Wading Into Trans and Gender Issues
It seems to me that the existence of people that identify as a gender that doesnt match their sex implies that there are distinct qualities that are necessary to the identities of men and women that go beyond physiological differences; there is an element of subjectivity, which I will define as: knowledge of ones own mental characteristics arising out of or identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes. This is if you grant that trans people exist, and we have no reason to doubt them when they tell us if they are men or women.
Of course, some men display feminine traits, and some women display more masculine traits, but they still qualify as a man or woman nonetheless - if only because that is what they identify as. But that is somewhat circular to say that one is a woman merely because they identify as a woman. Am I John Cena merely because I identify as someone who doesnt have spaghetti arms? If anything, this claim is more clearly verifiable than me identifying as a woman because I have man-breasts or like Sex and the City.
One might say that it doesnt matter; there are no adverse consequences for recognizing that someone is a man or woman merely because they identify as such, and, thus, we should not interfere with peoples gender expression.
We all know, however, that there can be severe consequences - but only in a very narrow way. I wouldnt claim that trans women arent women (they are definitely real women), but I do claim that they should not be allowed to crush women who have been training for many years to go up against cisgender women in sports - especially fighting. No one wants to see cisgender women getting battered and severely injured by some mediocre trans athlete. Not sorry; such displays are disgusting.
So, we know that men are generally bigger, stronger, and faster. Upper body strength is definitely different between men and women, and men tend to have more of it, and thus greater upper body strength is one of many traits that, when considered, is something that could differentiate oneself from certain, or even most, women.
I think whether or not one is a man or woman is a function of how their characteristics allow them to relate to other people, especially the opposite gender, and those peoples characteristics, be they more masculine or feminine. These traits, which are on a continuum, while not absolutely necessary for ones gender identity, influence it as something holistic which is then parsed by one in terms of man/woman.
So, what we have is a partially essentialist view of gender and sex. I dont really know what specifically makes a woman a woman or a man a man, and that isnt the focus of this post. The point is that gender identity is both essentialist and subjective.
And when someone like Ben Shapiro militates against the limited but still existent subjectivity inherent to something like gender, he claims he does so in the name of biology and to try to establish some hard truths. I think he is at least partially honest when he states his motivations, but he must know that gender is at least partially subjective; we know there is more to being a man than lifts heavy things or has broad shoulders, such as strong paternal instincts.
I think that people, especially men, want to protect women, or at least feel like they are protecting them. This is understandable, but it can turn sinister when it comes to disenfranchising a group of people. We should all respect peoples identities even if we are made uncomfortable by them, and this issue is almost totally unrelated to trans women in sports. If you cannot wrap your head around that you are being stupid - not bigoted, but rather stupid.
And yes, I havent addressed that gender isnt binary and that we can make up genders all day - mostly because they are only worth what people recognize them for being worth; I can claim I have the most expensive model train set ever and that people ought respect me for it, but in that context it is only worth what people recognize it to be - not a sign of status but rather a waste of money. Or maybe you love trains. Or lots of unnecessary punctuation and overly complex comment formats. That seems to be worth quite a bit around here.
Of course, some men display feminine traits, and some women display more masculine traits, but they still qualify as a man or woman nonetheless - if only because that is what they identify as. But that is somewhat circular to say that one is a woman merely because they identify as a woman. Am I John Cena merely because I identify as someone who doesnt have spaghetti arms? If anything, this claim is more clearly verifiable than me identifying as a woman because I have man-breasts or like Sex and the City.
One might say that it doesnt matter; there are no adverse consequences for recognizing that someone is a man or woman merely because they identify as such, and, thus, we should not interfere with peoples gender expression.
We all know, however, that there can be severe consequences - but only in a very narrow way. I wouldnt claim that trans women arent women (they are definitely real women), but I do claim that they should not be allowed to crush women who have been training for many years to go up against cisgender women in sports - especially fighting. No one wants to see cisgender women getting battered and severely injured by some mediocre trans athlete. Not sorry; such displays are disgusting.
So, we know that men are generally bigger, stronger, and faster. Upper body strength is definitely different between men and women, and men tend to have more of it, and thus greater upper body strength is one of many traits that, when considered, is something that could differentiate oneself from certain, or even most, women.
I think whether or not one is a man or woman is a function of how their characteristics allow them to relate to other people, especially the opposite gender, and those peoples characteristics, be they more masculine or feminine. These traits, which are on a continuum, while not absolutely necessary for ones gender identity, influence it as something holistic which is then parsed by one in terms of man/woman.
So, what we have is a partially essentialist view of gender and sex. I dont really know what specifically makes a woman a woman or a man a man, and that isnt the focus of this post. The point is that gender identity is both essentialist and subjective.
And when someone like Ben Shapiro militates against the limited but still existent subjectivity inherent to something like gender, he claims he does so in the name of biology and to try to establish some hard truths. I think he is at least partially honest when he states his motivations, but he must know that gender is at least partially subjective; we know there is more to being a man than lifts heavy things or has broad shoulders, such as strong paternal instincts.
I think that people, especially men, want to protect women, or at least feel like they are protecting them. This is understandable, but it can turn sinister when it comes to disenfranchising a group of people. We should all respect peoples identities even if we are made uncomfortable by them, and this issue is almost totally unrelated to trans women in sports. If you cannot wrap your head around that you are being stupid - not bigoted, but rather stupid.
And yes, I havent addressed that gender isnt binary and that we can make up genders all day - mostly because they are only worth what people recognize them for being worth; I can claim I have the most expensive model train set ever and that people ought respect me for it, but in that context it is only worth what people recognize it to be - not a sign of status but rather a waste of money. Or maybe you love trains. Or lots of unnecessary punctuation and overly complex comment formats. That seems to be worth quite a bit around here.
Comments (201)
Quoting ToothyMaw
Not sure if anything you mentioned in the OP deals with what is involved in something like recognizing masculine and feminine behavioral differences between male and female animals having to do with perceptual , motivational , emotional and cognitive styles. These are biological( more specifically , neuro-psychological) non-subjective features of gender that someone like Shapiro may or may not admit are robust behavioral characteristics that differentiate heterosexual sis-gendered males from females across mammalian species . He most certainly would deny, however, that there are intermediate points in this binary , or that there could be individuals in which brain-wired gender does not match their biological sex. What about you? Whats your position on brain-wired gender-determined perceptual-affective style?
I question that assertion. I'm skeptical of essentialism.
When I say that I mostly mean that each man and woman possess characteristics that are - to them at least - necessary to their gender expression if trans people genuinely are the men or women they claim they are because there must be at least one characteristic in there that makes them what they say they are, or they possess an attribute that could be identified with anyone, and the terms "woman" and "man" become empty.
Unless you assert that certain attributes are essentially inconsistent with what men or women are, in which case you are making an argument that only certain people can be men or women. That seems to constitute a similar thing to essentialism to me.
Furthermore, what is viewed as essential could also be subjective; not every person has an identical idea of what it is to be a man or woman. It stands to reason that many women, for example, would identify certain attributes with themselves and probably also others to affirm their gender identity and the gender identities of those other people.
If that doesn't count as essentialism, then I concede that last part.
I dont think so. I cant think of any such characteristics in my case. I just am a man.
And what conclusions should we draw? A man is anyone who identifies as a man? Is "man" a totally vacuous label? What about women? Should men who identify as women be allowed to use women's restrooms? Should male fighters get to smash female fighters because they identify as women?
Your wording is ambiguous. When you say men who identify as women do you just mean men who say theyre women, or do you mean transgender women?
I mean anybody who identifies as a woman at all. The conclusion from what you posted is that anyone, even if they aren't a transgender woman, who identifies as a woman should, for instance, be allowed to use the women's restroom.
I personally think transgender women should be allowed to use women's restrooms, but I was not making that point.
This is why your wording is ambiguous. A biological male who identifies as a women is a transgender woman, as I understand the word identify. What do you mean by the word?
I see what you are saying. I am saying that according to your empty definition of man, which can be carried over to woman I would think, could give cover to men who just say they are women, but don't actually identify as such, yes.
I didn't know "identify" was only used in the case that someone is genuinely a transgender person.
edit: yes, that was stupid
In considering the issue people often fail to take into account that trans women in sports undergo hormone therapies that make them physically more like women.
From what I've heard and read what really matters is whether or not you went through puberty as a boy or girl. Once you undergo androgenization you will have an advantage that doesn't go away with hormone therapy.
Can you point out these studies?
