I am gratified by Duncan Henry’s discussion of the need for unambiguous, accurate language based on a thorough endorsement of Julia Long’s analysis. A recording of Long’s remarks at the LGB Alliance conference, along with trenchant supportive comments, is available on Karen Davis’s YouTube channel “You’re Kiddin’, Right?”.
I also agree that headway on the debate requires involving the public. Therefore, the debate must be recast into terms that everyone can readily understand. For example, I would retitle Henry’s essay to “Language and the Sex-Change Debate.” Change advocates become sex-change believers and critics become believers in the immutability of sex. Then the two clearly-defined positions can bring evidence in support of their opposing beliefs to the public. The public also understands the meanings of sex stereotypes and sex roles, and the word sex itself doesn’t need self-defeating modifiers like biological, natal, and birth. In regard to characterizing one side of the debate, the term ideology is pejorative and much too vague. Henry forthrightly writes with emphasis “I simply do not believe what they believe.”
I am gratified by Duncan Henry’s discussion of the need for unambiguous, accurate language based on a thorough endorsement of Julia Long’s analysis. A recording of Long’s remarks at the LGB Alliance conference, along with trenchant supportive comments, is available on Karen Davis’s YouTube channel “You’re Kiddin’, Right?”.
I also agree that headway on the debate requires involving the public. Therefore, the debate must be recast into terms that everyone can readily understand. For example, I would retitle Henry’s essay to “Language and the Sex-Change Debate.” Change advocates become sex-change believers and critics become believers in the immutability of sex. Then the two clearly-defined positions can bring evidence in support of their opposing beliefs to the public. The public also understands the meanings of sex stereotypes and sex roles, and the word sex itself doesn’t need self-defeating modifiers like biological, natal, and birth. In regard to characterizing one side of the debate, the term ideology is pejorative and much too vague. Henry forthrightly writes with emphasis “I simply do not believe what they believe.”