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# System prepended metadata

title: Conceptual core?

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# Conceptual core?

## Context

This text is designed to serve as the construction site of a "conceptual core" we could use to make ourselves known to allies, individuals and institutions. It's important for me -- perhaps that will be an important point to debate about -- that the text reflects a willingness to welcome trans people, including transwomen, provided they leave their ideology behind, but also straight men and women, provided they share our concern for LGB people.

The goal is to iterate together on the text by adding, removing and restructuring words until the text says exactly what we want, nothing more and nothing less, in plain English, with as few presuppositions and technical terms as possible, so that any audience can understand it.

As the original author I have some "unfair momentum" in that I get to make the first decisions on ideas, wording and structure. I am happy to start from scratch if that's not good enough for you. I am also happy to let someone else take over, if they believe they can offer a version closer to the goals.

## Introduction

The text has two parts, "Beliefs" and "Demands". "Beliefs" consist in "We don't believe in..." and "We believe in..." statements, which I have decided to interleave instead of separating them as I wanted at first, as it felt more natural for the reader. Sometimes a "We don't believe" statement levels the ground to make room for a "We believe in" statement, and sometimes it filters out possibilities left open by a "We believe in" statement.

The second part, "Demands", is more speculative. The idea is to drive the reader, especially the institutional reader, to actionable conclusions.

Both parts use the "LGBT" descriptor. I've come to the conclusion it's the best descriptor to represent the people we are concerned about, because we would be OK I think to welcome Ts ready to give up on the concept of gender and cognates (which is fine since they don't need it at all to express, alleviate, let alone cure their distress). Also let's be honest: these issues cannot be solved unless the solution is acceptable by all the subgroups in the "LGBT" handle. 

## Beliefs

### Gender

We don't believe that _gender_ is a stable concept, and we doubt that it could be made stable. This is not just because different people use the term to mean different things, associate different ideas with the term, or disagree about what it _should_ mean. _Gender_ is unstable in the sense that there is no rational, reason-responsive and evidence-based procedure for deciding:
- what makes it possible for something or someone to have such and such gender; or
- what it is for someone to have such and such gender; or
- what differences are relevant for distinguishing between this and that gender.

Consequently, we don't believe that the concept of gender is a valuable building-block for making progress on any legal, political or social issues concerning LGBT people. Fortunately, we believe all these issues can be characterised, deliberated on, and eventually solved, by using a combination of different concepts.

### Introspection and transitioning

We do believe that introspection _is_ a reliable method for gathering knowledge about some kinds of things, such as our current state of mind, mental states, and ongoing experiences.

However we don't believe that introspection is infallible -- it is one among many ways one could possible get to know about oneself. We believe the history of psychiatry, psychology and now cognitive sciences, suggest that it is easy for introspection to fail when applied to things more complex and sensitive to beliefs and desires than feelings and conscious experiences.

Because we don't believe that inspection is infallible, and because we do agree that people change over a lifespan, to the effect that the verdicts of their introspection vary, we believe it is irresponsible for anyone or any institution to enable or facilitate irreversible medical action aimed at changing a person's metabolism and physical constitution solely on the base of introspection. 

Fortunately, there are -- we believe -- ways of increasing introspection's reliability, such as, in the case of someone suffering from dysphoric symptoms, determining if the symptoms' relevant cause is not dysphoria, or whether dysphoria might parasitic upon several causes that do not require or benefit from transitioning.

### Dysphoria

(__[TODO]__ I am not qualified to write this section. But I am confident we can find someone able to say what we think we know: that dysphoria is a serious distress that should be treated with care, empathy and rigour, and that that concept of "gender" plays no important role in characterising the diagnosis, the symptoms, the cause, or the cure.) 

### Identities

We believe the notion of _self-ID_ to be incapable of playing any significant role in a workable characterisation of the legal, political or social issues pertaining to LGBT people. This is because we believe this notion to depend on those _introspection_ and _gender_, and whose shortcomings it inherits.

We believe however that people have a right to present themselves under different "identities", to elicit different presuppositions and expectations about themselves in different people in different contexts. 

We don't believe there is anything wrong with that _provided_ these identities are manifested fairly and respectfully. One way of _not_ presenting oneself under an identity in a fair and respectful manner is to coerce others into the pretence that this or that identity "erases" (= is the unique permanent replacement for) another identity, even when the latter can be justified on equal grounds.

In these cases we believe the two identities can coexist, as two manners of presentation, provided all parties show empathy and understanding in recognising _both_, and using either one, or the other, or both, depending on what best fits the situation -- including the interests of all parties involved.

## Demands

We demand:
- that the rights to free speech and freedom of opinion be guaranteed in all issues pertaining to LGBT people, including the aforementioned statements of beliefs, in any public spaces and on the internet;
- __[TODO]__ that the rights of women be guaranteed in all matters (I am not qualified to finish this sentence: I know that safe spaces, free choice of intimate relationships, fair competition in sports, at work, and in various other institutions are at stake, but someone else can finish this)
- that empirical research, and more generally, the transmission of knowledge on dysphoria be allowed to proceed unpaired, and in particular, free from attacks on researchers, scientists, editors, reviewers, journalists, teachers, educators, commentators and thinkers;
- the rights of children be guaranteed in all matters of sex, sexuality and sexual orientation, and that they be protected from any attempt to coerce or manipulate them into taking risky, irreversible measures to modify their body or metabolism, before trying safe and vetted alternatives;
- that parents of minor children undergoing dysphoric symptoms be duly informed, counselled and accompanied for the duration of healthcare offered in response to dysphoric symptoms
- that policy-makers, politics, public institutions, media outlets, big and small businesses pay closer attention to the need for fair and respectful solutions in LGBT matters, by adopting a multi-factored approach, responsive to reasons and evidence-based, free of presuppositions and expectations dependent on the concept of gender; 
- that policy-makers evaluate the prospects of reasonable limitations on transition procedures, for example by forbidding _in principle_ transition procedures that would not meet the mutual consent of the parent(s) and the child, unless there is outstanding evidence that delaying a procedure would be detrimental to the well-being of the child (in such cases the lack of consent from the parent(s) might be overridden)