I appear to not be able to find much information to support what I said. My bad. I'm looking at info on hormone therapy, and while most sex characteristics that would give an advantage can be reversed if the subject is masculinized, which is much like puberty, it appears as if the bone structure is permanent once one goes through androgenization. So, a female transgender athlete will have a different, unchangeable bone structure but reduced amounts of upper body muscle as compared to what they used to have within one or two years.
The question is just how much said muscle strength and mass is reduced relative to what they had.
Honestly, sometimes I post things to gather my thoughts in one place and just see if it starts a discussion that forces me to rethink what I previously thought. Someone might even find something of value in said discussion.
I definitely don't want to be a beacon for trans-phobia, but I also can't account for the fact that someone might post something shitty. I think I made it clear that I definitely hold no ground with trans-phobes.
I also deny essentialism, but I don't think that amounts to an inability to itemize characteristics of a term. That a term's meaning is derived from use would entail that usage can be described and attributed to the term. So, if "cup" is used in Instances 1 through 20 to mean an object with descriptors A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, we're not required to say any particular descriptor is essential, but we can say there must be some sharing of descriptors for the object to be of the same sort.
That is, my cup might be A, C, D and yours B, F, G, neither sharing the essence, but both being delimited to certain aspects. If not, terms would be devoid of meaning.
Using transsexualism just creates a loaded example to deal with, but I don't follow how just from a linguistic theory it can be alleged by you that you are just a man without suggestion a definition can be attached to that. That is, there is something characteristically a man about you, which might not be the same characteristic I have that makes me a man, but some characteristic must be placing you in the man category.
I dont know what any such characteristics would be. I can imagine waking up in a womans body, whether by magic or a brain transplant, and yet Id continue to identify as a man, so it certainly doesnt have anything to do with my body. And I cant think of what psychological traits I have, except the obvious of identifying as a man, that would count as being such characteristics.
So in terms of meaning being use, I rely upon what usage to know if you're a man? That you tell me you are? Is that the only public usage manifestation?
That strikes me as essentialism. To be a man, it is essential that one believe they are and then say they are.
A usage theory requires variability of characteristics and a public meaning, not just an internal state.
For society to automatically respect self-identification seems morally problematic, because it would mean for society to automatically reinforce the social treatment a person receives, however dysfunctional and situational.
You can make an assumption based on appearances if you like, and in most cases you'd be right, but then if you hear me or someone who knows me say otherwise then you'll be corrected.
Quoting Hanover
I suppose if you want to say that the essential characteristic of being a man is identifying as a man then it's a kind of essentialism, but I was thinking of essentialism as involving a little more than that when I asserted my rejection of it.
Quoting Hanover
I'm not convinced by a usage theory of meaning, but maybe that's a topic for another discussion.
I believe so. I suspect I identify as a man because I've been told that I'm a man as I grew up and it stuck.
Quoting sime
Do you have specific examples of why it is morally problematic to respect gender self-identity?
I understand that. We'll see how this one goes, right?
For example, situational factors that provoke someone to seek gender reassignment surgery, whom having undergone the operation decide they want to revert back after the situational factors are removed.
OK, but I was thinking you were arguing fluidity of meaning based upon usage, which I would subscribe closer to, but I guess I don't know what you mean when you reject essentialism. It seems you're just arguing that your usage is more consistent with common progressive morality and is therefore preferred, but that makes it prescriptive and essentialist, which is the failing of those whose definition you reject.
I've missed something?
Why gender, as opposed to height or bodyweight or muscle mass index or blood testosterone levels?
Quoting Banno
You mean the characteristics that males have over females? Thats precisely the things that separate male and female athletics.
Not at all unreasonably or inhumanely, babies are raised to be the sex their unambiguous genitals say they are. More to the point, the genitals are a result of the DNA which has directed a male or female body to exist.
How people identify themselves in the body they are born with is more complicated then which gender roles any given person performs. As a gay man, I prefer sex with other men, but I have no inclination to think of myself as a woman, or to behave like a woman. Some homosexuals do think of themselves as their opposite sex, at least some time. There are heterosexual men who prefer sex with women who like to behave like women, at least some of the time -- cross dressers. It's quite literally "role play". Some women like to play the same game, dressing as men.
It seems to me that "transgendered people" have adopted an extreme form of homosexual drag, one in which they commit to playing their opposite gender role all the time, and making changes to their body to match their concept of the role. So, for some it is a matter of changing costume and hair. For others, it involves an extensive re-upholstering of their body,
I believe their are limits to this game. One can have the opposite's genitals constructed; one can take hormones to shape the body. The appearances can be changed. But, after all that, one remains one's biologically determined sex.
It's a game of appearances, and as Oscar Wilde said, "It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."
The point being it's not precise at all. Otherwise this thread would not be here.
The premiss that sex has dictates prowess has been shown wanting.
Tough shit for sport. their organisation is based on a parochial patriarchic attitude towards people.
You appear to be suggesting that a transwoman will have a performance ability somewhere between man and woman, if Im reading between the lines correctly. If thats the case then can a transwoman only compete fairly with other transwoman? Maybe Banno is right about the things hes mentioned in this topic.
Your suggested criteria match exactly the advantages males have in most sports. Apparently they are precise enough.
Quoting Banno
Depends on the sport of course, but males have a very measurable advantage in most of them but especially combat sports.
Quoting Banno
Im not a big sports fan, I dont care which characters win or lose. What I do care about is women getting hurt, and to a lesser degree a fair contest.
Also, anything with history is patriarchic. So what? Do we throw out everything that started before the rise of feminism?
Is the notion of philosophy of sport coherent? What is it that is supposedly being measured in a competition - one assumes it is some sort of prowess, the point being to seperate out and reward prowess over raw ability. Sex is only a proxy for raw ability - whatever that is - so the task at hand is measuring raw ability without reference to sex or gender.
There already are useful ways of measuring innate ability for the purpose of sports, one such way is by sex. Also your way of thinking does nothing to protect women from getting their skulls crushed in a lopsided match up against a trans competitor so it sucks. As I said, that is my primary concern in this topic.
Perhaps you missed it but Banno suggested grouping athletes by factors like:
Quoting Banno
Unless I'm missing something, this should theoretically reduce the chance of injury due to mismatching.
Balls.
The stuff between your legs doesn't make you run faster or kick better.
Quoting DingoJones
More Balls. basing a footy game or wrestling match on body weight or some such would do exactly that.
Quoting DingoJones
This looks disingenuous.
I wouldn't imagine so, no. Of course, no ones talking abouts balls but you. Fast twitch muscle fiber, testosterone during puberty and other such factors do however. These things are pretty reliably categorized according to biological sex. Hence it is a useful in categorizing sports.
Quoting Banno
Sex is the strongest factor in the development of many of the criteria you would use. Youve mentioned a bunch already.
Quoting Banno
Fascinating. What do you imagine my actual interest to be?
These things were pretty reliably categorised according to biological sex. Now that's not such a good proxy. So why not base the categorisation on what is actually significant - Fast twitch muscle fibre, testosterone during puberty and whatever....
Quoting DingoJones
But it's still a proxy.
Quoting DingoJones
I've no idea.
I'm amused at the whole issue. What it actually shows is how arbitrary the classifications used in sports are. It's an intellectually muddled area.
If they want to compete under special rules, then they may start their own competitive leagues.
Is it gender that sports uses to group athletes? Or is it sex?
Have you ever heard of competitive martial arts? Fighting?
Quoting Banno
There is a difference between a transgender woman smashing cisgender women because of a severe, unearned advantage, and a cisgendered woman smashing the competition because of her incredible technical fighting ability.
It mostly comes down whether or not both combatants' abilities are sufficiently tied to sacrifices and allocation of resources and time, including fostered talent and conditioning, such that both have a fighting chance even at the highest levels. That is what I believe to be the common intuitive notion of fairness cited by people who are against transgender women competing with cisgender women in sports.
edit: that's my best attempt at un-muddling the idea of fairness, or lack of fairness, we so often hear about
Your feigned moral outrage on behalf of the multitude of CIS women being "smashed" by the army of men pretending to be women is laughable.
This, too, will pass.
Quoting ToothyMaw
Check the science. FGI.
You obviously have no regard for what makes sports or fighting interesting and worthwhile.
There were no elements of moral outrage in my posts over transgender women fighting cisgender women, but rather disgust, which you would know if you read the OP in its entirety.
Do you seriously think I think there are armies of fake women smashing CIS women? First off, I was talking about people who genuinely identify as women, not "men pretending to be women" dominating cisgender women. That is easily solved. Second: it only takes a few people with extraordinary unearned physical advantages to ruin a sport. Otherwise, why wouldn't we allow performance enhancing drugs? Is Banno saying, "the more 'roids the better?" Is that a moral injunction to their use?
