Gender is mutable, sex is immutable, we need words that separate these concepts
I've been studying the gender and transgender issue for some time, and I feel the problem is the lack of clear distinction between sex and gender in discussions. In other words, it is a philosophical issue.
Sex is immutable. It is a biological determinant of DNA. Hormone changes do not change your sex, only allow you to emulate a hormone aspect of the other sex. Meaning, both the definition of sex cannot change, and one's sex cannot change.
Gender is mutable. Meaning it can change. It can change based on location, culture, and the people you associate with. It is the expectations that one is generally expected to hold up to based on one's perceived sex. Gender can change based on the location or group of people, and one can change one's gender despite expectations of the group around you. Thus a woman could wear a tank top and a man could wear a dress in a gender culture where such things are not expected or discouraged.
This simple terminology clears up what I think are many of the confusions and issues both in, and outside of the 'transgender' community. Anyone can change their gender. You can dress or act whatever way you like despite the culture you are in. What one cannot change is their sex. Any attempt to make a claim to a sex change should be called a 'transexual'.
I do not think transexual people are transgendered. A transgendered person exhibits cultural actions that defy the cultural expectations of their sex. A transexual person is trying to act in a gendered way that fits the sex they want to be.
As such, I believe that labeling a transexual person as 'transgendered' creates confusion and harm.
I believe separating the words transexual and transgender may help in resolving 'transgender' issues. The word as it is used now encompasses both, and is too broad and confusing. Agreements, disagreements?
Sex is immutable. It is a biological determinant of DNA. Hormone changes do not change your sex, only allow you to emulate a hormone aspect of the other sex. Meaning, both the definition of sex cannot change, and one's sex cannot change.
Gender is mutable. Meaning it can change. It can change based on location, culture, and the people you associate with. It is the expectations that one is generally expected to hold up to based on one's perceived sex. Gender can change based on the location or group of people, and one can change one's gender despite expectations of the group around you. Thus a woman could wear a tank top and a man could wear a dress in a gender culture where such things are not expected or discouraged.
This simple terminology clears up what I think are many of the confusions and issues both in, and outside of the 'transgender' community. Anyone can change their gender. You can dress or act whatever way you like despite the culture you are in. What one cannot change is their sex. Any attempt to make a claim to a sex change should be called a 'transexual'.
I do not think transexual people are transgendered. A transgendered person exhibits cultural actions that defy the cultural expectations of their sex. A transexual person is trying to act in a gendered way that fits the sex they want to be.
As such, I believe that labeling a transexual person as 'transgendered' creates confusion and harm.
I believe separating the words transexual and transgender may help in resolving 'transgender' issues. The word as it is used now encompasses both, and is too broad and confusing. Agreements, disagreements?
Comments (212)
For a biologist's take...
I'm unsure whether you misspoke here, or are conflating the two ideas you're trying to prise apart.
If we are to understand that gender is, in fact, a bundle of loosely-collective behaviours and tendencies, there's no 'defy'ing going on at all. We're all simply people who behave in various ways, and some of us don't sit in the pregnant middle of the distribution. There is not a condition or 'social justice' issue to be discussed here. I would say, on your preceding account, this (above) statement is a little incoherent.
If someone is 'transgender' and regards that condition to relate to the opposite sex then the only reasonable determinant is that they believe gender and sex are correlated. Otherwise, to be 'trans gender' would mean to, as you say, defy one's sex. It seems these can't exist without contradiction.
In a similar vein, the concept of 'transexual' makes only logical sense, and not practical sense. Sex can't be traversed.
I think the biggest problem is that some trans people are claiming to literally be the opposite sex, and some are denying that that's possible. Some claim to have a mental illness, some claim you must have a mental illness etc...
It is ill-defined, badly researched and reported even worse. If it were possible to eek out an exact notion of transgenderism, we could move forward - but those who use the term seem terminally incapable of doing so. Sunk-cost, imo.
https://philpapers.org/rec/DRARAL-4
And this, from a very much British Feminist perspective:
https://philpapers.org/rec/STONTS (she also has a great piece on sexual orientation, which is related, since people are claiming men can be lesbians now).
Yes, my mistake that I'll edit back in. I meant "defy the cultural expectations of their sex."Quoting AmadeusD
Sex cannot be transversed, its true. It can be emulated through hormones and surgery. Transexualism seems the easiest word for this, but if another word would fit it better, I would have no problem. Sex emulation? Feel free to contribute if you wish. :)
Quoting AmadeusD
I think trying to make a word better defined is a common pursuit in philosophy. If you wish to give up, that's fine. But I think its worth thinking about. I'm more interested in what you think about the underlying difference I've noted here. Do you think it works that transexual people (as defined here) are not actually transgendered, but sexual emulants trying to fit the gender of the sex they want to pass as?
I would agree, if it didn't leave open the doors I brushed past in the ending of my previous comment (which you quoted there, I see from the comment box hehe)..
Quoting Philosophim
Not at all. But when there are scores of philosophers who have literally nothing to do with their time, but use philosophy to support the supposition that their special identity relies on, it's really fucking hard.
Making the types of arguments we're making get people fired, in the real world. My University philosophy club has for three of its highest administrators trans people. This means certain views are off-limited because they don't want to hear it. They are happy to put the cart before the horse. Adn this is extremely disheartening to someone who feels teh way you do. I'm not suggesting we 'give up'. I am suggesting that it may be a matter of time.
Quoting Philosophim
I think Sex and Gender are patently, inarguably different sets of properties and are easily discernable from one another. It is totally bizarre to me that it's taken seriously that they are either the same thing, or somehow reliant on one another. Questioning your gender shouldn't ever invoke some kind of negative connotation, or indication of mental illness. Questioning your sex (if not intersex) would indicate one of those. Though, it is to be noted that intersex individuals are all, without exception either male or female. "intersex" is a confusing misnomer used by dumb people to support wild, unsupportable theories about how sex is a social construct.
I think Sex really, really matters, and Gender far less so. I think Gender is merely a loose system of categorizing social roles and behaviours, and should be relegated to a nicety and nothing determinant of anything whatever in Law or elsewhere. However, I admit freely that I am slightly less open to some of the more 'progressive' arguments in this sphere due to having once bough them hook-line-and-sinker. I am somewhat afraid of succumbing to public/social pressure as I once did. There are facts that I will not ignore, despite vehement, and threatening protestations from angry journalists and whimpering children.
This is when we need to speak about it the most then. Philosophy often is dismissed as 'useless'. I think this is a good venue for it and philosophers need speak up.Quoting AmadeusD
I agree. Which is why using words that more clearly delineate between the two is important.
I agree. But the reality is they do and get vilified. Holly Lawford-Smith is a great example, as is Kathleen Stock; Judith Butler. Plenty of examples of what you're suggesting being genuinely dangerous for philosophers. Even Rebecca Tuvel, who is pro-trans, got absolutely torn to shreds for suggesting that the same logic applies to race. Which it clearly does.
There are practical considerations that are going to be far more important that being 'right' for many philosophers and particularly women (who stand to have the most important views on this, imo).
Quoting Philosophim
Yes.
Which is fine. There are definite exceptions to the rule. I don't believe those exceptions change what I'm noting here for most people though.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/336888
What are these exceptions?
Thus I don't believe there's any good reason at all to lump the meaning of these two words into one.
Thank you for clarifying what you're trying to say, and in that sense, I agree, and think this is why Gender is actually apt at all - we need not invoke aberration to note the wild variance within sexes). However, none of these examples presents anything other than a male or female individual. That's the issue that I think the "sex is a construct" people don't get.
Mammalian sex is, in fact, 100% binary to our knowledge. Aberrations in sex development don't change, or 'partial alter' your sex. If you're saying they do, I'm open to the argument at least :)
Quoting Vaskane
Variance within the two sexes doesn't constitute a third, or non- sex.
A person who is transgender may turn so much upside down in thinking of bodies and gender; by wishing to be the opposite of ' what nature intended'. This may be where the fundamentalists step in with the hardcore objections, as if it was as simple as a matter of bodies. Human identity involves such a complex mixture of bodily and social aspects of gender identity. It is such a complex area of psychology and many who identify in the transgender spectrum struggle with the issues of gender identity.
One complex case is that of Kiera Bell, who, in England, transitioned from female to male in England, as a teenager, and regretted it. Kiera is now transitioning back to female and regretting the effects of hormones and surgery. On the other hand, many are struggling with gender dysphoria and the ways and means of gaining access to achieve hormones and surgery.
If anything, the times of twentieth first century offer so much scope for achieving bodily transformation. Some may experience psychological difficulties,or side- effects of meditation, such as polycythemia in female to male transsexuals. So much may come down to being able to have the 'desired body' of the chosen gender; and the whole range of psychological discrepancies. If anything, the mind- body issue of transgender people, as well as those of intersex individuals, may raise so much about the whole nature and assumptions of the nature of gender.
It may raise the question of the binary and, what is involved in binary thinking of gender. How much is about body and mind, the discrepancies between the two and how such conflicts may be put together,?
I don't think it has to be complex. Since gender is cultural, the cultural expectations for a man or woman in different cultures can differ. Its about the culture one wants to identify with, not the biology. If someone wants the biology of another sex, that's not transgender, that's transex. When trying to emulate another sex, you take on the gender of that sex you are emulating. Thus you are trying to use a gender that matches your sex, and really aren't transgender.
Haha. Errm... In reverse, I don't, because it isn't a view, it's a word which is used to refer to aberrations in sexual development (more commonly referred to now as differences of sex development, not intersex conditions as a catch-all). No one is "inter" sex. You're obviously entitled to your view, but using these words has become quite important, and being wrong about htem common.
intersex conditions say absolutely nothing about the sex binary.
If so, then tell me what you think of this argument ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/336888
Your reply seems a little simplistic and not embracing the dilemmas of transgender individuals. I have worked with people who are transgender in mental healthcare and the nature of labels, what one is biologically and what what one wishes to become. It does involve ideas of the 'body'.
To a large extent, I see this thread topic as one which is academic and lacking in understanding of issues of variance, both transgender and intersex. Each person comes from an individual perspective of experience. This is important but what I see is the problem is that on the basis of ideas, especially generalised ones, is that generalise and prescriptive ideas are generated as a matter of 'pure' theory, as opposed to looking at individuals and their daily life dilemmas.
