REL 3145 Spring 2009 Highlights and Lowlights

First, a common type of grammatical error:

“Gender identity has both to do with matter of culture and religion as of biology.”

It would be correct to say “Gender identity has to do with culture and religion, as well as biology.” It would also be correct to say “Gender identity is a matter of culture and religion as well as of biology.” But combining these two sentences, each correct in itself, creates a syntactic monstrosity. In matters of grammar, two rights frequently make a wrong.

Now on to more substantive points.

I explained at the start of the class that these papers require a mix of empirical evidence and theoretical sophistication. Remember the Kantian slogan: “Concepts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind!”

Concepts without intuitions are empty – that is, if you make a claim, there must be evidence to back it up:

“In several references to Hindu religions and beliefs gods and goddesses change their sex in order to accomplish their goals.”

The writer tells me that there are several references, but doesn’t provide a single one! Of course, the claim is based on a passage in Neither Man Nor Woman, p.12 Even when taking information from the text book, cite the passage. It is lazy not to.

In this passage, Nanda mentions several myths, including the story of Vishnu and Mohini. I put ‘Vishnu and Mohini’ into google, and, less than five minutes later, I had a translation of the Srimad Bhagavatam, a primary text that contains the myth. When I was a student, it would probably have taken a couple of hours searching through several libraries to get to that stage – with the internet, life is made so easy for you, if you just take the trouble to use it.

Here’s another example where evidence is needed:

 “There is no evidence that one can be born homosexual let alone transsexual.”

Later, when we look at Stafford Poole’s work on the history of Guadaloupe, we will see that claims that there is no evidence only carry weight when you can show that you have made an exhaustive search. In this case, another student actually cited a book, Michael Bailey’s The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transsexualism contains a discussion of such evidence (pp.106-114). The evidence may not be persuasive – Bailey himself mentions some difficulties with it – but there are people who claim the evidence is there. A claim that there is no evidence should be backed up by evidence that someone has carried out a thorough search and failed to find any.

However, the same paper also has an excellent example of how to find evidence:

“There are other studies that show that transsexuals can still have strong sexual desires even after the surgery is performed without hormones. In the article by Lynn Conway, ‘Vaginoplasty: Male to Female Sex Reassingment Surgery’ the question of libido is discussed and answered by doctors who perform Vaginoplasty in the United States. ‘There is a wide range of libidos in postop women, just as natal women. Some women are highly sexed, the majority is moderately sexed, and some are asexual and have little libido at all.’ The article goes on to tell about Hijras themselves, ‘The experience of countless Hijra girls in India demonstrate that even primitive forms of sexual reassignment surgery do not desex transsexual girls and in fact helps many of them.’”

What makes this such a good example is that the evidence is being used to support an argument. Several of you proposed that the main motive of hijras is homosexual desire. This raises a problem: why would sexual desire cause someone to castrate themselves, if castration results in a loss of desire? Conway’s article provides useful evidence (warning: it is also highly detailed, including photographs that some may find disturbing). The evidence I cited in class suggested that although, contrary to popular expectation, castration does not eliminate sexual desire, still, in the majority of cases, it leads to a weakening of desire. In fact there is a difference here between apes (including humans), on the one hand, and mice, on the other. With mice it is simple: if you castrate a mouse, it loses its libido. In humans (and other apes), there is, on average (but not in every case) a reduction (but not usually a complete loss) of libido. Why is the reaction to castration not constant for us as it is for mice?

Conway explains physiologically how sexual arousal is possible after castration, and also argues that the possibility of achieving desire after castration depends upon the psychological state before the operation. In humans, libido depends partly on self-image. When you don’t feel yourself to be attractive, you are less likely to feel aroused. A heterosexual man who is castrated against his wishes will probably experience a loss of libido. Men who want to become women sometimes find that castration leads to an increased libido.

The source is a good one because of the role it plays in the paper. It isn’t just an interesting aside – it helps the author make a case. The philosopher and historian R. G. Collingwood argued that research involves a process of question and answer, where one question leads to another, and the passage above is a perfect example: the questions about the motives of hijras lead to questions about the effect of castration on sexual desire – and the questions lead to answers grounded in empirical research, not mere prejudice. It’s also good that the writer of this paper wasn’t content to repeat the data that I mentioned in class – I often tell students that they should always take questions one step further, and this is a good example of what that means.