Quoting Banno
Check the science? What?
Just that.
The science on hormone therapy? I know about it: many of the characteristics that result from masculinization or feminization can be reversed somewhat, but that doesn't mean a man with a male skeletal structure (something that doesn't change) that undergoes feminization is going to be equal to a CIS woman who never went through puberty.
They might become more like women physiologically, or close enough for their own tastes, but that doesn't mean that they are even close to the same level athletically as CIS women, even accounting for other factors.
In short, because you would be eliminating CIS women from the sports marketplace. Those measurements you reference do correlate generally to biological sex, which is why they have served historically as a proxy for distinguishing ability.
That's the complaint. If you allow entry of MtF athletes on traditionally CIS female sports teams, the CIS women lose their spots.
The consequences are minimal at the recreational level because the CIS girls and women could find a team to compete on at their level, but at the collegiate and professional level, those opportunities would be eliminated. It's just simple math. If you increase the competitors in the current CIS division to include trans competitors, you will lose CIS competitors, especially considering there is evidence that trans athletes are athletically superior to CIS competitors
No doubt complaints arise from those quarters, where the objections are simply that they don't want a status quo disrupted, but an equal argument is made from the other side, which is that athletics serves a useful social and emotional function and should be as equally distributed as possible. It's for that reason that there is US law requiring equal access to sports opportunities at the college level (Title 9 rules) for men and women.
You needed a law for that?
Well thats what you are doing when you categorize by sex, as I said all the traits you use would end up being the male ones for many sports. Its a pointless way to do it, and wouldn't protect women or womens sports.
These factors from being born a male cannot be hand-waved away. Males are evolved for fighting, bone structure, thickness and density science doesnt have a good way to change these things yet.
Ok, Maybe common ground. In most combat sports there is a policy of having 2 years of hormone treatments to counteract the significant advantages being born a male gives. Im not convinced this leads to fairness in the sports (the science isnt clear) but it does reduce the potential of egregious harm to women.
What are your thoughts on that?
Quoting Banno
Ok, what is it that seems disingenuous?
The classifications are not arbitrary though, there is very good reasons, solid reasons, for having a men and womens division in many sports.
Right, an important distinction for this discussion thank you.
My understanding is gender is the way you feel about your sex, and sex being the biology of how you were born.
I thought that was the generally understood distinction?
Youd be a woman because you could give birth and breastfeed. No amount of imagination can change that.
Yes. For the Australian counterpart, see: https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/legal/legislation
We even have laws against murder and rape, despite the obviousness of the need. That's how lands governed by laws typically work, as opposed to just wise people handing down their latest views of what justice dictates.
Not an entirely responsive post to what I said, but nice chat.
So you're saying that someone is a woman iff they can give birth and breastfeed?
Im saying that people who give birth and breastfeed are women.
They're women because they give birth and breastfeed? Or only women are able to give birth and breastfeed?
That's a very general law, and sufficient to action. What I find odd is the specificity.
Oh, well. Different strokes.
Gender is best utilized as a staple of language, not of biology or psychology. Sex is a better descriptor, in most cases.
And men are not able to. No one alive or dead was born of a man.
Title 9 is a well known law, arising often in the context of college athletics, which is obviously a very large US interest. For many years men dominated the sports scene, but Title 9 dictated equal play for women., which required equal numbers of teams and sports scholarships.
Sports is big business (and it affects college admissions in many ways), so I think limiting your considerations to recreational types activities doesn't fully appreciate the significance of the disruptions caused by these trans issues.
I'll agree that the US sports culture, especially as it interplays with academia, is dysfunctional, but that's the reality and why this matters in other ways.
That's an empirical claim that requires first knowing what it means to be a man or woman and then looking to see if anyone meeting these conditions has given birth or breastfed.
So you first need to tell me what it means to be a man or a woman.
[quote ="Michael;730758"]So you first need to tell me what it means to be a man or a woman.[/quote]
What does it mean to be a male or female dog or sheep, apart from the anatomical differences? From our perspective, there are recognizable gender-related behavioral differences across mammals thar connect affect with perception and motivation. We assume a single normative gender binary ( masculine vs feminine behavior) for animals, but what if there are intermediates , and biologically male sheep with female gendered behavior? Would this be evidence for a hard-wired brain basis for homosexuality and gender non-conformity in humans?
Except it does. Men overall sprint faster and have greater lower body strength. In fact, the biggest indicator of top speed is how much force one can exert on the ground, and women have about 70% the lower body strength of men. There is a direct causal link between "what is between your legs" and athletic performance on every level. You are kidding yourself.
Technique is different, and women can be just as if not more technical than men, perhaps even much more so.
Quoting Banno
Yes, there is a law that guarantees equal opportunities in our nation. I guess we are primitive patriarchs oppressing the super-sprinter women with gorgeous legs, the affections of whom men like you absolutely deserve because of your moral purity and ability to obfuscate any issue with unfounded pseudo-moralistic declarations.
If you were a gay male , you may have experienced the following from childhood, as I did:
I had no reason not to label myself as a male , based on anatomy and how I was being classified by my culture. But ( and this is a gigantic but), I always felt different from most of my male peers, on the basis of a whole constellation of behavioral dispositions linked to gender. Among the least important of these was who I was sexually attracted to. I call these dispositions perceptual-affective style because they are functionally integrated as a whole. We all have it from birth. Its like a stable , life-long personality trait. Its what allows us to distinguish masculine from feminine behaviors in other animals, but we deny it in ourselves , claiming that masculine and feminine behavior is purely a matter of social conditioning.
Quoting Michael
A psychological gender is a set of behavioral dispositions that are linked together to form a recognizable style. Female dogs are, among other things, shyer and less aggressive than male dogs. This is gender.
Why can't there be sociological functions assignable to biological sex within a non-human animal? Billy goat behavior is different from nanny goat behavior, which is what I assume you mean by "gender."
Again, I'm agreeing generally with the basic notion of human gender fluidity based upon the human will being more intentional and less driven by naturalistic forces than animals, with the final focus of the question being where is there an actual natural/genetic barrier to fluidity. That is, how much are we our will versus how much are we determined by our genetics (which includes gender).
But to argue that even animals don't behave in predictably natural ways seems a stretch that doesn't need to be made.
I'm not saying they don't. I just don't think animal behaviour has anything to do with gender.
I get that animal sociology is less complex than human sociology, but it is accurate to relate animal behavior to their social function. I would also grant some amount of free will to an animal.
So, to my goats, the billy goat rears its head and swings it down on the other male goats to show his dominance and to declare the female goats for himself. That is no doubt a product of his genetics, but to some extent I would assume the goat could decide whether to be a combative goat or a nice goat, meaning it's not all pre-determined.
How are you using gender here?
A woman is an adult female human being. A man is an adult male human being.
The sociology of gender relates primarily to social facts concerning gender, which are linguistic in nature and absent in animals. So, yes, animals have a social life but no, they are not a subject of sociology, which studies human social relationships and under which the remit of gender relations falls. And the psychology of gender relates primarily to the identity function, described earlier by @Michael, which is also absent in animals. Only biological sex has any relevance to animals. And that's not an issue here. We all know what it is. The issue is about finding a social solution to a contradiction between psychological identity and biological identity. Your Billy goat won't help us with that.
Now define "female" and "male". You'll soon discover how silly and self-defeating your approach is.
>>A "man" is what is socially recognized as a man. A "woman" is what is socially recognized as a woman. Since there is no overwhelming social consensus, it's up to us to argue one into existence. Denialism is unlikely to be the winning formula, nor is, at the other extreme, pure self-identification which reduces gender to the status of an ice cream flavour.
Female: belonging or relating to women, or the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/female
Male: used to refer to men or boys, or the sex that fertilizes eggs, and does not produce babies or eggs itself:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/male?q=Male
Quoting NOS4A2
No, he won't. That would require rationality.
You're defining biological sex over which there is no debate, not gender. We all know what biological sex is.
Here's gender:
"the condition of being a member of a group of people in a society who share particular qualities or ways of behaving which that society associates with being male, female, or another identity"
From the same dictionary.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gender
Get it now? A potential contradiction between gender and biological sex is socially recognized, including in our dictionaries. Your ignorance of reality cannot make it disappear.
Does society not associate females with the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs?
Society does not exclusively associate women with biological females, obviously. That. Is. The. Point. Read the definition. Stop being an ignoramus.
Why do you always misquote me by removing much of what I said?
So you dont associate females with the sex that can give birth to young or produce eggs?
Just to emphasis that your argument is consistent. A woman is a female and a female is a woman. Well done.
