So, I will now make some comments, exploring the second issue I mentioned earlier, and ask a few questions, for potential readers interested in a discussion. I would appreciate civil input.
So, is there a new consistent linguistic convention (including a few new concepts) that is used by a majority or at least by a large minority of native English speakers (at least, in America) that classifies people in a way different from the man/woman classification (perhaps more precise). If so, is Danica Roem is a trans woman, which is a specific sort of woman under a new meaning of "woman"? In particular, has the meaning of the word "woman" changed?
One could try to define "trans woman" ostensively, by pointing at Roem, Jenner, and others and say "that's a trans woman", and then point at other objects and say "that's not a trans woman". But that might create a new term, it does not follow that "woman" would change meaning. Perhaps, "trans woman" just picks male humans who believe themselves to be women, and "woman" remains unchanged. Or maybe not. But let's consider, for example, a potential classification with 4 or more categories. The 4 most common categories would be:
1. Cis woman.
2. Transwoman.
3. Cis man.
4. Trans-man.
That seems to capture at least the most common part of the proposed new classifications, if there is any such thing.
One can define the categories ostensibly, by pointing to examples of each, and examples of objects that do not belong in each (e.g., members of one of the others), or in any (e.g., polar bears, planets).
Is that what's going on?
Let's consider a case of a person - say, A - who have male sexual and reproductive organs. A believes that A is a woman. But later, A comes to the belief that A was mistaken, and that A is a man. Let's consider some options:
O1.: The word "woman" now picks categories 1. and 2., and the word "man" picks categories 3. and 4. A was a woman, and then became a man.
O2.: The word "woman" now picks categories 1. and 2., and the word "man" picks categories 3. and 4. A was mistaken about being a woman, and has been always a man, or is mistaken about being a man, and has always been a woman.
O3.: The word "woman" does not pick category and 2.
If O1 is true, then Danica Roem is probably a woman under this new meaning, but it's apparent that one usual claim made by transgender activists is not true - i.e., adults do change their gender sometimes.
If O2 is true, then the usual trans belief that people are never mistaken about their own gender is false.
If O3 is true, Danica Roem is not a woman, even if Danica Roem is a trans woman.
All of the options seem for different reasons bad for the leftist position, and indeed for trans activists.
Is there a better option, under those categories? I do not know. But activists seem adamant that people cannot be mistaken about their gender, and also (not all of those in this thread, though) that people do not change their gender. So, if anyone has a good answer, I would like to hear it.
Here's another problem: What does "trans woman" pick? What sort of properties is it tracking, roughly? I'm not asking for a full account, of course, but just a general idea.
Is it perhaps being a male and having a female brain?
But if so, O1 is probably not true (A's brain did not change like that, very probably), and we're back to O2, which seems to be problematic as well.
There is of course the question of whether there has indeed been a shift in meaning, even if some common claims by activists are false.
Maybe there is. But then again, it's hard to make sense of claims made by transgender people and activists that they knew all along that they were women(men) but others believed that they were men(women), etc., if there was a change of meaning in the words "man" and "woman", since the people making the claims seem to be talking as if the concepts remained unchanged. Are they equivocating?
Any ideas?
