When the Big Picture Makes Us Stupid
Siege mentality happens across the political spectrum
The thing about facts is, they don’t care how well they fit into anyone’s worldview or set of established opinions. Further, while facts may not change, our understanding of them can and often does. Because of this, I try, sometimes even successfully, to hold my opinions in the framework of “Based on what I know now…” rather than “This is the truth — end of story.”
Unfortunately, where flexibility is the logical choice, rigidity is much more common. We come to a belief and quickly decide that it is truth, discounting or ignoring any evidence to the contrary. Further, we are willing to take illogical and indefensible positions to protect our core beliefs. We build a fortress, put on our armor, and prepare to repel everything the enemy may throw at us.
I’m inclined to think that the objections of gun rights proponents to limitations on high-capacity magazines or devices that effectively turn semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons aren’t necessarily based on a conviction that these things should be widely available. Rather, I think they oppose any restrictions on gun ownership, no matter how common-sense or logical they are, because they fear that if they open the door a crack, a gun control storm will blow it wide open, and the Second Amendment will be history. Anything other than unrestricted access is a threat.
While it may be easier to find examples of this behavior among the right, and particularly the religious right, rigid adherence to a core belief, and protection of that belief at all costs, happens on the left too. As a transgender woman, I am most aware of cases in the transgender community. For example, there is extensive data to support the assertion that men, in general, are bigger (taller and heavier) and have more muscle mass than women.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is an ongoing survey of people in the US that collects a variety of health-related data. Included in the survey are height, weight, gender, and age. The table below contains sample NHANES data from 2007–2008, and demonstrates the overall height and weight disparity between males and females. These samples are representative of the overall trends observed in the full data set (available at the provided link above).
A study by Janssen et al., 2000 is said to be the most comprehensive done to date on the topic of muscle mass differences. The table below demonstrates the disparity in skeletal muscle mass between males and females in that study. Newer, less comprehensive studies have confirmed these results (e.g., Bartolomei et al., 2021).
Are there tall, muscular females and short, non-muscular men? Absolutely. Does the overall disparity indicate that men are better than women? Absolutely not. The data only mean what they say, and, I would suggest, what most people already know by experience — overall, men are taller and more muscular than women.
I have been challenged for stating these facts, and I’ve seen others challenged as well. Why? I think the reason is the fear of “opening the door a crack.” It might be the concern that “different” could be interpreted as “better.” In terms of current controversies, I think it is probably motivated by the concern that the height/muscle disparity could be used to argue that transgender women should not be allowed to compete in women’s sports at the elite level. Further, if restrictions are allowed for elite sports, that might validate attempts to exclude trans girls from sports at much lower levels, even though the height/muscle data don’t, in many cases at least, apply.
In this specific case, I do think that the height/muscle mass disparities need to be factored into any discussions of the inclusion of trans women in women’s elite-level sports. Denial of documented physical differences weakens rather than bolsters the case for some level of inclusion.
Another example related to transgender women is appearance. Trans women, just like cis women, cover a wide range with respect to appearance. Some cis women look very masculine, but the number of trans women who retain some masculine characteristics is, I’m comfortable asserting, much higher, particularly among those of us who transitioned well after the effects of puberty were established.
Bodies developed under the primary influence of testosterone have, on the whole, different characteristics from bodies developed under the primary influence of estrogen, including narrower hips, broader shoulders, and more angular facial features. There are some men with broad hips, narrow shoulders, or soft facial features, and some women with narrow hips, broad shoulders, or angular facial features. Overall, however, the differences are hard to dispute. Except that they are disputed.
Again, one might ask why. I think a likely reason is the fear that acknowledging *any* differences between cis women and trans women might weaken the case for acceptance of trans women, or bolster the attacks that claim trans women are, in fact, men.
Appearance, however, is the wrong thing to use as an argument for trans acceptance. It doesn’t matter what we look like — it matters who we are. Denying the obvious doesn’t bolster the argument for trans inclusion, it weakens it.
Taking an indefensible position as a means of protecting a strongly held belief is, in the end, self-defeating. To be valid, any opinion must be consistent with the available facts — not with every wild claim thrown out by the opposition, but with documented facts. Denying facts to protect opinions is no more reasonable from the left than it is from the right. It weakens the greater argument and reduces the possibility of any rational, perhaps even civilized, discussion.