He's satrirtizing your silliness. And rightly so. You have no argument except denialism of the issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_woman
"A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth"
Nos>> :monkey:
Quoting NOS4A2
1) I don't define a woman as a biological female. That was you, remember?
Therefore that
2) I associate biological females with the sex that can etc...
is of no relevance.
The issue, again, is the potential contradiction between gender identity and biological identity for which a social solution has not been found. I don't have the definitive answer to where the balance should lie, but I am here to participate in working one out.
You're not. You're here to do this >> :monkey:
Open your eyes. Participate.
Of course your rationality left out the most relevant parts. Brilliant.
That was the dictionary, actually. So you think a male can produce eggs?
But it captured the essence of your argument.
It didnt. Hence your failure to quote someone properly.
No, I don't think a biological male human can produce eggs. But I don't exclusively define a man as a biological male, and neither does the dictionary, so again, this is of no relevance.
Has this vacuous line of argument ever worked with a real live human being by the way? You've tried it on me twice, once for each sex, and it was the same both times.
Fair enough. You accused me of denying reality, so I just wanted to know which reality I was denying. You could easily point me to one shred of evidence of human males producing eggs but wont, for whatever reason. I suspect you dont have any.
If simple human biology has no place in a discussion of reality and gender, I apologize.
Quoting NOS4A2
Et voila. You have outdone yourself here, sir.
Quoting NOS4A2
And again. >> :monkey:
:up: .
Oh yes, e.g.
Quoting Baden
Look >> a biological male who is defined as a woman due to being socially recognized as a woman due to psychologically identifying as a woman (at least). Hence, the potential contradiction, issue, debate, what we are here for, etc. Open your eyes.
A trans woman is a biological male, then, according to your formulas.
According to every mainstream dictionary and encyclopedia published within the last year or two, a trans woman can be a biological male, yes. But, don't worry, so can you!
And humans are nothing if not animals.
So why pretend the person is both male and female? The reality appears to be the biology, while the denialism remains in the sphere of identity.
The mind and society are real NOS. It's not just lumps of galavanting flesh out there. We're proving that right now by talking in a socio-psychological medium.
I disagree with that. But I love your phrase galavanting flesh. Im going to use that one, with all credit to you, of course.
You're welcome, I guess...
No body "assigns sex" at birth. "Assign" is trans rhetoric. Babies' genitalia are recognized as male or female. In the small fraction of cases where genitalia are ambiguous, a specialist makes a closer check. A large clitoris or small penis might confuse things.
I suggest that we be careful with 'tranphobe' while also protecting the rights of trans individuals. Maybe some of my fellow liberals/progessives tend to cast their challengers as [synonym of evil] a little too readily. For instance, I don't think TERFS are necessarily crazy. (Ree ree ree.) Some folks on both sides want to pretend that the issue is already settled, but I think we are making the rules up as we go along. It's messy. For thousands of years we've taken a certain duality for granted, treating sex and gender as one clump.
It's possible that our biological sex will one day be a secret hidden in our medical records.
"
Bollocks. It just means the doctor said "That's a male". You can use "recognized" if it makes you happy though. :kiss:
I agree. Calling the other side "transphobes" at the drop of the hat isn't necessary or helpful. Better to just make the argument on the basis that psychological identity is real and important.
Sport has historically taken gender - the social roles attributed to men and women - as a proxy for equal capacity. Hence sports have in the past been divided into mens and women's.
But individual freedom has led to folk who question their assigned gender. This calls into question the proxy of equal capacity.
The reactionary response, seen in the OP, is to move from gender to sex, and double down.
A more progressive response would be to re-assess the way in which capacities are grouped, removing the questionable place of gender or sexuality as a proxy.
:up:
As long as we progressives aren't attacking science, I think we are in the clear. We don't want a Lysenko-style disaster. But a quick search seems to show that some progressives are a little too willing to chuck out science. Here's a politicized 'definition' of biological sex.
https://translanguageprimer.com/biological-sex/
Note that the concept of intersex depends on the very polarity being challenged. Biological sex is also called a falsehood, seemingly an attack on biology. One could defend this as being simply sloppy, with the intended point being that too much is made of biological sex in that particular context. It is ammo for the other side though, who love casting progressives as reality-denying sentimentalists who pave the road to hell with good intentions.
Then we have the primary definition offered by a medical dictionary.
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Biological+sex
As far as I can tell, the rational approach is to accept biology and not make a big deal of it, because 'psychological identity is real and important' ... and cultural and up to us.
We might consider though that men like playing with men and women with women. In other words, it's not just about raw performance but also about the style of play and the feel of a single-gender situation. I'm speculating here, but I'd guess that cis women feel pretty comfortable playing with trans women. Probably cis men feel comfortable playing with trans men too. The issue of fairness is a concern, because people clearly like to excel. But that's not the only or even the primary reason to play sports, is it ? I envision the joy of teamwork being a big part of it.
There's a whole spectrum of views from Judith-Butler-type postmodernist takes (forget biology!) to the denialism we've seen on this thread (forget psychology!). I think the extremes fail and the ultimate social consensus will be found somewhere in the middle ground.
:up:
:up:
Im not against dress-up and pretend, nor would I tell people what to think and believe. But I wont easily conform to someone elses belief in the same manner.
The limits for me are force and coercion. Let people be and all is well.
It's up to the community to use a term and from there its meaning can be derived from those seeking definitions.
Community Right defines woman based upon her sexual organs and it is considered an absurdity to use it otherwise.
Community Left defines woman based upon the personal identification of the person and considers misapplication of the term an insult.
Whether Rights ought talk Leftish is a political and moral question, but both are linguistically valid languages.
The question then is why one's organs are relevant in deciding which football team one is on.
.
I dont think you should force people to play with you, but if someone wants to organize a game between men and women, and everyone involved wants to play, then there is no reason to be bothered by it.
I cannot say that eliminating the demarcation between men and womens sport is fair play, though. The disparity of sport performance between the sexes is inescapable. Wasting energy in combat and sport are some of the few activities males excel at. Were primates, after all.
I didn't read what @Michaelsaid that way. I read him as denying any discernable definition of gender other than generally thinking himself a man, offering no characteristic of what a man would be.
If we dissociate gender entirely from physical attributes, the concept of physical transition becomes incoherent. How can you physically transition from male to female if you are already a female and your body has nothing to do with that?
I think more thought needs to be had into the link between the anatomy and the mindset when defining gender, as opposed to your very clean bright line between the two. Otherwise, you're left wondering why all these trans folks do link gender to their own anatomy.
But this presumes a common objective, which as you've presented it, is the promotion of fairness. Not a bad objective, but not a necessary one.
Community Right wishes to go to the marketplace and purchase tickets to a CIS event. They don't want to watch a trans event. They then go to the supermarket and buy blueberries. They don't want strawberries.
I'm sure a Manchester United supporter would feel uncomfortable wearing a Manchester City shirt. It's not incoherent for them to want to change their clothes.
Then part of your identity links to your appearance. If not, why the discomfort?
Not in the sense that the appearance is what determines identity. Wearing a Manchester United shirt isnt what it means to be a Manchester United supporter.
I get that language is an expression of intent and not an actual tangible mental state. Language is a behavioral manifestation of belief.
You tell me what doesn't count as an attribute of a MU supporter, but can't tell me what does. I don't think you can leave it at that but need something more.
My position is that wearing the shirt and attending the matches is part of what it means to be a MU fan. As with the trans issue, I similarly would expect a trans MtF to wear women's clothes. That's part of it. Saying the expression isn't part of the identity seems too brittle a distinction. The behavior isn't all you are, but is part.
I agree it takes a fair degree of thought to work out what's going on.
I think about it like this:
Level 1: Biology >> signals gender and social identity.
Level 2: Psychology >> determines gender identity and signals biological identity.
Level 3: Society >> determines gender norms, which form the context in which gender identity is broadly interpreted.
You go from biology (the human/sex) to psychology (the person/gender identity) to the social (the group/gender norms) and you get different answers depending on how you pose the question of definition and at what level you pose it.
So, biology is relevant to gender but underdetermines it because it underdetermines (necessarily) psychology. It doesn't provide us enough evidence to assign a gender identity to a person, only to a body. This brings us back to where the denialists always end up, either explicitly or implicitly claiming the mind and society are not real and by extension that people are not real, simply because they can't accept this underdetermination and so end up reducing everything to Level 1. Animals are irrelevant because they are always stuck at Level 1, being neither people nor social in the sense we are.
So, the ground of debate is not here at the level of biology (human/animal) vs psychology (person), rather at the level of the relationship between gender identity (psychology) and gender norms (society). Minds do exist, people do exist ,and some people do identify as a gender that "contradicts" their biological sex.
