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A dispositional account of gender

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Abstract

According to some philosophers, gender is a social role or pattern of behavior in a social context. I argue that these accounts have problematic implications for transgender. I suggest that gender is a complex behavioral disposition, or cluster of dispositions. Furthermore, since gender norms are culturally relative, one’s gender is partially constituted by extrinsic factors. I argue that this has advantages over thinking of gender as behavior, and has the added advantage of accommodating the possibility of an appearance/reality dissonance with respect to one’s gender.

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Notes

  1. While defense of this assumption is beyond the scope of this paper, I acknowledge that it is not uncontroversial. Sveinsdóttir (2011) argues that, in addition to gender, sex is also socially conferred. Butler (2006) can be interpreted as arguing that there is no physical reality to sex . Dreger (1998) and Fausto-Sterling (2000) argue that the biological story is more complicated than the male/female binary suggests.

  2. Beauvoir (1989), p. xxi).

  3. Witt (2011, pp. 32, 40).

  4. Haslanger (2000).

  5. Sveinsdóttir (2011, p. 61).

  6. Butler (2006).

  7. Butler (2006, p. 14).

  8. Langton (1997).

  9. Haslanger (2000).

  10. McKitrick (2003).

  11. McKitrick (2003).

  12. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (2012, p. 19).

  13. See Brogaard (2009).

  14. Stoljar (2011).

  15. Haslanger (2000).

  16. Smith (1977).

References

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to audiences at the Midwest Area Workshop on Metaphysics, the Pacific APA, and the Workshop on Causal Powers at the Rotman Institute, University of Western Ontario for discussions of earlier versions of this paper. Special thanks to Ásta Sveinsdóttir, Clare LaFrance, Joe Mendola, Lauren Ashwell, and Esa Diaz-Leon for their comments.

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Correspondence to Jennifer McKitrick.

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McKitrick, J. A dispositional account of gender. Philos Stud 172, 2575–2589 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0425-6

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