Being without essence. Some Wittgensteinian notes for thinking about the use of the term woman in the trans debate

Abstract

In this article I develop a critique of trans-exclusive positions, which deny the recognition of trans women as women, from the perspective of the philosophy of everyday language of the second Wittgenstein. Although this author never took a position on the issue, several of his feminist interpreters, such as Toril Moi, Cressida Heyes and Hilde Lindemann-Nelson, have elaborated an anti-essentialist critique to avoid the biological reductionism of the term «woman» and to broaden its use. Following these philosophers, my thesis is that several contents of Wittgenstein's late work (everyday use of language, argument against the private language-game, family resemblances and concepts of blurred boundaries) can contribute to clarify certain uses of the concept of «woman» and to criticise the essentialist assumptions that lie beneath these trans-exclusive feminist proposals.