Rex Kerr
2 min readJan 30, 2023

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I don't think there's actually that much that supports the point of view being offered, mostly because the point of view being offered is a really tough thing to test: much of it is a question of the implications for society of linguistic choices.

If it were merely an issue of scientific precision, for instance, that is arguably well-enough established. There are plenty of cases where precision is known to be important in understanding results. But the article is focused mostly on inclusive language, which is actually misleading unless the actual thing at issue is inclusive, not just the language. For instance, if a study is on menstruation, and involves only cis women, the term "menstruating person" that the article suggests is actively hindering precise understanding of the results.

If the article had covered something like whether there are biological differences between trans men and cis men, under the broad definition of biological which includes the brain (and thus also subsumes any physical correlate of psychological status), that would be one thing. But it really doesn't.

This doesn't mean that what they call for is necessarily a bad idea, just that its suggestions shouldn't be treated as though they've been carefully empirically tested, because mostly they haven't. For instance, has there been testing of the different outcomes of using "biological X" to not include "mental X" but only other easily-measurable physical traits vs. using "biological X" to mean everything, and extra terms when you need to set aside psychological/mental factors? (E.g. "physiological", but there too you can argue that brain physiology is physiology and gives rise to mental states.) This is the kind of thing you'd need to argue definitively for one usage over the other.

That "biological X" doesn't include "mental X" doesn't seem like an obvious case of misappropriation, but it's not obviously correct, either.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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