As usual, your pretensions fail you. You are describing gender and then attributing your description to the word sex. Nothing to do with me that you're using words incorrectly to suit your emotional position on them.
It is the activation (or not) of the SRY gene in utero which determines which (male or female) developmental cascade one undergoes (very basically, Mullerian or Wolffian). From that point, aberrations occur in about 0.018% of people qualifying them for the "DSD" label because their aberration returns a non-ideal (in the strict sense) phenotype with reference to the sex present in that individual. You will note, though, that DSDs are sex-specific in almost all cases and this is not an issue for the binary. The one's which can occur in both, occur differently in each sex (per SRY/not SRY).
Many professionals actually take this to be something 'determined' at conception, and merely expressed at a certain point during early gestation.
And, I have to say, it's bizarre that people get emotionally attached to these things when it doesn't actively affect them (i.e they are trans)... The lady doth protest too much, me thinks. Or, in your case, the weirdo answers his own questions and thinks he can read minds :broken:
The above few comments in turn are about sex?
However, I'm nearly with you on this. I don't entirely agree that its a 'mental status' but it certainly appears to be a result of mentation largely.
I think its totally reasonable to posit that a lot of that mentation is influenced by the facts of biology though. Cluckiness does not ever occur in males, because we don't have the hormones for it as an example. So while Gender can be conceptualised as bundles of loosely-associated behaviours, they are loosely associated to a sex. Which is probably hte source if the totally confusing statements in Philosophim's posts.
Sounds like you've worked with transexuals then. There are people who want to be transgender yet not change their physical bodies. One of my best friends of 20 years is flirting with transexualism right now. We discuss these issues regularly and both agree that the current vocabulary to talk about these issues is flat out awful and needs improvement.
While yes, individuals vary in their experiences, when we talk about words that apply to the broader culture we need to create words of proper scope with more details and less generalizations. An academic approach is very much needed in a broader social sense to have good and open discussions.
Where we find grey is in phenotype - but this is the case with those who suffer no aberration whatever in their development. A fully in-tact and healthy hormonal cascade can result in Eddie Hall or Mike Tyson as much as it can result in Maynard Keenan or Chris Colfer. Thought, it also worth noting that humans are incredibly accurate in determining sex from facial features alone: the pop-sci take and less pop and again
even the grey area isn't all that grey.
What do you conceive these dilemmas consisting in?
Quoting Vaskane
Not quite.
They have the potential to. They need not, currently, be able to do so. At what point that potential is read, as far as makes any sense to me, is the moment of the hormonal cascade beginning (either triggered by SRY activation, or not). Ignoring that, though, because fair - it's probably not the strongest argument on its face - on your account, someone who has had an horrific injury after siring 20 children is no longer male, either, as he is incapable of even producing sperm, let alone fusing any of them with ova. But I'm sure you'll agree that seems very wrong.
Quoting Vaskane
I'm not sure how you are understanding this concept. so forgive if the following misses it... "female sex organs" is a little misleading here too - the external genitalia present as female, but there are no internal sex organs aligned with the female phenotype.
A 'male' as per either the above quote, or my construction, cannot have female organs because female sex organs do not produce male gametes, irrespective of whether the individual has a vagina or penis. However, I understand that this position (CAIS is a bit more accurate, as far as I know - otherwise, we're not looking at something problematic) results in a human who is biologically male (required for the condition) but has female presentation, and is infertile. An infertile male with a typically female phenotype doesn't seem very hard to categorise to me - unless we're strictly using your conception on whicih any child, post-menopausal woman or infertile adult of any kind, has no sex.
I also understand, though, that suffers of CAIS does have male streak gonads, providing enough evidence for the 'potential' if but for the aberration, required to satisfy this category. That said, I have never seen a person with any DSD for whom it was not obvious what their biological sex was. Caster Semenya is the prime example of this problem in action. She is a male. It was obvious to many of us.
The only reason continentals haven't caught up here is because they're too busy debating if they exist or not or exactly how it is that the nothing nothings when it is nothing. That and inventing new languages for each subfield of inquiry. :smile:
It seems like this is less ambiguous in the aggregate. We wouldn't say the number of chromosomes humans have exists on a spectrum because trisomies occur, or that the number of kidneys a human has exists on a spectrum because some people are born missing one or both kidneys.
But I can see arguments for how defining sex at the individual level might be different.
Could you throw any out?
I'm only pushing, as it seems that your initial outline there ("in the aggregate") is aptly applied to individuals too. But, i do agree, at least intuitively, its easier to parse in teh aggregate.
That's a different condition... We can talk about that if you like?
I could see an argument that the function of sex in the species is not the same as the sex of an individual, sentient animal of any sort, for whom sex is also identity. For all intents and purposes, this only applies to humans.
Because it's easy to say what the function of sex is in the species, in the same way that eyes "are for seeing," and yet "being a blind person" can obviously be part of someone's identity in the same way that "being intersex" can be. This is perhaps most obvious with deaf communities. Sex as function is discrete and binary. Sex as expression isn't even "a spectrum" it's more complex, probably something you'd have to plot in some-n-dimensional space.
But identity comes as much, if not more, from expression than function. E.g., for over a thousand years in the West, the most respected people in society were men and women who categorically gave up the functionality of sex by oath, along with the ownership of property, but who lived in sex segregated communities and were defined as monks versus nuns by their sex the divorce of sex vis-á-vis identity from sex as a function in the species.
Side note: this just shows how disconnected we are from that past era. The idea of homeless, unemployed virgins being the most respected people is the most anathema thing I could think of for today's world. Consider the responses to homelessness in San Francisco, a city named after Saint Francis, a man who wore sack cloth and slept in the woods.
The continent has given us Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Suárez; the Atlantic, in its short 100 years of proeminence, allowed only by the outcome of WW2, is stuck trying to define "knowledge", pretending it is a philosophical problem and not a fault in the language they speak from the same people who shun prescriptive linguistics and champion descriptive linguistics.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Continental Europeans do that? Perhaps they do, but is it better or worse than abusing French words for concepts that, beyond already existing, are very mundane? I would rather have a different word for a different concept than using "Australia" to mean Papua New-Guinea.
I'm not arguing against sex variations. For example, if you're an XXY human, you're not exactly a common male. There is absolutely nothing wrong with defining this as a new sex. My point is only that it is immutable. What this tells us about a person is simply that, the fact they have XXY chromosomes and how that impacts their physical reality. This is still a separate discussion from gender.
Quoting AmadeusD
Would you agree that in humans and other mammals there are sex-correlated differences in brain function that lead to the differences in behavior between males and females that allow, for instance, dog owners and trainers to quickly recognize males and females on the basis of these inborn brain differences and they are manifested in behavior? would you further allow that if there are such inborn sexual-related differences in psychological-behavioral gender , that there are likely intermediates between male and female inborn brain organization. In other words, an inborn basis for a spectrum of psychological genders?
I would without any issue. But these are generalities. An aggressive or gay female does not mean they aren't female. A passive or gay male does not mean they are not male. And no male or female animal that we can tell desires to be the opposite sex. That's a human conscious decision. Motivation or desire to be the other sex doesn't mean you were born in the wrong body or aren't your natal sex. Just like the desire to be more intelligent or taller doesn't mean you were somehow denied an innate tallness or intelligence that you don't have. The brokenness is the desire to be the other sex to the point of thinking you can actually be the other sex. Its not that you were born in the wrong body.
Quoting Philosophim
I think the transgender community as a whole has been moving away from this trope of being born in the wrong body, which is why there has been a move to marginalize the term transexual. Many in the transgender community believe that gender is intertwined in a hopelessly inseparable way not only with cultural influences, but interweaves culture and biological sex just as inseparably. A sex isnt a slab of anatomy. it is defined by how it is performed. Sexed bodies are processes of interactive behaving, not simply collections of dna, so gender isnt something to be tacked onto a scientized specimen after the fact.
A belief is fine if its backed by some legitimate reasoning. From my experience, its not. Sex is biology. Behaviors that necessarily require you to be a sex are the only behaviors that could be said to necessarily flow from sex. Makes sense right? Behaviors that can cross the sexes are not solely sexual behaviors. It may be a secondary effect from sex that certain behaviors are more likely to crop up, but obviously these behaviors would exist despite sex differences.
Its a contradiction to say that behaviors belong to one sex, but can cross into the other sex. Thus the transgender communities rationalization is not rational.
Quoting Philosophim
It a not a question of crossing from one sex to another, but of questioning the categorical purity of the concept of biological sex.
I understand. My point doesn't change. If behavior is necessarily associated with one's biological sex, it must only exhibit in that sex. If the same behavior can be seen in both sexes, then it is not sexual behavior, but human behavior. Unless the transgender community can counter this, they do not have a valid argument.
Quoting Philosophim
They do counter it. You keep referring to two sexes. Many within the transgender community no longer accept this binary, even if we treat it as two opposite poles of a spectrum. Btw, I dont necessary accept every facet of this argument, but you dont seem to accord it even a smidgen of validity.
Could you maybe outline what you mean by this? I don't think this is a coherent concept. The 'expression' of one's sex is the functional output of one's sexual role in the species, as best I can tell.
"sexual expression" in the way you describe is, surely, just Gender by another, more confusing name?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Definitely agree, but further to the above, "expression" can be "masculine" or "feminine" with some association to function of sex... But are not at all analogous or tied to the sex/es. While i believe (not worth arguing here) that some behaviours are sexual determined, most behaviours are merely correlated and have no necessity to one or other sex. In another word: Gender.
Quoting Vaskane
For clarity, you brought up an example, and I used the example. When you brought up another example, both of our previous responses were no longer apt because they were very particular to that one condition. Just clarifying that I'm not trying to topic-hop. That seemed to be what was happening without my input...
Quoting Vaskane
You're now using the term "men". Which defeats the entire purpose of this discussion. Males cannot have functional internal ovaries. as a result of having active SRY. Other aberrations can result in the production of the tissues required for them (many conditions for males include streak ovaries, for instance) but there is not a single example of a male with functional female reproductive organs, to my knowledge. But then, you've used the term "men". Which, I take, requires merely identifying as a man. So, I have to concede your position - while pointing out that its a Mott and Bailey in terms of our discussion.
