Must Society Recognize Trans People's Gender Identities?

Between the fact that some celebrities have recently come out publicly as members of the transgender community, on the one hand, and (fueled by an unsubstantiated and distorted presumption that unfairly equates transgender individuals with sexual predators) recent legislation in some conservative states attempting to ban transgender people from using restrooms incompatible with the sex indicated on their birth certificate, on the other, the question of transgender rights has taken center stage in current political discourse.

Simplistic arguments, especially those coming from the ideological and religious right, which conflate the biological concept of sex with the philosophical concept of identity and the cultural concept of gender, and those that unquestioningly adopt a dualistic interpretation of these concepts instead of a spectrum (or a series of interrelated spectra) would be intellectually laughable if they weren't so pernicious in their practical and ideological influence. Which is not to say that there aren't other interesting and important perspectives and points of controversy on this topic. Questions regarding the phenomenology of bodily and gendered lived experience, cultural appropriation; challenges to the very ontological legitimacy of gender itself; intersectional questions regarding privilege and oppression; biological essentialism; constructivism; performativity; whether we should erase differences or celebrate them, and how, permeate the philosophical landscape. And because education is often best achieved by exposure to and analysis of various perspectives engaged in a dialectical process of civil discourse, we're showcasing today a fascinating Intelligent Squared debate on the question of whether society has a moral and/or legal duty to recognize trans people's gender identities.