The Philosophy Wars Over Trans Lives and Truth Right now, there are several different factions involved in the debate over trans issues, all with their own rationale for supporting or opposing trans rights to certain degrees. However, two of the loudest are the gender critical feminists, sometimes known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists, and the postmodern feminists. The former are staunchly against trans rights, while the latter are theoretically for them. Note that when I say 'gender critical', I mean the activist movement that is committed to that particular ideology, not just anyone who may be questioning certain trans issues.
What makes these two factions so important is that their views of trans people have become disproportionally influential in the general public, probably because they have the most dedicated activists. What I'm most concerned about is that, this essentially philosophical war over trans people, one that is not fought on scientific grounds but rather on philosophical grounds, is confusing the important issues, and leading to unwarranted backlash against trans people.
What may surprise many people is that, the gender criticalists and the postmodernists actually share a fundamental worldview, that is, gender is a social construct created by the patriarchy to oppress women. In turn, this is a particular expression of the general critical theory worldview: 35