Quoting Vaskane
Then you have literally infinite sexes to contend with. Everyone's body has a different total make-up. This is bizarre.
Quoting Vaskane
1. I am not using any social construction whatever;
2. I don't 'prefer' anything. I'm laying out the uses of these terms as employed for their meanings;
3. There is no reason whatever to prefer a 'more comprehensive' definition of anything complex. In fact, history shows this to be the most unhelpful use of language in definite fields (biology - there is only male and female - your apparent rejection of this is lacking in support or reality); and
4. It is obvious to me that you're playing word games now, and not dealing with the issue. You've made your case for your position - I reject it and use the words as they are actually apt to be used and Am not conflating 'men/women' with 'male/female'. It seems clear to me why you have trouble with my conception and that it lies in not delineating between three distinct concepts: Sex, gender and social identity.
Quoting Vaskane
No, it doesn't. You've flat-out ignored my concept of sex, as it is used in biology and sex research, and pretended I am basing it on 'gametes'. Which, ironically, amounts to the exact same conception you initially tried to present: If one cannot produce gametes, they have no sex. As absurd as to say the ability to "fuse gametes" establishes sex. I have rejected this about four times, and yet you are here accusing me of it. Risible.
Quoting Vaskane
If that is what something boils down to, then that is what it boils down to. It seems to me you prefer imprecise, unehlpful and confusing definitions for things that have plain meanings. Far be it from me...
Quoting Philosophim
Yes, there is. That person is male already. Either people can be multiple sexes, or not.
Quoting Joshs
Underlined: That is exactly my view.
The rest:
Hmm. I'm, nearly there. To me, though, the spectrum of 'psychological genders' is an actual spectrum and that there are not 'multiple discernable genders' related to the person's sex. Being one or other sex predisposes one to certain sets of behavioural properties. These are not necessary. They are at least tertiary to the sex "at hand".
In this way, the bolded part doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't know what you are considering 'male and female inborn brain organisation.'? If this is just to say that brains aren't exactly correlated with one's sex, then yeah - I don't think one's sex gives them omre than a propensity (though, it is clearly an extremely strong propensity) for any behaviour that isn't driven by sexual function. But these aren't rules, they are propensities. So, i reject that there are ny 'intermediates'. There are brains.
Quoting Joshs
Quoting Joshs
Because it isn't valid and it is not encumbent upon others to validate the incorrect assertions of special interest groups. There are two sexes.
Do you not see that you're conflating sex and gender? And that this is teh entire problem with the discussion?
Sex is a biological fact. It is not a spectrum, or a 'set of behaviours' or a "standard" or any other nonsense. "sex" doesn't arise once one becomes sexually active, or when one starts to question their own species factual expression as sexually dimorphic. These are delusional thoughts, and while they require care and support, they do not need assent.
Then please indicate what this counter is. A counter is a reasoned set of facts, propositions, and logical conclusions. An opinion or desire is not a counter.
Also, I did note that XXY could easily be indicated as a different sex. So no, I have not been insistent that there are only two sexes. For the general discussion, we are using two sexes. If you wish to discuss exceptions by addressing XXY etc., I still do not see this in opposition to my points.
I am going to be insistent. There are two sexes. Genetics do not determine sex. Genetics are variable within sex. If your problem is the linguistic use of terms, you've been shown an absolute use which removes all doubt and confusion, allows for all cases, and is not offensive to anyone not looking for offense.
There is not anyone who isn't male or female, but current understanding. Why isn't that good enough?
If sex is biological there is no harm in attributing a new label to a different genetic structure. There is also no harm in your classification either. Let me explain.
There is a constant occurrence in language which comes up in which there is the question of whether a varient of a common definition deserves an adjective or its own word. For example some bushes could be labeled as 'short trees' while some trees could be labeled as 'tall bushes'. There should be a good reason to create a new word instead of an adjective, but sometimes there are issues where the line becomes blurry.
In the case of sex, I have no issue creating a new word within the moniker of sex as long as it does not divert out of pure biology. Further, this new sex must have something substantially and meaningfully different from another existent sex. In the case of XXY, there is a clear biological difference. Its called Klinefelter syndrome, is is most often a variant of maleness. Yet in some cases, it appears to be a variant of femaleness. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15755052/#:~:text=Background%3A%20Males%20with%20a%2047,of%20this%20phenomenon%20is%20unclear.
So we could label it as 'female Klinefelter or male Klinefelter', or we could call it a new sex "Klinefelter" for example. Society can decide and to me, its practically irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. So if someone wants to label it a new sex, sure. If they want to adjective it, sure. As long as it is purely based on biology and not behavior, I don't believe it matters at all.
Sex expression = phenotype expression related to sex. IDK, sometimes it is used for sex-related gene expression too, but that's less common. Either way, it isn't gender, it's phenome, what someone's physical body looks/is like.
Quoting AmadeusD
Its good to the extent that its useful. Its obviously useful
for you. Is it useful for your teachers and your peers? Keep your eye out for the direction of the trends over the coming decades concerning the usefulness of the concept of the male-female binary within the social and biological sciences, and the wider culture.
Can I ask you, setting aside the complex theory, if you had to explain trans to a group of people with no understanding of the issue, how would you frame it?
Freud said we are all fundamentally bisexual. I say we are all irreducibly trans. Gender is like personality. Just as no two people share the same personality, no two people belong to the same gender. We can of course group people in loose sorts of ways by similarities in personality and gender behavior. The same is true of the concept of biological sex. Right now most still find it useful to think in terms of two categories, but I think eventually biological sex will be melded with gender in most peoples minds.
I don't think Josh's reply answered your question. I have a close friend of over 20 years who is trans, and I've been studying the issue for a few years both in papers, and in the community.
The easiest way to describe transgender to people who are unaware is that it is a strong emotional proclivity to want to express aspects commonly associated with the opposite sex. In 'gender' specifically, it is a desire to take on mostly the cultural aspects such as manner of speech, dress, and behavior the individual associates with the other sex. In matters of transexualism, which is the division being noted here, it is a desire to take on the secondary and/or primary sex characteristics of the opposite sex. Currently, these two notions are lumped under the same moniker 'transgender' which causes a lot of confusion.
This desire can be primarily driven by positive or negative emotions. Some examples of negatively driven desires are hatred of their own gender/sex. Not wanting the expectations of their gender/sex. Escaping their personal disgust/fear of being gay. Some positive examples are beliefs that life will be easier as the other gender/sex. An enjoyment of the cultural aspects of the other gender/sex that they believe they cannot enjoy as their current gender/sex. Sexual and romantic enjoyment in being the other gender/sex.
The desire is of course extremely strong or persistent. So it affects the individual to the point where the enjoyment is so great, or the displeasure of not exhibiting cross gender/sex is so painful, that they are willing to do whatever it takes to satisfy or appease those desires. Most understand it is not 'rational'. Practicing transgender/transexual actions serves to somewhat appease these desires.
I thought it was fine. Josh's answers are quite sophisticated and anti-essentialist. I have sympathy for this approach, but as a non-philosopher with an abbreviated attention span, I like to cut to the chase.
My response to the trans issue is minimalist (like most of my approaches to life). I accept trans men and women as men and women. I have encountered no good reason not to.
I think your description is the standard one I have heard around the place. But I was particularly keen to hear Joshs on this given his perspectival, postmodernist orientation.
Though it bothers me to participate in this thread yet again, this whole statement is incorrect. And before you do your usual tactics, I will challenge you give a single source that proves you right.
Umm... You realize that biology is the study of all life, and for biologists it is a pretty reasonable thing to do, to recognize the significant distinction between sexes that they do. Right?
Quoting Vaskane
Funny how you ignored this. Completely wrong. And you are not supposed to capitalise the word, this isn't German.
Quoting Vaskane
Too bad you lack the intelligence to interpret whatever it was that you verified. I didn't read the rest of your insane rant by the way.
I will urge all barbarians to never speak or refer to Latin, especially the crazy ones.
No, it is not, because there is barely anything in English that comes from Latin, sex is not one of them. I will challenge you to show me on text in Anglo-Saxon that includes the word 'sex'. Saying that sex comes from sexus is rather like saying that the sky is sour, no dictionary with its non-existent authority will change that. But that is not even the greater offense. Conveniently, no source was given to "Sexus, meaning to cut to divide to differentiate", which you have ignored twice now.
Quoting Vaskane
We who? I and other people saw you claiming that the infinity between 1 and 3 is bigger than between 2 and 1.
Let's see what it actually says:
None of this says sexus means to divide or to separate, because it doesn't. A noun is not a verb. That is basic morphology.
You see, when people go to school, they don't read the textbook by themselves, but with the professor guiding them so that they don't end up with malformed ideas about the topic, which is why they take an exam at the end. But in your case it is not just ideas that are malformed, it is the vessel that holds those ideas too.
Let's see what the traditional Latin dictionary Gaffiot says
There is nothing here about separating or dividing.
You abuse sources you know nothing about because you are a politician scourring through material you have not read to prove your nonsense right. Again, stop talking about Latin.
This assumes genetic make up as-is, determines sex - where is does not. So, "harm" is probably not apt, but it is flatly incorrect to assign a status of 'sex' to a genetic variation within an established sex. This ruins your aim entirely.
The 'harm' comes from the fact that your usage is causing hte exact problem you're trying to solve.
So, call it direction of best fit - what you're doing is spoiling your chances of success, directly, by ignoring the problem you've identified and refusing to do what's necessary to clear up the confusion about hte terms. Again, sex is already established as somthing that genetic variation does not determine, so it is again, flatly wrong to attribute a 'sex' status to a genetic variation - this, aside from it being exactly against your purported aim for the thread.
Quoting Philosophim
Is strictly a condition present in males.. It is determined firstly, by the subject being male. The highlighted section in your link (i assume you were pointing me to that?) indicates this clearly, without ambiguity. Phenotype has merely a correlative relation to sex (extremely closely correlated, it must be said). The case study presented is concerned solely with phenotype. The researches know this person is male, and that is the basis for this being a novel case (well, novel, after three examples? lol).