Maybe the reason some can't move on from this is they misunderstand the "identity" in "gender identity" as something like preference or choice/behaviour. Language is slippery here because we don't normally need to strongly delineate between identity and preference. "I like dogs" can be phrased, "I am a dog person" {preference=identity} and that's fine. There's a degree of stickiness there. Maybe more than "I like pistachio flavor ice-cream" (as to say "I'm a pistachio-flavor-ice-cream person"{preference=identity} sounds a bit over the top). But when we say "I am a man" or "I am a woman", we're talking an identity that's core. So, it's not just that it's not a choice/behaviour, it's beyond a preference in that there's no coherent preference=identity pair to fall back on. I am a man doesn't mean I like manliness or even I like being a man, it just means that I identify as my understanding of the gender norm "man".
You can be a homosexual man, for example, who dresses and acts in a feminine way but still identifies as a man. It's not primarily about behaviour, or preference, identity is what it means to that person to be a man or a woman and whether their understanding of themselves can be squared with society in general. Society's job then, in my view, is to be inclusive to the degree that it is rational and practical to so be. And there is nothing irrational or impractical about recognizing the phenomenon of psychological identity as it relates to gender. Just the opposite.
You've maybe struck on the fundamental difference between animals and people. For animals, behaviour is determinative. They are fully identified with and by their behaviour. An animal is just what it does. We, on the other hand, are aware of ourselves as individuals that act, which gives us the ability to act in ways that underdetermine what we are as well as to be that which underdetermines how we act. The gap between behaviour and identity is human freedom.
Where I'm most stuck really is in the holistic definition of "man" you try to maintain, as if there is nothing about being a man that can be said other than that it is. How is being a man different than being a woman then?
Defining "man" or "woman" is like the problem of defining "game". Every time you find a characteristic that seems essential, you find a game that doesn't have that characteristic but is still a game. A game is whatever social norms allow us to call a game and so it is with "man" and "woman".
Edit: Maybe someone has said that already in this discussion. If so, still worth repeating.
Identifying as a Manchester United supporter.
Quoting Hanover
I support England when they play. I don't wear the shirt and most of the times I don't even watch the games.
Quoting Baden
:up:
And now I question whether you're actually a fan.
Something makes you a fan. Your love of the team, your undying commitment to your land, the excitement of singing stupid songs, getting drunk with hooligans, whatever, but if it's just an undefined identity, then it's meaningless
Identifying as a fan.
Quoting Hanover
I think you're getting it backwards. I'm not a supporter because I wear the shirt or watch the games; rather I wear the shirt or watch the games because I'm a supporter.
I get that, but what makes you a fan?
Fanhood isn't immutable. From point A to Point B, what causes you to change into a fan?
Perhaps being English and living in England. Or perhaps a family member is a supporter and so I adopted the team as my own.
But it's a mistake to say that the cause of that self-identity is the characteristic that constitutes the self-identity. It's not like I recognized that I am English and live in England and then concluded that I therefore must be a supporter of the English football team.
What you describe as not having occurred in your particular case does happen though.
That is, I realize my emotional, spiritual, recreational, occupational, and general preferences are consistent with traditional female attributes, so I seek physical modifications to align those characteristics with other parts of my identity and that then encompasses me as a whole woman.
Being ac woman are all those things.
Otherwise you just have a person in a vacuum who claims himself a man for no reason at all.
I think the wording was ambiguous. This is closer to what I meant:
It's not like I recognized that I am English and live in England and then concluded that I therefore must already be a supporter of the English football team.
I think we can expect edge cases that aren't convincing. So far I've only met trans people who were clearly embracing stereotypical traits of the of their new gender. The trans man was growing facial hair. The trans women, which I saw more often, were wearing dresses and carrying purses.
I have known one biological male who embraced a trans lifestyle (no surgery or hormones, just clothing and manner) only to eventually return a relatively masculine style. This particular person had a history of finding ways to be conspicuous, so even his friends were skeptical if also polite.
"A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth."
"Trans men may or may not be capable of menstruation and pregnancy depending on their individual circumstances."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_man
"a transgender man : a man who was identified as female at birth"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trans%20man
The usage is accurate. There is nothing to be angry about. Social reality shall do its thing regardless.
Quoting Hanover
I've always what especially with being a sport teams fans has anything to do with "undying commitment to your land". The collective experience of singing stupid songs and getting drunk and breaking stuff I can imagine.
If this person's existence makes any of you angry, I suggest the problem is with you, not him. And you can't stop him existing or being recognized as existing. You lost the battle for social reality. That part is over.
In the context of my posts, it should be clear I'm not "bashing" animals.
But I still think there's a lot of hubris in our thinking that we are sooo different from animals. Yes, having an advance language system has it's perks, but still.
It depends on the specific context. In some ways, we are very similar to animals, yes, but it's a minor side issue here anyway.
Might be.
But usually these issues are more about virtue signalling than about the actual issues. So few are actually trans, for example. Some people want to be insightful and progressive, wishing to be in the minority fighting for the rights that later are accepted universally, but today are a hot potato. And other people want to be the conservatives, upholding "common reason" and decency against nonsense. And both of these types dominate the public discussion. However they may declare themselves to be open minded and wanting a discussion, they are just waiting to put you into the other camp, those who are wrong, and attack you.
Yeah, perhaps I have had enough of these stupid culture wars.
You can only pretend to be something if you don't identify as so being. So, I can pretend to be a woman because I don't identify as one, but a trans woman does, so she can't. Of course, you can pretend a trans woman is not a woman even though social reality defines her as such. It just carries no weight or significance beyond your personal standpoint. It's like pretending Joe Biden isn't President because it hurts your feelings to admit it. That horse has bolted. When you've lost the dictionaries and encyclopedias, you've lost, period. The media (as demonstrated by BC) and then the public in general will follow. What's left of the debate (in advanced Western democracies at least) is specifically what it takes to qualify as a trans person and details like how we deal with trans people in sports etc. Interesting issues worth discussing if you're up for it.
Maybe if you'd read the thread properly, you'd see the philosophical element here. The intersection between biology/psychology/society and the primacy of identity over behaviour, preference etc. But if you're not interested, that's OK too.
:up:
I had that response from reading the OP, which was quite on with the lines how typically these debates go.
And sorry if a see this issue more from the sociological / political element than philosophical, but that just happens when one brings societal questions and the society (including social behavior) into question.
True. Richard O'Brien says trans women aren't real women. His cultural standing in the US is such that if he indicates that it's an open question, it's an open question.
It's not him, it's you.
I've been aware of and have been reading about trans issues since the 1970s; I've been friends and associates with trans people; I've provided counseling and support for trans persons. it's not new territory for me. What has changed is the extremity of the rhetoric by and/or about trans people. It has become more extreme, such that people like yourself who are apparently very sensitive to rhetoric can no longer generalize about who gets pregnant and who doesn't.
"Well gee whiz, this trans man who still had her original plumbing got pregnant, so I guess we can't distinguish between 4 trans men and 4 billion alleged women who might get pregnant."
Quoting Baden
To the extent that social reality is what Baden happens to think, I suppose so. In the larger picture, the existence of trans people is more or less established. The "pregnant women" paradigm has not been shaken. "Pregnant persons" is not a term describing reality; it is a fantasy of lunatics who have lost their grip on the real world.
Never heard of him and neither has Google apparently. Unless he's that Rocky Horror show actor?
Anyway, the dictionaries and encyclopedias have left poor Richard and his band of merry retrogrades behind.
He created the Rocky Horror Picture Show. :meh:
If you think the writers of the latest editions of every modern major dictionary and encyclopedia are lunatics but you're not, look harder in the mirror. Projecting this on me is silly. I don't write that stuff though I'd still make the argument for recognizing trans people regardless. And the use of "pregnant persons" is just a logical conclusion of the recognition that trans men exist. There's nothing extreme about the rhetoric mentioned. That's all in your head.
That doesn't mean extreme positions aren't possible. But you'll need to find an actual one to get annoyed about. I might even agree with you. I won't be raging and gnashing my teeth like you are though as it might put me in danger of becoming a source of amusement rather than edification.
Quoting Tate
OK.
I'm not going to argue the position I don't hold, but I think the general sentiment of the opposition isn't anger or a desire for physical interference, but it's ridicule and an eye roll.
The response then becomes increased insularity by the respective sides at what is perceived as a world gone mad.
Gender roles are stitched into the fabric of culture and have been identified in our earliest histories. It's realistic to expect the keepers of such ancient flames to categorically resist change. I only say this because I get your post, which is to shock the opposition into change by seeing what little threat is posed. Letting you know you're getting a different reaction than you might imagine, though, which isn't anger and violence but more of an "are you fucking kidding me?"
