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Gender-Affirmation and Loving Attention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2021

E. M. Hernandez
E. M. Hernandez*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected][email protected]
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Abstract

In this article I examine the moral dimensions of gender-affirmation. I argue that the moral value of gender-affirmation is rooted in what Iris Murdoch called loving attention. Loving attention is central to the moral value of gender-affirmation because such affirmation is otherwise too fragile or insincere to have such value. Moral reasons to engage in acts that gender-affirm derive from the commitment to give and express loving attention to trans people as a way of challenging their marginalization. In the latter part of the article, I will discuss how my arguments bear on recent arguments by Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak on the use of gender-neutral language (Dembroff and Wodak 2018). They argue that we have a duty not to use gender-specific pronouns for anyone. Their conclusion turns, in part, on a rejection of gender-affirmation as a moral duty. The value of gender-affirmation, rooted in our moral perception of trans people, should make us skeptical of this conclusion, in favor of a more nuanced and pluralistic approach to the ethics of gendering.

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , Fall 2021 , pp. 619 - 635
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

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