Quoting Philosophim
We could, but we would be both wrong, and continuing the problem you are purporting to want to solve. I have to say, it's really strange to see you doing what yyou can to continue the language problem you seem tto want to avoid? It is the exact same here, as it is between Sex and Gender, per OP. Mixing up aberrations and actual states of sex (male/female) makes the endeavour worthless, on your aims.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Right I see. As far as I can tell in the literature, and in my experience, this is just called 'phenotype' which varies as much within sex as without (barring specifics which are the arbiters of whether to question ones sex - external genitals, hair placement and thickness etc..). But, on that conception, yeah, sure. Just continues the confusing use of words, though.
Quoting Joshs
Oof. Those are three very differeent things. I posit that the conflation of the three is why we're even having this discussion. Male/female are extremely important in biology and biologists, on the whole, reject entire the attempts to trivialise them.
But I would also add engineers to that list. They use the terms constantly to refer to something non-biological which is analogous.
Quoting Tom Storm
As compared to? And in light of?
I also have many trans friends. I have worked with trans people. I simply do not care what the think and feel in their minds about their ownn identity. How could I? But even these, trans, people understand that your version of this story is inccomplete.
www.terfisaslur.com
It just seems you have a problem with your internal struggle with gametes. I didn't posit that, and have disowned it (to the degree that someone who doesn't hold a view can disown it) multiple times. You've not engaged with anything else i've said. I can't find anything in this to be 'going on with' as it were. Appreciate your time.
Quoting wonderer1
Yes, this is an obvious problem with Vaskane, and other's position.
For some reason they think that even if something is 1 or 0 we need to talk about other numbers.
And that particular one completely, and utterly ignores the fact he's wrong about hte theory, what defines it, and how it's applied. He seems stuck in the 20th C and arguing with those people, instead of the comments he's replying to.
Quoting Joshs
1. Then Gender is pointless and we not even discuss it; and
2. No. If you are under the impression an actual biological distinction, on which healthcare and the propagation of a sexually dimorphic species relies as facts about them I am unsure that is a view to be taken too seriously... Feels like Phil. Twitter type of things to say.
3. If Gender is that mutable and useless as a descriptor or label, can you explain the "unreasonable effectiveness" of using sex terms in their, lets call it, adversarial form.
I don't want anythhing from you. But you continually discuss a position i don't hold in respect of my comments.
Your discomfort with recognizing both the developing use of words, and attaching words to immutable facts is all well and good (and not disingenuously..it is a good scepticism to have, generally) but questioning terms like "one" and "two" as if there's some argument about what they refer to is odd - particularly as it appears you are responding to decades-old arguments, with decades-old arguments (though, in that context, you're on the higher ground for sure)
You are talking, directly and obviously, about a theory which holds that gamete production is the determining factor for sex (male/female). It isn't., and I've been extremely clear about that. I have, not once, even intimated this was my position - yet it is the only one you are objecting to.
You have argued with a position I don't hold, despite my jettisoning it from my comments several times - and never even mentioning that position OTHER THAN TO DENY IT.
Sex is binary. There is no argument.
It is not based on gamete production (for the simple reason that anyone who used to, or will shortly begin producing gametes no longer has a sex on this conception).
I don't really understand your response.
1) I am not comparing the hatred of trans people with the hatred of any other groups. What is this, a hatred competition? I've seen plenty of trans phobia and it is unsafe to walk the street as a trans person around here.
2) My version of the story? What 'story'? I already said 'I have no theory of trans' so I have no 'story' I just have how I conduct myself in relation to the matter.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well, I don't care that you do not care. :wink:
You are an especially bad reader, reasoner and commenter.
(having had to go back, we're at least fully aligned on gender per se :ok: )
Around where? Czechnia?
Quoting Tom Storm
Then from what is it exceptional?
Quoting Tom Storm
You literally just told us a story about your interactions with, and conception of Trans....
Quoting Tom Storm
Sure. That's kind of the point - No idea why you're taking this as some kind of an attack. I am putting forward that your version of trans experience is entirely incomplete, and is leading you to an inaccurate view, necessarily missing parts of the global situation.
Quoting AmadeusD
No idea why you're taking this as some kind of response to an attack.
Your assorted responses seem more like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. A game, perhaps? Just looks that way, but I don't know you so context isn't available.
This - Quoting AmadeusD
That's a nice line. How do I interpret this? You think Chechenia is deserving of being described as one of the last bigoted places on earth? Is that the gist, or are you just trying to say that trans people don't regularly face bigotry and assaults just for being trans? I'm basing this claim on our own service experiences. Perhaps trans people are safe everywhere on earth except where I am?
Quoting AmadeusD
So fill me in on the part I'm missing, then perhaps we'll be able to tell if I am indeed telling story.
1. That's exactly how it comes across *shrug* I like you; it seemed worth mentioning. Still feels that way. Defensive, and rhetorical more than exploratory.
2. Quoting Tom Storm
I don't really think that's relevant. It was a quip. But I put forwrard a legitimate question, as well. I was responding to your claims, and wanting clarity. If this isn't something you're prepared to sort of 'debate' then fine.
Quoting Tom Storm
3. They claim to. That's all we have. Statistics in most Western countries outline quite clearly that trans individuals (males, more specifically) are more likely to harm others, than be harmed. Hence, my pointing out that you do not have the entire story. If we're going to go off self-report, I would think it something you're happy to dismiss as a non-problem. Otherwise, self-report wouldn't be the basis for the claim.
It seems like the motivation for this stype of story-telling is compassion. But compassion without investigation is nonsense.
Quoting Vaskane
Sorry, can you stop putting forth things I haven't said and then responding to them as if I have? Your ability to infer is seriously lacking, and so It's hard to deal with responses that prefer positions I don't hold for their basis.
Hmm. You have presented precisely nothing to 'overturn' the sex binary. There is no such thing as a human is not either male or female. You haven't presented even a theory about how that could happen. So, yeah. We're left with a binary. Phenotype is a sliding scale, absolutely. But this is not sex.
Mate, nothing here represents my views in any way that can be called reasonable. I say with literally not even a lick of negativity - I think you jmight be in one of your troughs. You went through one in November, i think, and came back to apologise about it.
(i've plotted bold numbers in your above comment so I can respond to points in turn)
1. No, it isn't. I have given a precise definition of binary sex which includes every single human being which has ever existed - it appears to be the one biologists use, and in any case is 100% apt for the thread topic, and solves OP's problem neatly;
2. I didn't, and don't say that, anywhere;
3. That's YOUR standard. Obviously. My standard encompasses any phenotype which has resulted from SRY-activated hormone cascade - whether aberrant or ideal (I also note that in this, you're committed to a 'male' having a fully functional penis and testes. Odd, given you're pretending to argue that its non-biinary). If this conception captures people you dont consider male thats fine, but it says nothing about hte position and conception; and
4. YOUR conception of a 'fully fledged male'. Mine requires SRY-activation and nothing more. Everything else you've said indicates your position on sex is that it is far more narrow and aesthetically-defined (i.e you're talking about the 'whole person' but require a penis and testes to be male, on these comments - I must assume this isn't your actual position, you've just confused yourself into sayings that entail it).
Quoting AmadeusD It is what it is (bolded edited in for sense).
Each of these points either contradicts your initial claims, or is nonsensical because you've made up a position and attributed it to me. Why are you making me defend a version of 'male' you've come up with? I've asked you outright not to do that multiple times. If you made another assertion about something I haven't said, attributed to me, What do you think I should do? Would you continue talking to someone who's making up things to argue with you about?
Me:
Amadeus to @Vaskane
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting AmadeusD
Im not just making this stuff up. From a recent paper in a biology journal:
You may want to explain this as bowing to political pressure from the left, but the fact remains that the biological sciences are moving away from the male-female binary. It shouldnt be difficult for you to find papers in biological journals justifying this position scientifically. Why dont you read a few. Im sure they can satisfy your questions better than we can. Im not suggesting a new consensus has been reached yet. In fact, the paper I quoted from disagrees with the non-binary view.
I'm surprised to hear you say this. So if I'm XX I can be male? Have you really thought this one through? What is your alternative and why is that better than genetics?
Quoting AmadeusD
Where is this established?
Quoting AmadeusD
And my point is, "How do we determine what is male?" In this case, its likely genetalia and because the majority of cases exhibit more male secondary sex characteristics. But I can see another culture creating a new sex out of it. You're missing a major point: We make language up AmadeusD. The goal of language is to create a clear and simple line of communication within one's culture. So if a culture wants to call Klinefelter syndrome a new sex, makes sense. If they want to modify it off of only desiring to have two sexes, makes sense. It doesn't matter.
What does matter is blending gender and sex together, as there are clear logical distinctions between sex and gender that lead to poor logical thinking when blended. The two are distinct enough to warrant their own words.
In the good old days when men were men and I were a lad, men were men and women were grateful, or if they weren't so much the worse for them. And anything else was an abomination. I was an abominable long haired hippie.
Since then, there has been somewhat of a retreat; first long haired men then gays, then men with boobs, then men with micro penis, and now we have your final last stand that hormones and organs and orientation and gender can be ignored in favour of the sacred genome. That's ok, but why? What can we all derive as a practical consequence from this ruling?
That is; I assume there is something more to this than a mere idiosyncratic defined usage of words.
A very good question! Because clear and unambiguous language allows for clear and unabiguous thought. Have you heard of George Orwells definition of "newsspeak"?
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to limit a person's ability for critical thinking. The Newspeak language thus limits the person's ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will, which are thoughtcrimes, acts of personal independence that contradict the ideological orthodoxy of Ingsoc collectivism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
I have seen a host of problems by blending transgender and transsexual together. First, the concept of blending genetics and culture together is the root of stereotypes such as classism, racism, and sexism. The idea that I take on the culture of a woman, therefore am a woman, implies that there is some objective truth in genetics with culture. This argument can be applied to race as well, but we've learned that's a bad idea.
Second, there is much confusion among people who have gender dysphoria. Is it gender dysphoria, or sex dysphoria? They are very different. Gender, as in the cultural dysphoria, does not require one to get on drugs or get surgery to act culturally as the other gender. Understanding that gender is just cultural expectations by society means one can make different choices in adapting to and fulfilling their emotional desires.
Sex dysphoria on the other hand is often solved by physical disguises, drugs, or surgeries. Such things are last resort to solve issues, and yet I've come across people who think gender dysphoria should be solved by such changes, then regret the pain and loss they went through.
