But... this is literally the position of a large section of transgender activists re: gender identity??? An explicitly "born this way" gender model is extremely common, arguably the default model in public discourse today.
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But it's not fucking essentialism It's especially perverse to then turn around and argue that some other position that obviously IS essentialism is less essentialist
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"Let's just agree that if your parents were both Christians, then by the biological definition of Christianity you are a Christian and inescapably so -- but that that has nothing to do at all with how you live your life or what you believe Isn't that liberating?"
End of conversation
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Yes &: Essentialism is, at its core, a _modal characterization_: it says that an object _necessarily_ has some property due to its membership in a category. This alone is not what makes (say) gender essentialism problematic. "Circles are round" is unproblematic shape essentialism
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The fact that gender essentialism is deployed in service to an ideology matters. We can't have a useful conversation about spherical essentialism in a vacuum.
End of conversation
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