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What is a Woman?
Malcolm and Simone debate how to define "woman" after he's asked in a trans community. Simone says it's whoever you perceive as female. Malcolm argues it's a social construct dependent on culture. He explains how polygamous and monogamous societies define it differently based on evolutionarily adaptive strategies.
Ultimately Malcolm concludes there's no universal truth, only answers contingent on the utility you're optimizing for. A culture seeking fertility may define womanhood differently than one focused on happiness. He cautions against governments enforcing subjective cultural norms on others, as with criminalizing misgendering. Overall they agree relativism is the only intellectually honest perspective.
Malcolm: [00:00:00] but what do I think is the true answer?
Malcolm: Because I think that there's no true answer can mean many different
Simone: things. There's your answer, the cultural relativistic one. Now you're saying there's a true answer.
Malcolm: Yeah. Okay. There's many different ways. So all the ways you could determine if someone was a woman, right? You could say, well, XX chromosome, XY chromosome, oh, they pass, oh, they self identify as a woman.
Malcolm: Oh, a woman is whatever would make them happiest if they were called the woman. Yeah. That's what they want to be called. Yeah. Yeah. A woman is whether they can have kids. There's many, many, many, many different ways. A
Simone: woman is a state of mind.
Malcolm: That you can determine this, right? And in different cultures.
Malcolm: Elevate different interpretations of gender above other interpretations of gender. So what's the right answer? Okay. Now, the true answer, the actual true answer, like if you're just stripping all of the tradition away.
Simone: Glad you're solving this problem all in one podcast.
Would you like to know more?[00:01:00]
Simone: Hey, hey Malcolm what, what is a woman?
Malcolm: So yeah, this is a spicy question, Simone. Yeah. I was in this Transmaxxing, I was, I was talking in the Transmaxxing discord with the, the Transmaxxing community for people who, aren't familiar with the trans vexing community they are individuals who transition.
Malcolm: Not because or at least they don't think that transitioning needs to be tied to gender dysphoria, but they think that it makes sense for some men to transition for social advantage. Yeah, so
Simone: basically transition for gain or gender euphoria, not just gender dysphoria.
Malcolm: Yeah, and I, I like it because I what I like about the community is they're expanding the concept, and they're passing off traditional trans communities.
Malcolm: Those are the two things I like. I don't, I don't know, am I terrible for, for having so much fun when like extremist progressive communities get pissed off at somebody just for asking questions they're not allowed to ask? Like, hey, I'm a guy and I feel pretty oppressed in society today. Am I allowed to transition?
Malcolm: No! Yes! The most transphobic question anyone can ask! [00:02:00] How dare you think about doing that? You're so privileged! So I, I do love that they're breaking down this, these, these things and they asked at the end of this, this thing, what is a woman? Cause you know, there's this video, what is a woman, which good video.
Malcolm: This has been recommended to us by smart people. And I think it shows real toxic parts of the trans movement, which let's be honest, has some real. Ooh, toxic parts. But I had never actually considered the question myself until it was proposed to me in the context of this group meeting. And so I had t
Published on 2 years, 2 months ago