The point is that clear language allows a clear identity of issues. With clear identities, we can come up with clear solutions. The current lumping of the term which describes two separate issues is causing a confusion and mix within the community itself, and as such is causing great harm where decisions are incorrectly made for one's condition.
Finally, there is confusion outside of the community as well. Many people are willing to accept decision in regards to gender for gender issues, and sex regarding sex issues. But when people believe the subject is gender, and sex issues creep in, there can be backlash or disagreement. Thus, it serves everyone involved for the clearest language possible that describes the issue most accurately.
To be clear, it has to be new because genetics is new.
I have fixed the above post. If it did not answer your question, feel free to ask it again.
Quoting Philosophim
Why do you want to redefine sex in terms of genetics?
You may have missed it, but I had posted a half post by accident. I had just fixed it when I saw you asked your question.
Quoting unenlightened
Because words should be as accurate as possible within reasonable means. Sex is immutable.
Genetics are very simple and immutable. Gender is mutable. This serves a very clear distinction between the two and avoids issues of ambiguity. As a response question, "Why should we not define sex by genetics?" Thanks.
You are repeating your definition and declaring it to be the truth. Genes are immutable, snd you want to define sex in terms of genes. What will you do if/when progress in gene therapy allows "sex - change" to be real in your own definition? Sex would cease to be immutable and become a lifestyle choice - again.
That's an odd accusation. I'm pointing out why I'm defining things, feel free to disagree and explain why.
Quoting unenlightened
Nothing at that point. At that point sex would be mutable with surgery. But the definition of sex would not change. I see no problem with this at all.
Quoting unenlightened
Sex has never been a lifestyle choice, just as race is not a lifestyle choice. You can choose to live the culture that society has associated with race or sex. Thus I can dress in hoodies, listen to rap, etc. if I want to live the lifestyle of inner city 'blacks', but it does not make me black. Same as a black person listening to Adelle and driving a Prius doesn't make them 'white', just living the lifestyle of an urban 'white' culture.
I want you to understand what you are implying very clearly. You are saying that living as a culture makes you a different type of body. This also implies that being a certain body, means you MUST have a particular type of culture. That is the definition of racism and sexism. Be very careful with that.
Hmm. I don't think it does. It never really was, either
Bringing in a single speculative quote does not overturn the sex binary.
And in any case, some subset of biologists 'calling into question' something doesnt' represent a trend. I would also posit that in science, trends come and go. So, I hear your point - I think its very weak, and doesn't serve the claim you're making.
Quoting Joshs
Seems to me, a rather odd conclusion given the claim quoted above. But, neither of us are biologists and I am open to your postion being hte case. I simply see no evidence for it. This type of stuff only turns up in pop sci.
Quoting Vaskane
Ok, well this is not much more than a rant and engages literally nothing i've said - including the fact that you're continually lying about what i've said. Feel free. Dummy-spitting is quite common. Your position makes no sense and you've contradicted yourself multiple times in service of making yourself feel better about condescending to someone who sees through your position as purely emotive. Not my circus.
Quoting Philosophim
Yep. Its called de la Chapelle syndrome.
Fwiw, "my" alternative doesn't derive from me but its certainly true that I 'prefer' a factor other than genetics to determine sex (largely, because of the problems you're dealing with in this thread). It is a standard used by biologists attempting to do exactly what you are - avoiding language complications to prevent productive research or discussion. Two names that come to mind are Colin Wright and Zach Elliot . These are not given as case-closers, just evidence i'm not bringing these things out of either an unrelated field, or my own mind.
The alternative, which is covers every human ever, and categorises into precisely two categories without (known) exception, and with full utility in the sense that once categorised, it gets set aside unless medically relevant, is to use the activation of the SRY gene as a marker for sex, given that this is determinant of which cascade of sexual development is engaged. This version actually lends far more support to intersex individuals as it posits that we should actually pay attention to one's sex, and no one's phenotype, as closely as we have. Also, aberrations down the track abound (sort of.. they're actually very rare) but cannot affect the determination, previous in time, of which sexed hormonal cascade was engaged. This would be the "potential" part of the whole gamete argument, if that was preferred by someone. The potential to produce each gamete is absolutely determined by which cascade is triggered.
Quoting Philosophim
First, have a go at making sense of this piece: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658794/ (the misuse of Gender here is palpable).
Then this https://www.sciencealert.com/a-baby-s-sex-is-about-more-than-just-its-x-and-y-chromosomes-new-research-revealsQuoting Philosophim
have covered, multiple times throughout thread. And in this context, that the person has Klinefelter, as defined, means they are male. Like, someone experiencing menstruation is female. That's not arguable, is it?
Quoting Philosophim
Absolutely. Am trying to establish how this delineation works - you seem resistant.
Quoting Philosophim
No it doesn't. Because that term belongs to a culture in which is it bounded to Males experiencing a certain genetic expression. That is what it symbolises in the culture in which it arose.
Another culture coming along and misappropriating the word isn't helpful, or sensible. At the very least, it violates, entirely hte premise of your attempt to solve the problem that exact thing causes. I'm unsure how this is not obvious.
How on Earth did you derive that from anything I have said? I haven't remotely implied anything like that. I described how attitudes to sex and gender have changed in my lifetime, and asked you why you think it so important to redefine sex, and what that will mean for people. And I still don't have much of an answer. What is the use of this wonderful clarity you propose we adopt?
See my problem is I never took a genetic test, so I don't know what my genes are. So I have to rely on presumptions based on old-fashioned things like having a penis, and being sent to a boys school, and so on. Mrs un, by the way, is at least just as white as she is black, if we are talking genetics, but that is seldom 'counted' by people that count these things for other folk. Except for certain types who like to pretend they 'cannot see race'. Clearly the genetics of race are more complicated than those of sex.
I think identity is always a complex interaction of adopted and assigned, and you are very much in the business of assigning a sexual identity. But your definition does not help, for example, the difficulties faced by sports governance, and I do not see that it helps people with "gender dysphoria" (another imposed identity).
Quoting Philosophim
My point is that we do not have to determine that in the same way or even necessarily at all, in relation to every social situation. What works for this sport may not work for another sport and neither may be appropriate for prison segregation.
Quoting AmadeusD
Ok, is this still just pop sci?
Or this?
Unfortunately, Scientific American has been pop science for awhile now, and is ever more commonly becoming little more than people expressing their politics.
Quoting Joshs
That's rather sloppy political philosophy.
"...the term biologic sex is understood by many to be an outdated term..."
Many what? Many biologists? I seriously doubt it. Understanding sex is rather important in a lot of biological research.
And what are these "trans identities"? Is this a matter of science or of philosophical discussion?
You said you wouldn't reply anyway. But you have, and not provided anything relevant. Not. My. Circus.
Quoting AmadeusD
Right, so the SRY gene is found on the Y chromosome. In the case of De La Chapelle syndrome it only happens because that piece gets broken off the Y and merges with an X. Really, I have no objection to the SRY gene to match all special cases, as long as its genetic.
Quoting AmadeusD
Relax, we're trying to do the same thing. An alternative to your viewpoint does not mean I'm not trying to establish a solid delineation either. I'm just making sure its clear, unambiguous, and not based on phenotype.
Quoting AmadeusD
The point is to demonstrate the logic around how language is formed and framed. Of course if another culture defined the term differently, we would have to come to an agreement on how it was defined. My point is there is nothing innate in only saying, "There are two sexes." Depending on one's approach, and if their definitions are clear and consistent, I can see the viability in declaring more than two, and I don't see any problem in noting this.
By you claiming that sex is a lifestyle choice. I clearly wrote this. Sex is what you are. Lifestyle choices are how you decide to live. Tying lifestyle with sex or race is the definition of sexism and racism.
Quoting unenlightened
You seem to be ignoring the clear reasons I've posted. Clarity of language for clarity of thought. Go back up and read my examples again as I've already replied to you.
Quoting unenlightened
This is a fair argument. If you wish to base sex off of genetalia, I see little objection to that. Since genetics determine genetalia, this seems consistent with my point.
Quoting unenlightened
Sex is not an identity. Sex is an embodiment.
Quoting unenlightened
Also another good point. But to my point, you don't think she has to act a certain way culturally because of her genetics right? If she never painted her nails or wore a dress she would still be a woman right?
Quoting unenlightened
I am not addressing sports, but genetic markers would ensure proper biological separation. And I did address gender dysphoria. Go re-read the first reply I gave to you, I detailed it all out there.
Quoting unenlightened
Sure, not every social situation is determined by sex. But those that are, are. And we need a nice and clear delineation of what counts as sex for that. This is different from dividing social situations by gender. Gender expects you to act and look a certain way, so sex itself is not important in these situations.
Yes. The article also notes the SRY-functional determination of sex and then just ignores it to wank on about phenotypical aberrations post determination. This is akin to that infographic SA posted (made by a social media manager) which claim sex wasn't binary, yet points out that the variations only occur within the determined sex groups.
For your second link, I need only look at your quoted passage:
" the term biologic sex is understood by many to be an outdated term, due to its longstanding history of being used to invalidate the authenticity of trans identities." that is literally politics. Not science. You can also tell this is the case with the following:
". Although sex is typically misconceptualized as a binary of male (XY) or female (XX), many other chromosomal arrangements, inherent variations in gene expression patterns, and hormone levels exist. "
The claim (that sex is typically misconceptualised) relies on the further assertions of the sentence to even be viable. That's again, not science, but politics. Those further elements don't affect one's sex determination. It affects ones 'sex expression' as it was put by Timothy.
And more;
"Moving forward, we should consider implications of sex beyond the binary categories of male (XY) and female (XX). "
That hasn't been the standard for a long time. Most TRAs are arguing with a ghost on this particular topic. Anyhow, this is an opinion piece. It is not supportive of a scientific claim about what sex is.
Quoting Philosophim
AS noted, you seem absolutely resistant to a fool-proof grammatical way of solving your problem. What would you have assumed, If i had rejected the same?
Quoting Philosophim
That was the case from teh go - which is why the resistance seems to obtain, from my perspective. I'm not 'accusing' you of anything, i'm letting you know how it's coming across to me.
Quoting Philosophim
Can only mean anything other than referring to the patent fact that dimorphic species reproduce by the existences of two sexes - if that other culture has usurped teh term and inculcated it into an entirely different system that represents exactly the same thing. Otherwise it is both grammatically, and empirically incorrect at worst, and misleading at best. So, while point is somewhat taken, it is so vanishing in this context I'm not seeing why its being addressed.