I get your carefully crafted example where you had an internal unexpressed feeling that revealed itself after the fact through behavior, with the behavior being purely epiphenomenonal of the internal state.
My point was that isn't a necessary, and I'm not even sure a common, revelation of such things. I think many people sort out their identities by self-analysis, which includes taking stock in their preferences and behaviors. It's why the road to exiting the closet is often delayed, often the person themselves last to recognize their identity.
To give a pure hypothetical, devoid of any political heat, should my genetic coding reveal I'm a Martian, that revelation would impact my self identity and result in me appreciating why my perspective on life differs from others. That is to say, it is my wearing the MU shirt that changed the mental state, which is bidirectional causation, not epiphenomenal.
The issue is complex because it both demands recognition of traditional gender roles and rejects them at the same time. A classic liberal perspective demands egalitarianism, which should result in a denial of gender roles and distinctions. Under an established egalitarian society, we should expect men and women's clothing to move toward androgeny, with equal likelihood of skirts, heels, and makeup for everyone. But to be transsexual,, you must rely upon those distinctions to express your identity, assuming the arcane conservative gender expression.
The point being we seem to have two strains of not entirely consistent progressive liberal thoughts going on here: (1) gender roles and gender expression should not be designated by biological sex, and (2) transsexuals should be able to express themselves by the gender roles traditionally assigned to them by their biological sex.
Actually I agree. There's something apparently curiously reactionary in wrapping oneself in the very stereotypes once viewed as oppressive. Progressives tend to tolerate nontraditional expressions of personality as long as they don't harm others, even at the cost of occasional incoherence.
If a biological male embraces typically masculine traits, he might be called toxic, at least by certain progressives. If a trans man does so, he will likely be celebrated for courage, probably by the same progressives. It's a bit like the generalization of drag, but it's important to recognize the earnestness involved.
Sartre and Marx are probably useful here. The self is becoming liquid, a consumer and labor product more and more distant from traditional limitations. What did it mean for us to all have digital avatars representing us, being able to constitute ourselves with self-selected pictures and phrases ? We are and are not what we present. Free artists of ourselves, self-marketing products, we long also to have fate and not just choice, to be something (really a man, really a woman). Your androgynous angels are something like symbols of freedom, while embracing reactionary gender roles is a symbol of fate. (We might emphasize that cis people have been doing it all along and loving it. )
Fair enough, the sentiment depends on cultural context, but the general progression of reaction from most to least negative, I would say, is anger>>ridicule>>acceptance.
Quoting Pie
Yes, but psychologically a trans person is really their psychological gender and also really their biological sex. But I, for example, can't be a trans woman no matter how artistic I feel about it because I identify as a man and that's not something I believe can be willed in and out of existence on a whim any more than sexual preference can.
Quoting Hanover
Equality of opportunity and equal rights doesn't mean male and female cutlures, or any other cultures, can't and won't persist. That's not to imply there is some objective justification for the differences or that they should be enforced, just that distinct group identities are part of how human societies function. We may see more overlap and/or change in these but not their dissolution.
Quoting Hanover
Maybe some progressives suffer from the contradiction of both wanting to abolish gender roles and celebrating their expression in certain instances, but the trans person that asks to be recognized for their psychological gender is no more liberal or conservative than any other person who expects to be recognized for their psychological gender. It's an issue of rights, which can be approached from several distinct political perspectives and/or through a simple acceptance of the psychological fact that gender identity can and does differ from biological sex and that people are more important than the lumps of flesh they inhabit. It's convenient for some, of course, to associate trans rights with political correctness etc but that's a strategy of guilt by association. It's much easier to attack the amorphous bogeyman PC than to attack the facts of how psychological identity functions.
And when archeologists dig up his bones and see the male skeleton, what then?
I could give two straws about any social reality. Social reality thought the sun rotated around the earth. If you want to call people with testes women then thats fine by me. But by the same token Im going to call people with testes men.
Whose bones? And why is Archie O'Logist after 'em? :chin:
Quoting NOS4A2
How do you go about the testes checking? And is that legal in your parts? :brow:
There is an effort to distinguish between gender and sex while at the same time equivocating between them. Hence refusing to define man or woman in biological terms while at the same time trying to appear like a man or woman. On the one hand its not so much about biology or sex but on the other well surgically remove and fashion male and female sex organs and make sure you have the appropriate hormones. There is no end to these problems.
The key, I think, is to abandon the word gender in such discussions. If we think along the lines of sex there is little room to hide behind these equivocations.
I struggle to see how it is liberal at all to be espousing shoulds and should nots about something as personal as individual identity.
This is indeed a problem, and I would start to solve this by proposing a system that models how people categorize themselves between man and woman. I have no issue with the two claims Hanover proposes; I think that certain traits are more or less judged by oneself to determine one's own gender identity and are more or less essential to said gender identities. Thus, there is nothing wrong or inconsistent with transgender people embracing traditional gender roles on this view.
So, you and I, at least, mostly agree. I just don't think biology is the only relevant marker that designates man and woman.
I think the existence of transgender people actually validates this view because they have few of the biological markers, yet they identify - as strongly as anyone - as men or women; there must be some elements in there that are identified consistently by many for each of the sexes for such a phenomenon to exist. Unless there is some switch buried in our brains that is arbitrarily flipped one way or the other, but I doubt that.
Quoting NOS4A2
But that presupposes that transgender people cannot exist, as you will predictably then claim that what makes a woman or man is their biology. Gender identity has to be divorced from that biology for any of this to make sense in a nontrivial way - transgender people are just mentally ill - as we have no reason to disbelieve that transgender people genuinely are transgender.
There is authoritarianism on the left, and I could easily see an idiot believing that those two things are incompatible; if there are things that make men and women what they are that aren't tied to biology, (1) and (2) are in accordance.
edit: not calling Hanover an idiot, but rather people who would espouse that (1) and (2) are genuinely at odds, or would encourage a trans person not to fulfill traditional gender rolls
edit: traditional jelly rolls
edit again: I would more closely say that it makes sense that transgender people would express themselves by traditional gender roles some of the time, not that (1) and (2) are in accordance; no one should be told not to do what they want with their life, even disregarding if it makes sense.
The fact that someone identifies as something else is not enough for me to believe that they are indeed that thing. Thats my problem.
There is no doubt that people feel dysphoria with their own bodies and are ill-suited to the expectations society holds towards them. These people exist, and if they need to dress and act like the opposite sex to find comfort, they should be allowed to do so without cruelty and discrimination towards them. I dont mind playing along, at least in some respects, but at some point a moral line is drawn, for instance when we are treating this mental incongruity with very biological measures, like chemical or surgical castration, the results of which there is no turning back.
I dont have any answers, but it seems to me a view that affirms biology rather than amputates it leaves room for those to come to terms with themselves as they really are.
It isn't even remotely believable to you that a biological man could be a woman?
Quoting NOS4A2
I think according to your own view a sex change would just mean that a man becomes a woman or vice versa, and it sounds like you wouldn't accept that as valid.
Quoting NOS4A2
But I have every right to have my newborn son mutilated. Or I could get a tattoo of a dick on my face. Both are permanent biological measures.
If you can provide me with some serious science that says that people who take such measures regret it by and large I might agree. You claim to be in favor of freedom; you should be in favor of someone's right to remedy such issues. Children? I don't think so. But adults? Definitely.
Quoting NOS4A2
You would block transgender people from getting the treatments many of them want. That's definitely a preventative measure of sorts.
What would you consider to be the defining characteristics of a man? Serious question.
Most traits brought on by hormone treatments are reversible btw, even if castration isn't.
No. The distinction exists at the cellular level and begins at such an early stage in development that any change to it is impossible and irreversible.
I dont believe a sex change actually accomplishes any change in sex.
They can do what they want. I would not block transgender people from these treatments.
Y chromosomes, testes, a prostate, a penis, spermatogenesis, and so on.
You've made the same vacuous point in a dozen different ways now. You don't believe in anything beyond biology. Ok. Now go away, please, if you have nothing else to say, so an intelligent conversation can resume without distraction.
...A guy who doesn't believe the mind or society are even real lumbers into a thread about a psychological phenomenon and its place in a social context and starts blabbering on about bones and testes. I've met pot plants with more self awareness.
It makes no sense to refuse a biological perspective in a debate about the divergence between biological sex and perceived gender in transgenderism. It is even spoken about in the first post. At any rate, wherever an identity misidentifies, the biology is paramount. A quick examination of it can confirm what is the case, that is if truth is still a concern.
