Neglect of the moral promise of disorientation is a persistent gap in even the most sophisticated philosophies of embodiment. In this article, I begin to correct this neglect by expanding our sense of the range and nature of disoriented experience and proposing new visions of disorientation as benefiting moral agency. Disorientations are experienced through complex interactions of corporeal, affective, and cognitive processes, and are characterized by feelings of shock, surprise, unease, and discomfort; felt disorientations almost always make us unsure of (...) how to go on. I argue that experiences of disorientation can strengthen the moral agency of individuals. I begin by clarifying experiences of felt ease and orientation. I then characterize disoriented embodiment by investigating select experiences that often involve or accompany disorientation, focusing throughout on how disorientation prompts changes in motivation and action. I conclude by charting how disoriented embodiments can help individuals become better moral agents overall, in part by challenging norms that restrict embodiment and undermining dualistic conceptions of the self. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler's notion of philosophy's Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker's distinction between the mere study of trans phenomena and trans studies as the coming (...) to academic voice of trans people. Finally, it requires thinking about the types of questions that emerge when philosophy is placed within a multidisciplinary context: (1) What does philosophy have to offer? (2) Given that philosophy typically does not use data, what grounds philosophical claims about the world? (3) What is the relation between philosophy and “the literature”? In attempting to answer these questions, I examine the notion of philosophical perplexity and the relation of philosophy to “the everyday.” Rather than guiding us to perplexity, I argue, trans philosophy attempts to illuminate trans experiences in an everyday that is confusing and hostile. Alternative socialities are required, I argue, in order to make trans philosophy possible. (shrink)

In chapter one I firstly critique some contemporary family-resemblance approaches to the category woman, and claim that they do not take sufficient account of dis-semblance, that is, resemblances that people have in common with members of the contrast category man. Second, I analyze how the concept of woman is semantically contestable: resemblance/dissemblance structures give rise to vagueness and to borderline cases. Borderline cases can either be included in the category or excluded from it. The factors which incline parties in a (...) dispute about membership to include or exclude depend on metaphysical, ethical, or political background assumptions. In chapter two, I begin by considering the harms suffered by transgender persons through “misgendering”, the deployment of gender terms which inflict psychological harms upon transgender persons, place them in situations of injustice, or diminish their self-respect. Such deployments are morally contestable: they can be challenged on ethical grounds. Several characterisations of the term ‘woman’ proposed in the feminist literature are critiqued from this perspective. In chapter three, I elaborate a broadly liberal approach to gender pluralism. The approach involves: i) the public toleration of gender practices and beliefs which contest prevalent gender norms; and ii) state-gender neutrality. Public toleration allows gender non-conforming practices and beliefs within public space. State gender-neutrality consists mainly in the removal from law and government policy of provisions which assume compliance with prevalent conceptions of gender. (shrink)