Quoting Philosophim
As 'sex' is defined, there is no viable option other than male or female. Again, if another culture usurps this word into a system that has a different word for sex(as we understand it) fine. But that's a ridiculous reason to accept that usurping. Quoting Vaskane
It doesn't. Foucault was and remains risible, along with Nietzsche. You explain yourself with every name-drop.
I'm am just intrigued to understand why and how you think this creates harm.
I think you're getting a little too worked up and reading things that aren't there. I get you're being attacked by others, but not me. I am not resistant to something fool proof and already told you it could work on your follow up. Relax. :)
Quoting AmadeusD
Of course its viable to create more than one sex. We can change definitions. There is no existent thing out there that decrees 'sex must be defined this way'. What is more important is coming up with definitions that serve purposes of being logical, clear, accurate, and useful to the most people. One of the core functions of philosophy is to question and ensure that vocabulary and concept are sometimes redefined or clarified to serve these purposes.
You have to understand that your view that there should only be two sexes is an option. One that you can reason with others to keep. But if you're dogmatic about it? People can viably reject you. Words are agreed upon by communities, not dictated from above.
Hey mate, I'm not editing this back into my more substantive reply, incase you're reading it right now - or, it's not particualrly relevant because I've missed something further on in the thread But:
The above quote seems to indicate that you're not open to the position you're currently taking. Has the position on the above changed, in a way that would explain the current acceptance of redefinition?
Certainly. I posted this earlier and I'll do so again.
Quoting Philosophim
To add to this from some personal experience, I have a friend who is transgender. They mistakenly thought that this meant they needed to transition using hormones and surgery. The reality is they liked dressing up in women's clothing, painting their nails, and putting their hair in a pony tail. They could do all this and be happy. This is someone who is transgendered who initially thought that the only way to fulfill their transgender desires was body alteration. Body alteration through drugs or surgery comes with many risks for people and should be a last resort.
In short, confusion in the transgender and transex community is just as bad as without. People within the community should want clearly defined words and concepts that they can make good decisions with.
Thanks, I will digest this and get back to you. Sorry, I admit, I didn't read all of the comments on here as there are a lot. Thanks for reposting your earlier comments, I appreciate your patience.
More trans people I've known these days don't undertaken the operation or use hormones. Certainly not for the first years.
Quoting Philosophim
Like every other community there is no one codified approach to all this. I'm not sure it would be realistic to expect this. People have different views and self-images in every community.
Let me repost the context first.
Sex is immutable. It is a biological determinant of DNA. Hormone changes do not change your sex, only allow you to emulate a hormone aspect of the other sex. Meaning, both the definition of sex cannot change, and one's sex cannot change.
Here I am not referring to a definition that is mutable in regards to culture. My point here is that the definition of sex is linked to a biological determinant. Thus, if to my earlier point, we linked XX as female and XY as male, that's not changing. The discussion about changing the definition of sex is within the introduction of information that does not fit our original division of the sexes. For example, XXY. My point is that if we are linking sex to chromosomes, it is just as reasonable to say, "XXY is a male variant" versus "XXY is a new sex." The underlying immutableness of sex as chromosomes remains.
I literally do not know what you're reading into my comments, but 'worked up' is not something I'm willing to accept about them. I've explained, in non-emotional terms that you appear resistance. Take it as you will my dude. You have laid out contradictory statements attempt to reject the assertions I've made. I was trying to make sense of this. Unfortunately, this isn't too helpful :P
Quoting Philosophim
That is precisely not what i addressed or talked about in any of my comments.
Quoting AmadeusD
See above. You seem to be arguing with something i've not said. Sex as defined gives no wiggle room to some third appendage. That's my point. And it's flatly true. I also gave an avenue for another culture adding to that - by redefinition, entirely, of the notion of 'sex', and attributing a different symbol to what we understand to be an immutable binary. That this isn't landing seems odd to me. Could you perhaps point out what's getting away from you there?
Quoting Philosophim
Which is the only aim I took, and exactly the one all my comments have pushed toward. Again, can you point out where you think that might not have been the case?
Quoting Philosophim
This is not 'my view'. Sex as defined is restricted to two. It is a binary. It is a term which was designed to signify the reproductive binary of male/female in dimorphic animals. If you want to redefine, I have given an option for that to happen. As it is, your position here is nonsensical as it uses the word 'sexes' (which is restricted to two, by definition) and then calls into question 'my opinion'.
my opinion isn't engaged, whatever, in the above conflict of terminology.
Quoting Philosophim
I really, seriously, cannot grasp what you think is happening here. I'd really, really like for you to go back to the requests for outlining how you could come to the interpretations you have - I am nearly certain you are either wilfully misinterpreting or not reading my entire comments (this, because I've addressed, directly and at-length, many of your points here..)
No one, anywhere, has suggested that this is the case. I have even given a perfectly reasonable scenario in whcih the word 'sex' could be redefined to mean something other than in currently it. Can you remember what that was?
Another community than the one which designed and deployed the term. So we're in agreement. But you're still being extremely resistant to the asserted system (if you don't like it, that's fine. I'm talking about your inapt responses to my comments).
Next response is unrelated - starting a different track of enquiry on your positions:
Quoting Philosophim
Does it not strike you as pathologising to label enjoying certain fashion as some kind of mental condition? (transgenderism is a mental condition, whether or not you think its an illness - its a condition of hte mind, if you see what i mean).
Quoting Philosophim
While i disagree, pretty vehemently, with this claim, the rest of your post was perfect to explain what I saw as contradiction. Thank you very much :)
Not a worry Beverly! Take your time and feel free to disagree after reading it.
Quoting Tom Storm
That's a personal anecdote, not a fact. According to Trangend Health
"Introduction: The number of individuals seeking sex hormone therapy for gender dysphoria has been increasing. The prevalence gender dysphoria has recently been estimated as high as 390 to 460 per 100,000 with a consistently greater prevalence of trans women (MTF) than trans men (FTM). We report here the changing demographics encountered in our experience over the past 2 decades."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906237/#:~:text=Introduction%3A%20The%20number%20of%20individuals,than%20trans%20men%20(FTM).
Quoting Tom Storm
Doesn't that sound like opinions? Everyone can have their own opinion, but if we are going to use language that asks us to accept facts, we need words and definitions that are more than personal feelings. Especially when we have decisions such as medical transition, sports participation, and a whole host of laws being made.
I'm going to ask you this then: "Why is it more advantageous to have language that isn't clear and ambiguous?" How does this benefit any community?
It's a trend I'm seeing in a city of 5 million working in psychosocial services and hospital partnerships where we have around 4% trans clients. But yes, it is my anecdote. My experince tells me this will increase.
Quoting Philosophim
No, I do not believe you can categorize people into neat boxes like this. I would not support trans groups who say only one way to be trans either.
As others have posited, what makes us gatekeepers in this matter? Sports and schools and prisons and changing room owners can work though this issue as they need.
I noted earlier that your point about the SRY gamet was fine. Our only disagreement at this point is that sex must necessarily be defined as being only two. There are good reasons to do so, but I can also see other reasons not to. That's all.
Quoting AmadeusD
Here's an article in scientific America talking about the idea of making more than two sexes.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
As well, I gave you a point about chromosonal variance and the example of 'tall bush' vs 'short tree'. Go re-read the initial point as I think you misunderstood my greater point about when we use modifiers to words vs invent entirely new words.
Quoting AmadeusD
If you can't understand after re-reading my point, then perhaps we just leave it then. Seems pointless to continue if after several replies you can't understand my point and you believe I've misunderstood yours. No harm or foul either, it may just not be our day to convey our proper intentions. :)
Quoting AmadeusD
Where did I state this was a mental condition? Do women have a mental condition for wanting to wear dresses and paint their nails? No. Same with transgendered individuals. Look, my friend wrote lesbian fan fiction for years (Nothing I'm interested in). I've never once thought it was a mental condition.
Quoting AmadeusD
I'm not seeing the contradiction, but you do you at this point. We seem to be talking at cross odds with each other today. That sometimes happens and I don't think there's any fixing it at this point.
This didn't answer my question. My question was, "Why is it good to have language that devolves into ambiguous personal opinion, versus language that is clear and unambiguous?"
Quoting Tom Storm
Asking for clear language to communicate and discuss ideas is not gatekeeping. It is a requirement for honest and productive thought and conversation.
My answer is an attempt to supply you with a different frame for this matter. What I guess I am saying is that your demand for clear language to me seems like it's trying to fence in some complex ideas that have no convenient solution. I fully understand that this might not satisfy everyone, but that's were I sit with this. Maybe there is a more open ended set of descriptors we can use to broaden the language for trans? Either way it isn't really a critical problem from my perspective.
That's why we're on a philosophy board though right? What's convenient about discussing morality, God, or any other host of debated topics? This is avoiding the question once again. You don't have to agree with my definitions. "Why is it good to have language that devolves into ambiguous personal opinion, versus language that is clear and unambiguous?" I think this is a very important question. Why do you think undefined and opinionated words benefit the community?
Quoting Tom Storm
What is the advantage of making words less specific and unclear in this community?
Quoting Tom Storm
Seems important enough for you to have waded in. If you leave now, I'm not going to see your viewpoint. You seem to think that the community needs ambiguous and opinionated language. Why?
Im not here for interminable arguments, Im here to arrive at tentative positions. It seems you now want to gate-keep this site?
Quoting Philosophim
Yes, but theres no need to stay in any one thread once a point is made. I wish more would do this but its not my call how others behave.
Quoting Philosophim
I have explained my position. Not sure it needs further clarification. As I said, not everyone will agree and the matter isnt significant enough to pursue.
Quoting Philosophim
From my perspective youre avoiding my answer.
Oops forgot this point.
You seem to be universalizing my response about one aspect of one issue in order to dramatist a point. I make no such claims about language generally or the community - only what I said about this one matter. And I have already stated that this is my position and others may not like it. It requires no more than this.
Quoting Tom Storm
Then I'm sure you understand now why I'm trying to make words more specific and don't have a disagreement with that. If you are not making claims that it is better for terms to be ambiguous, then you should understand I am not attempting to fence anyone in. Clearer and easily understood terminology is better for the community then ambiguous opinionated terminology.