You have nothing intelligent to say. You simply keep repeating that all that matters is biology. Now that you have stated that yet again, and are clearly incapable of saying anything else, you have no further place in this discussion.
I want to be good (a man/woman) but that doesn't make me good (a man/woman), oui?
I never once said all that matters is biology. Youve been hostile, snarky, talking about Trump. Youre trying to blame me for your intolerance towards my views and its not working very well.
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
Sounds like the same tired point over and over to me as well. Although its true you didnt say the exact words all that matters is biology. Great way to weasel out of the situation. Typical of you.
Anyway I was fairly neutral about this issue. Now that your position is clear, I know exactly what the right position is: the complete opposite. I thank you for that.
Hostility, snark, misrepresentation. Whats with you guys? Your bigotry knows no bounds.
They're not exactly the brain trust of internet.
So I've thought way too fucking much about this, and this is what I've landed on.
Your comments resort to a mysticism that I'm not fully able to decipher. Your man-ness under this definition is a geist, incapable of discernment. The term "transition" has alternative meaning under your analysis. At the pragmatic level of application, "transition" means certain medical procedures are performed, chemicals are prescribed, wardrobes are changed, and government documents updated. At the spiritual level, I'm not sure what it entails, but surely the concept of gender is not immutable, which means I might be a gender male when I'm a child only to undergo the mental change later in life and then to consider myself the opposite sex. This problem lays large in your analysis. As Lady Gaga wants to say "I was born this way," but that denies the possibility of transition and fluidity if how you are born is how you must be.
To the direct question, can one undergo a gender transition? (Note, I'm not asking if they can undergo a physical transition, as the answer is obviously that they can).
What I think to be the problem is that gender is both a mental property and a social property, neither of which can be fully distilled from the other. That is, to say I am a man means not just I feel myself a man in some nebulous way, but it is to ascribe the social meaning of man-ness upon me. There is no coherence to the concept of the primordial man prior to social designations upon him. You can't claim this primitive man did the primary man things, like act on every sexual urge and do battle with his competitor males like some odd upright walking primate would. He did all sorts of things humans did because he never was a simple animal, but he had the social designations of maleness that were as much a part of his man-ness as his biological characteristics. What does a biological man that doesn't have any social manifestations of man-ness act like?
And this presents the limitations of the MU analogy presented by @Michael. What could it possibly mean to be a Manchester United fan without the social designations of what that means? It must mean cheering for the team, wearing the jersey, and having friends and family who are also fans. To say otherwise presents this idea that there's this inherent identity of MU fan-ness that's just there, just part of the way he's made.
Consider another analogy. I consider myself Jewish by identity. It arises from the fact that I was born into such a family, all my early educators were Jewish, my friends and social network was Jewish, etc. If one were to speak to an Orthodox Jew, they'd even give a nod toward the mystical theory that I have the soul of a Jew that cannot be denied, regardless of how I might attempt to suppress it. That's a theory that's hard to accept, but it's not an uncommon way for a religious community to view things, and it seems oddly consistent with what is being argued for here.
It's also entirely inaccurate to say that I've always considered myself Jewish, as I have traveled through atheism and back. I'm not so ridiculous to think I embarked upon a worldly search for meaning and found that what was being thrust upon me was the truth I had been seeking, but I realize my current beliefs are heavily influenced by my social upbringing. By the same token, I am not an automaton, as I still had some choice in the matter of how I wanted to identify, and I suspect there might be some fluidity in that regard as I age, or, more likely I'll just get more stubborn and ornery.
My point here is that "woman" is a social term, a biological term, and a mental term, but there aren't boundaries around each. They correlate with and cause one another. Just as I could change my identity from being Jewish, I could change it from being a man, and that change would demand some physical act. If it did not require any physical act, then my change would be only to the ethereal ghost of identity within me, whatever that means.
I don't disagree with much of this. And I don't think any of it directly contradicts what you've quoted above. Also, my position isn't necessarily the same as @Michael's though there's a lot of overlap. Anyway, thanks for giving me something to chew on. @NOS4A2, take note, this is how to actually participate. I was seriously considering putting forward an argument against myself (and I have some good 'uns) just to keep my brain alive.
There are even today people in the world who do not believe you can, whether you go to temple or not, whether you've ever even seen one. We do not want to be like them, the people who say "what you are is up to us."
The first alternatives people seem to reach for are: (1) what you are is up to you; (2) there is no "what you are." Neither of those seem entirely satisfactory to me, even though I'm committed to not being one of them.
I wasted a fair amount of time wondering what I am when I was younger. There is clearly a sense in which all of that wondering, and the object of that wondering, had biological underpinnings, just as much as if I had been wondering about my sexual identity. Sex is just an area where it's tempting to think we can point to an explanation not in biology at large, but in this specific little corner that's more tractable. (This chromosome, these organs.)
There's a curious little documentary about the so-called "warrior gene" hosted by Henry Rollins, who saw in this theory a potential explanation for his life, a revelation of who he really is. It turns out he doesn't carry that allele after all, and he concludes that this is a better result, because it means his personality is really his, he earned it through experience.
There are so many things you can say about how a person becomes who they are, and so many of them are true. There's no reason to indulge a desire for simplicity here.
I am aware of the peculiarities of Judaism, but I think that has more to do with prescriptive, legalistic definitions more than what we're talking about (although it might have something to do with how others in this thread are misunderstanding the conversation). That is, it is true that Orthodox Jews declare all whose mother is Jewish to be Jewish, even if that means declaring a devout Catholic a Jew. On the flip side of things, Jewish oppressors (most notably Nazis) also took a rigid view on who was a Jew for their purposes, regardless of the person's self-identification.
What you say here though doesn't address the issue of identity from a subjective perspective (which was our gender question), which is what this thread is more interested in. That is, the fact that the rabbis and my oppressors identify me as a Jew does not entail that I personally identify as a Jew. This conflict between what people want to call me versus what I see myself as is the entirety of this gender identify quandary.
Well yeah. I was pointing out that this issue is not unique to sex and gender. It applies to practically everything. Which isn't helpful, except to note that I don't think anyone has ever "solved" any of the many similar quandaries, so a solution here would be exceptional and unexpected.
Until that can be answered, its impossible to know what it means when someone says they identify as a man/woman. Its reminiscent of figuring out what its like to be a bat. Unless you are a man/woman/bat you cant claim to know what its like to be one.
It's an attempt at self-discovery by trying to explain the self through external means. It attempts to discover the self by connecting to a collective, and therefore fundamentally misses its mark.
The easiest would be for us to do away with the nasty thing altogether, and abandon these efforts to create a surrogate self, and accept only the real thing. Sadly, it seems the drive for self-definition is stronger than our sense of reason.
That's fair. I didn't address it because I have no idea what a trans woman, say, means when she says, "I am a woman." Literally don't know what that means. It doesn't much matter to me, so I've not read stories or talked to anyone with first-hand knowledge to try to learn what that means, for at least some people.
One of my children has changed pronouns from feminine to masculine, so in time I may learn more, or not. I am not, after all, owed an explanation and might not understand one if offered. It matters to me only insofar as it matters to him, but doesn't really change our relationship at all.
Quoting Tzeentch
Are there no robust , relatively stable and consistent. aspects of personality style that we carry with us our whole lives? Could we say that Aspergers is a kind of personality style( as opposed to a disorder or pathology , a characterization many strongly oppose). Or Wilsons syndrome, which has a cluster of personality traits associated with it, such as extroversion and musicality?
So why not look at gender , or at least the inborn brain-wired aspects of gender, as robust personality features that interact with culture in complex ways?
I think this is a very alluring trap to fall into, but my answer would be 'no'.
Let us suppose all we know about someone is their gender (or their nationality, or that they suffer from some mental quirk, etc.).
What can we really say we now know about this person in regards of who they are as a person?
Nothing!
Of course, we're invited to make a whole slew of generalizations, probably based on statistical probabilities, but those have no use in the context of the unique individual we are considering.
That's really all these labels provide us with - generalizations (that is to say, inaccurate simplifications of reality). Useful in some contexts, but not on the level of the personal.
We know valuable aspects of their style of approaching the world that allow us to engage with them in more intimate ways than we could have otherwise. This is precisely why, as a gay man , I have always found myself gravitating to other gay men , not because of sexual attraction, but because of a common affective-perceptual style. This doesnt deprive me of my ability to to relate to many other kinds of groups, and it is not a narrow pigeonholing of people. Rather, it makes use of faculties we put to use all the time in relating to different sorts of people. Adults relate differently to children than to others adults. This isnt stereotyping , it is a relational dance that maximizes connection between people.
