchies and oppressions. For example, in many contexts, features considered ‘natural’ for men are such that trans and queer persons, persons with disabilities, poor persons, and persons of color are barred from access to 'real manhood'.
I argue that the patriarchal system’s core mechanism is adaptive: it constantly develops in order to neutralize destabilizing threats and maintain the dominance of 'real men'. Queer and trans embodiments, I argue, are central cases of such destabilizing threats. However, by drawing out the adaptive nature of the patriarchal system, my account provides a conceptual framework for interrogating the truly destabilizing potential of queer and trans embodiments or, indeed, any group, institution, ideology, or material structure that threatens patriarchy. Is there a way to destabilize patriarchy without simultaneously reinforcing it? Is there a way to destabilize patriarchy that is invulnerable to being assimilated within in? While I will not argue for particular answers to these questions, my model will clarify the entrenched difficulties that face any attempt to destabilize the patriarchal system.
An overarching goal of my project is to use analytic philosophy as an umbrella for bringing together insights from materialist feminist thought with insights from trans and queer theory. Following the materialist feminist tradition, I maintain and argue that gender is fundamentally rooted in a hierarchical social system. However, I also emphasize the importance of communities that collectively resist this system, the difficulties of resistance, and the importance of pride and political activism to the metaphysical fabric of gender.
'Real men', on my view, are not simply males. Rather, they are persons who sufficiently exemplify the features taken in a given context to be ‘natural’ for men, where this set of features spans physical, psychological, and social features, and often reproduces other social hierarchies and oppressions. For example, in many contexts, features considered ‘natural’ for men are such that trans and queer persons, persons with disabilities, poor persons, and persons of color are barred from access to 'real manhood'.
I argue that the patriarchal system’s core mechanism is adaptive: it constantly develops in order to neutralize destabilizing threats and maintain the dominance of 'real men'. Queer and trans embodiments, I argue, are central cases of such destabilizing threats. However, by drawing out the adaptive nature of the patriarchal system, my account provides a conceptual framework for interrogating the truly destabilizing potential of queer and trans embodiments or, indeed, any group, institution, ideology, or material structure that threatens patriarchy. Is there a way to destabilize patriarchy without simultaneously reinforcing it? Is there a way to destabilize patriarchy that is invulnerable to being assimilated within in? While I will not argue for particular answers to these questions, my model will clarify the entrenched difficulties that face any attempt to destabilize the patriarchal system.
An overarching goal of my project is to use analytic philosophy as an umbrella for bringing together insights from materialist feminist thought with insights from trans and queer theory. Following the materialist feminist tradition, I maintain and argue that gender is fundamentally rooted in a hierarchical social system. However, I also emphasize the importance of communities that collectively resist this system, the difficulties of resistance, and the importance of pride and political activism to the metaphysical fabric of gender.
Oppressive Categories (manuscript)
Who can justly demand recognition as a woman? as disabled? as black? All sides often assume that answers to these and similar questions will turn on who in fact has membership in the relevant category. As a result, attempts to answer these questions quickly become debates over metaphysical questions such as What makes someone a woman? or Is obesity really a disability? In this paper, I argue that such debates are orthogonal to the question of who can justly demand recognition in a socially significant category, such as woman or disabled. These categories can be unjust with respect to the grounds for category membership. Call these 'oppressive categories'. Oppressive categories show that what features ought to determine category membership can come apart from the features that do determine membership. After developing a framework for understanding oppressive categories, I argue from this framework to the possibility that persons who do not belong to a socially significant category can nevertheless justly demand recognition as category members.
Reimagining "Trans" (manuscript)
In less than thirty years, the category transgender has gone from unknown to the forefront of national politics. According to a 2019 report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in fifty US high-school students identify as transgender -- a number far exceeding previous estimates. This sharp rise of transgender has been accompanied by that of cisgender -- typically understood to mean 'not-transgender'. Together, these categories create a supposedly exhaustive binary. While this binary has been politically useful, I argue that -- metaphysically and politically -- it buckles under scrutiny. First, this binary is exclusionary in ways that reinforce race, class, and ability based social hierarchies. Second, this binary is metaphysically ‘lightweight’: it do not do the explanatory work it is tasked to do: namely, tracking and predicting gender-related social privilege and discrimination. In place of this binary, I argue in favor of an umbrella category, transnormative, that includes all forms of transgression against dominant gender norms. It is degreed, context-sensitive, and not tied to particular gender or sexual identifications, expressions, or roles. For this reason, it is a conceptual space that highlights crucial political unity among various gender and sexual groups, but also provides a framework for differentiating between these groups.