You do love your definitions don't you. Quoting unenlightened
I clearly wrote that if gene therapy developed to allow more radical changes in genes, then one's genetic make up would not be immutable and become a lifestyle choice. Just as it is already a lifestyle choice to modify one's hormone levels and body form. You interpret the conditional as an absolute, because you did not read to understand, but to dispute.
" Tying lifestyle with sex or race is the definition of sexism and racism." As for this, it is really just bluster. If one notices for example that black men are hugely over represented in the prison population, that might be because of lifestyle being associated with race, or it might be because of a racist culture. A bit premature to decide in advance of looking. Women spend more time, money and effort on their appearance than men on average. This is a trivial social observation, not sexism. Just cool your ardour and have a little respect.
Quoting Philosophim
Again you use your definition to prove other definitions and conceptions wrong. You know that is illegitimate argument. Bodies can be modified, and this I suspect is what motivates you to retreat to genes as the last refuge of immutability. The story of mankind, and in particular of the scientific revolution is very much one of liberation from the immutability of nature. And every stage has suffered resistance from the old guard. Transport overcomes the limits of legs, refrigeration the limits of the seasons, and so on.
Eunuchs go back a long way before genetics were dreamed of, and the technique of controlling and modifying sex has been applied to humans and domesticated animals since antiquity. These were and still are seen as sexual modifications - one does not hear much about the gender identity of geldings. In animal husbandry, sex is a function, and one to be controlled, not at all immutable. Not penis, but functioning balls define the male. But this does not define the man who has had the snip, but can still satisfy his lover in all matters bar impregnation.
These are perfectly understandable usages that reflect the complexity of life rather better in my opinion than a rigid definition can manage.
I also feel like we are giving to much power to the observer when we say someone changes gender when others judge that they have done something that doesn't fit cultural expectations. Like if I take a trip to Malaysia and suddenly on a street in a village I become a transgendered person. I don't think that makes sense. I get what you mean, but nothing happened to me. Other people had judgments in their minds, that doesn't make me move from being male to transgendered. This could be simple language misuse, but since that's the topic, I thought I'd mention it.
I think one problem out there in this debate, in some minds, is that sometimes genders are fixed. Oh, I have these traits, I am really male.
But in other instances they are not fixed.
Sure, I did that and I am a woman. Women can do that and feminine people can do that.
Are there personality traits that entail one is REALLY a woman or REALLY a man, or not?
I think there are a lot of mixed messages about this and in some ways fueling rage on both sides for what I think is no reason.
The old rigid sex and gender stereotypes were limiting for both sexes.
Some people hang onto to those.
And now, oddly, the Left has a mixed message about these.
I see no safe haven to be ourselves on any part of the political spectrum.
Once again, stop quoting things you know nothing about. The screenshot you used simply says states what sexe means and its etymology. No etymological dictionary is needed for that, you can find that information in any online French dictionary.
Sexus does not mean to differentiate nor does it mean to cleave. You don't know the difference between adjectives, nouns, and verbs functionally illiterate.
English sex does not come from Latin sexus. It comes from French sexe. Otherwise you would have proved the sexus>sex sound change a long time ago, but you haven't done that, because you can't, because it doesn't exist.
You disgracefully abuse de Vaan's dictionary like a barbarian, I showed how it doesn't support your illiterate claims because you are uneducated and can't interpret the dictionary, then you go and skip to another source that states nothing that is beyond obvious. You do that in other posts. When your own ignorance is thrown on your face, you skip to something that is irrelevant to what is at hand.
You are an idiot who thinks himself smart but can't even read. That is usually what happens to mediocre people who skip to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer without first reading what those two are referencing.
Going over the quote again, for the sane people with rational souls who might be interested. The meaning of the word sectio, deverbal action noun of sec?, suggests that sexus might come from secare. But the morpohology is still not clear. Why? In Latin, verbs typically don't derive nouns straight from their stem. Sexus does not come directly from the verb secare like dissecare does, but either from a reconstructed stem that underlies the verb secare, or from another reconstructed stem (this one hypothetical, not confirmed to exist) that underlies the noun secus which one is unknown. Otherwise, de Vaan would put sexus under the entry for sec? after "Derivatives", but he doesn't, sexus has its own entry.
Quoting Vaskane
There was no particular reason for the choices in that list. It is funny how I am giving you a taste of your own poison over the last few days and you have gone obsessed over me. If you are gonna try to bully people online, consider not trying hard to look like you have XXY kariotype.
Transsexualism is a condition. A transsexual may present as their assigned gender (especially before they begin HRT), so they may not be transgender at that point. The medical condition transsexualism is for some people the basis of trangenderism - we call that position trans-medicalism.
I don't consider trans people to all be confused. I actually think some are right. I don't think that's actually well supported by science, but I nevertheless believe it.
But I think currently it has become a very confusing movement and misleading people into problematic outcomes. Not all of them, but many of them.
Quoting flannel jesusI think their would be a huge reduction. I also think that many of the people who end up now identifying with the sex they weren't born as AND who don't take hormones or get operations would now not really have to make a decision. They could do what they want without the need to decide they are the other sex. I think there would be beneficial side effects for people who never consider themselves trans. Many of these people may feel ashamed of certain facets of their personality or their interests or the way they move. Let's throw that out the window.
When I was a kid, boys did not want to be seen as/called 'fags', for example, regardless of whether they were homosexual or not. These rules about what a boy or girl should be and should not be cause everyone problems, limit everyone. I think the current, often well intended messages, are actually pushing us back in time in some ways. And that's from the Left. There is an essential gender. There is not an essential gender. The messages get sent out by the same people depending on the conversation.
I can easily imagine I might have wondered if I was 'really' a woman at times due to this or that facet of me. I had enough hallucinated fears and real fears. Hey, let's throw another one on top. Add in the mixed message and it's actually quite a damaging situation.
I don't see where Jesus ever tell his followers to "masc it up" -- what's ultimately important is whether one is "in christ" or not. Maybe someone is more "in christ" in the opposition gender. Gender roles don't play a major focus in the OT either. Jesus says we are not saved by our deeds so who are we to condemn all trans people to hell?
Deut. 22:5 does have a prohibit against crossdressing, but if you look into the hebrew it's actually very interesting and not at all as clearly cut and dry as english bibles make it out to be.
This will be my last reply. The reason why, is that you are wilfully ignoring almost everything I have said to service a continuation of your point, which has been dealt with ad nauseum throughout several thorough replies. I will insert quotes to show that this is the case at every step of this exchange. It is not worth my time to continue speaking with you on a topic through which you remain impossible to converse with..
For the above:
We didn't disagree about that. Whcih i've pointed out. I've given several copies of the scenario in whci teh word can be redefined You have utterly refused to point out how you've come to conclusions counter to the exact things I have said, continually. This is example 1.
Quoting Philosophim
I have already dealt with even this specific article in this thread. It expressly points out that there are two determined sexes and variations within them. I have also point out, elsewhere inthis thread, that it is the exact same scenario as when SA posted an infographic by a Social Media manager that claimed the same - and concluded that there are indeed two sexes. The problem you seem to be 100% ignoring is that you are foregoing any attempt whatsoever to label (what we currently call) sex correct. I don't give a hoot if you think 'sex' can be redefined. Sure. But then WHAT REPLACES IT TO ACCURATELY DENOTE THE TWO *what we currently call* SEXES? You're just straight-up ignoring half of the conversation you're trying to have.
Quoting Philosophim
Neither of these things are true, and neither of them are intimated by anything elther of us has said - other than you constantly pretending that you haven' read direct replies to your insistence on redefinition etc.. which is have AGREED TO MULTIPLE TIMES. THIS is why I can't grasp what you think is going on. It is utterly insensible in light of the actually exchange being had. If i said "Hey, how're you doing?" and you reply "Uh, it's about 11:45 i think" you need to be told you didn't address teh question. That is eaxctly what's happening here.
Quoting Philosophim
I did not intimate that you did. If you read what I wrote and took that you from it you literally had to make up a load of words that I didn't write. Apart from this, this utter strawman you want me to reply to is insulting. You can do better.
My entire point is that "transgenderism" is a condition, and that liking certain fashion is not. HOw could you possible be this horrible at reading plain English? This si why I asked you to go back and poinmt out how you got to these conclusions. YOu've refused. I have to assume you are not actually reading these replies, now that i've given you the chance to show otherwise.
Quoting Philosophim
Sorry, are you actually having trouble understanding plain English here? You literally quoted where i said i saw a contradiction and you cleared it up.
I apologise but this frustration is 100% warranted. You are not engaging whatosever. You are either being dishonest, or not reading my replies, you're bringing up things that aren't related to points, you're misattributing utterances and you're making claims about things you're quoting that aren't supported by the quotes.
They do. Though. The ambiguous language is what leaves open all of the routes of harm.
Compassion without analysis is bereft of effectiveness.
I do. I've found in many discussions over the years that unclear or poor definitions are 9/10ths of the problem. Not to say I'm not guilty of using poor definitions of my own. But I do try where possible not to.
Quoting unenlightened
See? Now I'm guilty of being unclear. :) The point is that sex is genetic. If you could change your genes, then you could change your sex. I have no problem with that. Modifying specific sex hormones or castrating your normal hormone production organs doesn't make you the opposite sex. If you're a male, you're now a male with low testosterone and higher levels of estrogen. If you get surgery to cut your breast tissue out, you're a woman with missing breast tissue.
A male Eunich, is still a male. A woman in a suit is still a woman. A man who paints their nails is a man who paints their nails. This is clear and universal no matter what one's gender intentions are. I think that makes the issue clear and unambiguous while avoiding sexism. If you see a problem with this, what's the problem in your view?
Quoting unenlightened
This is not bluster. This is very real. If you say, "Because you're black, you have to like basketball," that's racism. If you say, "Because you're black, you probably like basketball," that's prejudice. If you say, "Because you're a woman, you paint your nails," is sexism. "Because you're a woman, you probably paint your nails," is prejudice. Tying expected culture with the physical attributes of a person is the source of prejudice and isms.
Quoting unenlightened
But does that mean that going to prison means you're black? Or that if you're black, we should say, "You're probably been, or are going to prison one day?" In the case of a fact, that more people who are black go to prison, it is important that we understand it is either culture, or other people's culture that have put them there. We don't say, "It is an aspect of being born black that causes you to commit more crimes." right?