As well as empirical evidence, you need theoretical sophistication. Frequently, students engage in explanations of religious activity that are circular. Here is one example:

“When we follow a religion or a god we are trying to be as we think that god wants us to be, and of course we want to be as similar as possible to this god. If the Mata says that her followers have to dress and act like women, the believers will do as the goddess says.”

As with many such circular explanations, the problem is not that it is false, nor that the evidence is lacking. Why would we call someone a follower of the Mata unless we saw that, some of the time, they did what the Mata says? If you believe that Bahuchara Mata can punish you for disobedience, wouldn’t you try to be obedient? A key phrase is “of course”: this is obviously true, but it is also trivial. What is left unexplained is why anyone would believe in the whole system in the first place.

By the way, this is not just a problem with undergraduate work. I remember a seminar for postgraduate students where one student read out a detailed explication of some philosopher they had been studying. One by one, the other students asked questions about this or that detail. Dr. Richard Cross, who was chairing the seminar, waited until all the students had had a chance to speak and then said, quite casually, “Yah, I was just wondering, why should I buy into any of this at all?” Everyone burst out laughing: this was the big question that none of us had dared to ask. This is what you need to ask about Bahuchara Mata – why would anyone believe in her in the first place.

Here is one proposed explanation:

“However, when it comes does to it based on this book I can provide several examples of why I think that Hijras are now an excuse for transsexual men who want to be socially and religiously accepted…

“…However, when using a religion and a belief system to take advantage of it and hiding under it just so as a homosexual they would be socially ‘accepted’ and ‘respected’ it seems to me that it is immoral and unfair…”

This, at least, is a non-circular explanation. However, it is still lacking in sophistication. We have already seen that there is evidence that homosexual desire is a primary motivation for most hijras, despite the fact that they claim to have renounced sexual desire. However, it is something of a jump to say that the religion is merely an excuse. Here at FSU, we are required to let student miss classes for religious holidays. Suppose that I did so, but said to the student, “You are just using this as an excuse. You want to spend time at the beach.” The implication would be that they have made a conscious choice to pretend to me they are religious so that they can spend time at the beach. One can imagine hijras doing the same thing – “Hey, let’s tell everyone we worship a goddess, then we can get away being homosexual” – but do you really think this is what happens? I object to this idea not because it is insulting (we are trying to discover the truth, even if the truth turns out to be offensive), but because it is unrealistic. I realize that this may not be exactly what the student had in mind, but it is what is suggested by the words like “excuse” and “hiding under it”.

So consider other words that could be used, for example, “rationalization.” Often, when we make a choice for one reason, we also tell ourselves a story about why it was a good, choice. One important difference between an excuse and a rationalization is that our excuses are aimed at other people, whereas with rationalizations, we are aiming to preserve our self-image as rational agents. Frequently, we sincerely believe our own rationalizations. Notice that “rationalization” is not simply a polite word for “excuse”. The two words carry quite different implications in this context.

If we take the idea that hijras use religion as an excuse for homosexuality to an extreme then it looks as though we’ve been studying a fake religion for the last month. Some students seemed to be saying almost that: “The primary motivation is sexual, so it isn’t religious.” On the other hand, if hijras use religion to rationalize homosexuality then they really do believe in the religion, and we’ve discovered the reason why – even though it is probably not a reason they would admit to: sexual desire is the hidden source of the belief system. That is quite a different theory.

What matters is not that you choose the second theory over the first, but that you are at least aware that there are these two theories to choose between. When I say that I want you to think in a way that shows theoretical sophistication, rather than engaging in simplistic thinking, I mean that you should be aware of the differences between saying that religion provides an excuse, or a rationalization, or a legitimation, or a justification for homosexual activity, and you should consider more than one of these possibilities. They are similar, but not by any means equivalent, and you should be aware of the subtle differences. If you can show good reasons for thinking that it is an excuse, not a rationalization, then fair enough – take things one step further, and challenge ideas that I propose in class. But if you have simply not considered any other alternatives, you are guilty of a lack of sophistication. Concepts are the tools of the understanding, and when we attempt to understand the behavior of our fellow human beings in all their complexity, a few crude tools are not going to be sufficient.

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