Do you have a pet? Male and female dogs exhibit recognizable gender-related behaviors. Do you treat your male dog slightly differently than your female dog, independent of other personality features unique to each animal?
I disagree.
I will insist that if all I know about someone was the fact that they were gay, I would still know very little about the actual person.
Quoting Joshs
Well, this isn't me throwing an accusation at you, so don't take any of this personal.
I'm pointing out a logical inconsistency which is almost the norm for human interaction (but no less problematic).
Suppose for example that I am going to meet a man, and all I know about them is that they are gay.
What good would it do to assume they have a particular sort of style, as you say, without ever having met the person?
What good would it do you know that someone is on the Aspergers spectrum? It depends on how you want to interact with them
If you are a woman or man married for years to someone on the spectrum , and have become increasingly confused , angry and frustrated dealing with their inexplicable social shortcomings , it can be a blessing to have a way to put the pieces together. , to learn how the Aspergers interacts with their personality , how they own the Aspergers. The person on the spectrum can have the same feeling of liberation when they learn for the first time why they are different from many around them.
Gay men and women, myself included , can profoundly benefit from learning that certain ways of acting that alienated us from heterosexual peers when we were growing up , that made us feel different and freakish, were not unique to us, and that there was a community where we could feel normal.
Just knowing that the person you are about to meet is gay may not make any difference to you in getting to know them, but what if you have had encounters with men who acted in ways that were extremely flamboyant and effeminate? And lets say that this made you angry and disgusted , because you assumed that they were putting on a deliberate act that was childish or silly? I know a number of people like this.
Of course, not all flamboyantly acting men identify as gay or gender-nonconforming, but Ive known many gay men like this , who were likely that way from birth and didnt choose in any way to be that way , who would have given anything to be normal growing up.
To understand that there is an inborn perceptual-affective style that can account for hyper-femininity in men can make a huge difference in ones attitude toward someone who one assumes is putting on an act. It also makes one really that pens own personality involves its own gender style. that pervades every aspect of ones social dealings. Knowing this about oneself can allow one to build a bridge between ones
own style and that of someone with a very different inborn gender. But denying that there is such a thing as inborn perceptual-affective gender style , or insisting that all forms of gender behavior are socially constructed as some do, makes it impossible for one to build that bridge. One misses the overarching pattern organizing the particulars of inborn gender behavior and treats every action as arbitrary and conditioned by peers
I'd argue it wouldn't do much good to make assumptions about a person about which all one knows is that they have Asperger's either. All it requires is to delay judgement until after one has met the person, because then one has met the true person, and not a generalized image in one's mind.
But lets for a minute assume that this person indeed has Asperger's, so the bit of information we know about this person is accurate. That only gives us a very small piece of specific information about this person. It's a clinical diagnosis, and nothing more. Does it give us any real insight into the true nature of this person? No.
Similarly, biological sex gives us some information, but again does it give any real insight?
Quoting Joshs
I don't know anything about that, sorry.
Quoting Joshs
That's exactly the issue, isn't it? It's the other side of the same coin.
Usually generalizations are pretty unhelpful in personal interaction, but sometimes they can be downright destructive.
Quoting Joshs
I don't quite understand your point.
If through interaction with a person one recognizes patterns, I don't see what that has to do with identity labels and generalizations. Surely it wouldn't be right to assume those patterns exist before one has met the person? Again, it seems to me the true nature of someone can only be explored through real interaction, and not through the generalized images which make up identities.
What I find odd here is the suggestion that relationships ought to be mediated by, in essence, science.
You count anything not theorized as "arbitrary" but is that more than a nasty way to say "individual" ?
Im not sure what you have in mind when you speak of recognizing patterns in someone. What I have in mind is something like Chomskys transformational grammar, in this case an inborn logic of gender instead of language . Also, unlike Chomskys patterns, gender would not be a single universal grammar but a spectrum or family of grammars along an axis of masculinity-femininity. No two individuals occupy the same point on the spectrum. To complicate things further, the masculine-feminine gender spectrum interacts with culture such that no set list of definitions can lock in for all time what masculinity vs femininity ( aggressiveness vs passivity, etc) entails. What gender means will vary from culture to culture and from historical era to historical era. Given this vast variability, it might seem that gender is not a very useful concept.
But I think it can be quite useful. First of all, within any particular era and region of culture, the masculine-feminine binary can be consistently recognized. In general, girlsnand boys will continue to have relatively consistent and predictable differences in preference for many activities and interests.
I agree that exactly how inborn gender patterns manifest themselves in particular individuals can only be determined by getting to know that individual, but it isnt a question of finding out WHETHER such a grammar exists as part of a persons behavior, but HOWit expresses itself.
You wrote:
Surely it wouldn't be right to assume those patterns exist before one has met the person , but to me thats like saying that it wouldnt be right to assume a universal linguistic grammar exists in a person before one has met them.
If gender patterning is not a given for everyone what kind of pattern would it be that only exists in some
people but not others? What exactly would hold a set of behaviors together as a gender pattern? It sounds to me like what you have in mind is more like a disconnected set of behaviors than an internally coherent pattern.
Even though we cant determine how exactly gender operates in individuals without getting to know them , if we dont at least treat inborn gender pattering as a given, we are not likely to recognize it when we see it.
This is certainly the case with many conservatives for whom the very concept of an inborn gender other than heterosexual male or female is incomprehensible. Trying to treat everyone as unique individuals isnt enough to understand how gender helps to organize our experience of the world. The conservative doesnt know to look for gender patterns in themselves or others and so doesnt find them, only anatomical sexual structures, sexual preferences, and a seemingly random list of other preferences regarding fashion ,etc.
This can be a non-issue when gender differences are very slight, but a disaster when more extreme departures from the norm are encountered. The high suicide rate within the lgbt community is the result of a failure on the part of the dominant culture to recognize that there is such a thing as an inborn gender pattern that pertains to all
of us. What about you? Arent you made aware of this pattern in yourself at certain times. Not likely when you are with others of a similar gender. But , assuming you identify as male , what about when you find yourself with your wife, girlfriend or a group of women who characterize something you do or say as being a typical guy thing? Doesnt that bring to the fore gender dispositions that you otherwise would. not notice in yourself?
Its not science Im arguing for , but the integrated, patterned basis of frame of reference. This is true not only when it comes to gender but all other aspects of our individual comportment toward the world. What I am labeling as arbitrary is the attempt to understand behavior as divorced from larger, internally integrated schemes of perception, affect and motivation that make human intentional acts of all kinds possible. Gender is just a very broad subcategory within this larger system of sense-making. It doesnt really matter whether we assume gender is a specific genetically or hormonally determined disposition , or instead a more general personality disposition. The point is that we come into life with already formed schematic dispositions(m (perceptual styles), the broadest of which are very robust and consistent over the course of our lives, and his is how gender should be conceived.
Well yeah, it would be a bit prying to ask the question, but you needn't conduct interviews to explore the question. You can just ask yourself what it means for you to be a man to answer the gender identity question we've been asking here.
My own answer is loaded with socially created stereotypes, dealing heavily with responsibility, control, strength, force, and certain virtues like honesty and reliability. Pretty much a cross between Ward Cleaver, Rambo, and a porn star.
I'll say this much: I think being a man is being a person who likely thinks about or has thought about what it means to be a man aspirationally, what it is to be "a good man" often. (Maybe a bit in that ancient Greek sense of virtue as fulfillment of potential.) In practice that has a whole lot to do with social expectations regarding masculinity, which you will accept and which reject, and how.
While the trans experience may be similar (if, say, I find I have the sort of aspirational view of my gender that a woman might, rather than what a man might) it's also quite different because the social expectations don't line up the same way, and in effect the trans person will have to navigate two sets of gender expectations.
It's just that, quite naturally, a man's view of masculinity is formed precisely in this push and pull of social expectations, not developed in vacuo and then "applied". I don't know how that works for trans people, who will to start with be given the wrong set of social expectations to cut their teeth on. As a girl you fight to create your own individual take on womanhood. I don't know how that works if society "thinks" you're a boy. How do you develop an individual aspirational sense of womanhood there?
But then, I haven't worked out my sense of manhood solely through my own experience. We all rely on role models, and borrow what we understand of their experience too. Perhaps it's as simple as saying that a trans woman can look to her mother, her sisters, to other women, and emulate them. Insofar as society has treated you as a boy for some of your life, maybe that's just a sort of annoying distraction (though of course it can be horribly taxing emotionally, as the suicide rate among trans youth shows), something that doesn't "land" with you, doesn't feel meaningful, has not, for instance, spurred you to think about what sort of man you want to be.