Understanding Set Theory for Gender-Critical Community

Here is some basic set theory for the hard of comprehension in the gender-critical community.

There are, according to your own beliefs, two subsets of the set "adult humans": "Men" and "Women". 1/

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 21, 2023

Within each of these subsets, we can identify two further subsets that pertain to identity: "trans" and "not trans". So, we have "trans men" and "not-trans men", and "trans women" and "not-trans women". 2/

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 21, 2023

So:
"Men" = "trans men" + "not-trans men"
"Women" = "trans women" + "not-trans women"

Dunno about you, but I'm not sure I like being identified as "not-something". I'd rather have an actual positive term for what I am. Such as "cis".

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 21, 2023

Now, I know some of you don't agree that trans women are women and trans men are men. But if you put them into their original sex categories, you still have the same problem: 4/

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 21, 2023

Sex categories version:

"Men" = "trans women" + "not-trans men"
"Women" = "trans men" + "not-trans women"

This is because whether you like it or not, trans people exist.

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 21, 2023

Clearly, "men" and "women" are not exclusively "not-trans". So if you want to talk exclusively about "not-trans" people, you need a term for them. 6/

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 21, 2023

We could resolve this problem by removing trans people from the sets Men and Women and creating two new categories of adult human: "Transmen" and "Transwomen". We would now have four categories of adult human: "Men", "Women", "Transmen", and "Transwomen".

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 21, 2023

But this creates a new problem. Your own beliefs, gender-critical people, say that there can only ever be two categories of adult human: "Men" and "Women". So the new categories, "Transmen" and "Transwomen" could not be real. They would be a "fiction". 8/

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 22, 2023

At the end of this exercise, we have ended up with the sets "Men" and "Women" exclusively containing not-trans people, and the sets "Transmen" and "Transwomen" being fictions. /9

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 22, 2023

The effect of this is to deny the real existence of trans people. They can exist only as a fiction.
/10

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 22, 2023

To summarise.
If both of the following are true:
1) Adult humans are divided into two categories, "Men" and "Women"
2) "Men" and "Women" exclusively mean non-trans people
Then it follows that trans people cannot exist. /10

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 22, 2023

apologies for totally losing track of the tweet numbers!

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 22, 2023

oh and if anyone was wondering why I removed the space after "trans" for the new categories, it is because the members of these categories would not be men or women, they would be something else. I know this raises hackles, but bear with me, please...

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) June 22, 2023