Quoting unenlightened
If its a social observation, its likely prejudice. But lets avoid that. Lets say we have actual facts that women spend more on their appearance than average. Is that across all cultures? Is that the destiny of a woman's DNA that this be? If I'm a woman who spends less on my appearance than most men, does that mean suddenly I'm not a woman anymore? My sister never paints her nails, wears minimal make up, and doesn't wear dresses. She's married to a man and has two kids. Is my sister not a woman? Is she a gay man who had children with her gay lover? While this might seem silly, I have seen gender/sex discussions devolve into such nonsense. My sister is a woman by her DNA, not her expressed culture or actions.
Quoting unenlightened
No, because I've clearly separated culture and expectations associated with someone who has a particular body. And what is male and female based off of? What are we crossing? The sexual aspects of bodies. Gender is the cultural expectations we heap upon those different bodies. That's why its 'trans' gender. Trans means to move. You are moving from a gender expected of a female, to the gender expected of a male. You are not becoming male in body. That would be transex. Isn't that clear and unambiguous? What's wrong with it being clear and unambiguous?
Quoting unenlightened
No, its not modification. Its that there can be variety in sexual expression. A man can have extremely low testosterone. A woman can have abnormally high testosterone. That doesn't change their sex. Whether you modify aspects of your body, or the phenotype of your body is naturally 'abnormal', it doesn't change your sex. If I put blackface on am I black? No different than putting whiteface on doesn't make me white.
Quoting unenlightened
I have no problem with modification. You seem to be attributing things beyond my argument. If transex people wish to modify their body, I have no problem with this. I believe people should be free to do what they want to do in life. There are people who also want to cut their arm off. If after a discussion they still want to, let them. You seem to have a problem with me trying to make the language between gender and sex more clear. Why? What advantage is there in keeping them ambiguous and confusing? That's not advancement.
Quoting unenlightened
Of course. But they're still male eunichs. We're taking males and making sure they can't reproduce. They don't magically turn into women.
Quoting unenlightened
"Primary sex determination is the determination of the gonads. In mammals, primary sex determination is strictly chromosomal and is not usually influenced by the environment. In most cases, the female is XX and the male is XY. Every individual must have at least one X chromosome."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9967/#:~:text=Primary%20sex%20determination%20is%20the,at%20least%20one%20X%20chromosome.
In otherwords, its a male without balls. And of course this would be identified as such. A male without balls cannot be milked or birth. They don't say, "Its a female cow that can't be milked or give birth."
Quoting unenlightened
As you can see, they don't. I have a very important question for you. Why the resistance to clearer definitions and language? Why the resistance between the division of sex as embodied, and gender as culture? What advantage does that give? Doesn't it seem dishonest to coach your words in ambiguity as if you're hiding something? Honesty is straight forwards and unambiguous. So lets have some honesty.
Quoting AmadeusD
He must remain risible for you in order for you to maintain your way of understanding the basis of scientific fact.
He was a poor sociologist. This is risible, also. There are two sexes. I'm engaging with the responses.
I can do no more.
Again, I think you're misreading my intentions, and I can't seem to read yours. You're coming across as angry and hostile. Which is fine. But I'm not seeing this as a productive conversation right now. I genuinely don't understand where you're coming from with your last few replies, and that tells me something is crossed in the communication that isn't going to be resolved over the forums this time.
So I think its best that you've said your piece, I've said mine, and we go our own way at this point. Makes sense right? You're battling a lot of other people in this thread, so have the gift of one less. :)
Quoting Philosophim
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting AmadeusD
So you can see why I'm confused here. And you're confused that I'm confused. And I'm confused that YOU'RE confused. And now you're yelling and saying things like, "How can you be so bad at English?!" I feel like you're juggling too many conversations at this point and getting things crossed up.
Quoting AmadeusD
Have you considered your English isn't as clear as you think? I have to redo and clarify what I've written all the time. When communicating with other people its often true that things which seem clear to us in our head are not conveyed as we wish when it meets other minds. Notice, I'm not putting the entire blame on you, but also noting that what I'm writing to you seems to keep being misinterpreted as well.
So I think the issue is unresolvable, we should tip our hat to each other, and try this again another day.
I'm not sure I would call transexualism a condition. Transexualism is an action of bodily modification. Your statement is like saying, "I'm a body builder" but you've never lifted a weight in your life. You are a body builder after you start body building. You are a transexual after you start modifying your body.
If you have not transitioned your sex, but practice aspects of gender that you perceive as being associated with the other sex, then you are still just trasngendered. Once you transex and practice as that sex, I would say you are no longer transgendered, but acting as the gender your have changed your sex to. Does that make sense?
There are two sexes into which every single human fits neatly. If they dont fit your definitions, thats an issue for you.
Then let me clarify. It is intentional and continual exhibition of cultural actions within one's culture that defy the cultural expectations of their sex. For example, If in a culture it is acceptable for men to wear a particular type of skirt, a kilt for example, but a woman decided to wear one, she would be making an intentional transgendered action.
In America there is a term for women who act like men in terms of aggression, actions, and language. Its called a "Tom Boy". That's a transgendered woman in her actions. Of course, in a culture where aggressive women are the norm, she would not be transgendered. Transgenderism is the stereotypes, prejudice, and social enforcement of behavior actions based on your biological sex. It is highly mutable and can differ not only from culture to culture, but from person to person.
In fact, we can break 'transgendered' up into several different types. There could be 'self identified transgender' vs 'accidental transgender' vs 'local culturally transgendered' etc. As noted, gender is highly mutable and can differ wildly from person to person.
Quoting Bylaw
Yes, you would be transgendered in that culture. You would not be transgendered in your culture. Anytime we talk about culture, we involve at least one other person, or observer. The only way we remove other people from culture is if we have a completely personal opinion as to what a gender is. So for example, lets say that I believe wearing a dress as a woman is transgender. In my culture, every woman wears dresses. But in my mind, only boys should, so I say that all women are transgender. This is fine for my personal idea of transgenderism. But the moment I involve one other person, my own personal identification can be disagreed with by other people.
Quoting Bylaw
The only way this is possible is if only a man, or only a woman, could exhibit a personality trait. If even one man or woman exhibited a personality trait that we associated only with the other sex, then that would dispel the notion that that particular personality trait was derived from being that particular sex.
To say otherwise is sexism.
Quoting Bylaw
Which is what we have philosophy for! We can remove politics and discuss freely the definitions and nature of the issue. Here we are allowed to question and wonder without judgement or threat. I honestly feel this is where the issue can be resolved, not in politics.
quote="AmadeusD;888011"]?Joshs your ad hominem is duly noted[/quote]
But from one hominem to another, I have a point, no? Did you form your opinion by reading Foucaults texts or listening to your prof? Btw, what do you think of Thomas Kuhns view of how science works?
Quoting Vaskane
Rationalists have a grab bag of em for all occasions : ad hominem, false equivalence, category error. They whip them out like a crucifix to ward off the idea that the rational is a species of the irrational.
Yet one can be diagnosed as a transsexual and still perform/behave as their assigned gender.
Ah, there has been a trend to move away from transsex as a mental disorder. I do not attribute it as a mental disorder here. But, if you want to attribute it as a mental disorder, than you are correct.
Yeah, I would also rather call it a condition rather than a "mental disorder." Do not stigmatize it as a "mental illness." And this applies across a number of conditions.
It's always refreshing to be asked what one thinks instead of being told. I resist clear definitions because they over-simplify life.
Firstly, as has been pointed out, the genetic picture is subject to various anomalous and exceptional conditions that have been somewhat discussed by others. This does not altogether prevent one from establishing an absolute rule such that there are exactly two kinds of human genome that we could call male and female, and we could then extend this from the genotype to the phenotype.
But then, apart from declaring that an individual falls genetically into one or other camp, what does it actually say about the individual? If it says nothing, then it it becomes completely trivial, and uncommunicative in almost every circumstance outside of the gene lab. But if it says something significant about the individual, it falls into exactly the generalising and potentially prejudicial vagueness you are trying to avoid.
I have mentioned sports, where men and women of either sex are sometimes separated on the basis of hormone levels, and prisons, where genitalia would seem to me to be the thing to be mainly concerned about.
"...men and women of either sex..." this is the sort of cumbersome usage that results from your definition of sex. I don't like it, but it seems to follow from your definition that we would have to talk in some way about hormones, genitalia, physique and social grouping in 'sex-neutral' ways.
Or, and this is my suspicion, the whole idea is, that having made the ruling and established its writ, that it should be applied universally and enforced and imposed, limiting folk to 'what their genes say'.
Quoting Vaskane
hehe. Keep it up!
Quoting Joshs
To begin, I didn't make one. Foucault isn't a scientist or an expert on sex development, so I approached his work with that in mind. It is lacking. If i impugned your position, it was to do with your reliance on a single person (as presented - I take it for granted thats not hte extent of your position, heh). A quip, if you will, with no comment on you personally.
But, with that, no, I don't think you did. Pointing out that 'Foucault has some insights for you' isn't really a point, in this sense anyway. Its just a suggestion i read a writer. Which is fine. I replied with my position on that writer. No sure where there's an issue.
It appears you two are under the impression that facts don't exist, or that fallacies don't occur? An odd way to get out of the weird holes you're in, intellectually. Ah well.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
This was the point i made earlier, duly ignored. It is a mental condition, whether or not you consider it aberrant, an illness or anything else - it's a condition of the mind. And apparently, a somewhat unique one.
I also, though, have no problem calling someone who literally believes they are, or can become, the opposite sex, mentally ill. I don't see any issue with that. The way you deal with the individual can't be that, though.
Is your position that sex, per se, is not a binary, or that it varies independently of biology? Not a loaded question, I just can't understand where you place yourself... some of waht you're saying seems to support a position as above, and some appears to be pushing toward a clear-cut notion of sex as definite, but somewhat unimportant.
You may have missed my discussion with AmadeusD, but we went over that. I have no issue with more than 2 sexes. I also have no issue with someone saying, "There are two sexes, and this is a genetic variant with different phenotypical expression". The point that I care about is that sex is tied to something beyond culture and opinion. Makes sense right? Just for the act of sex alone based on your orientation. People sleep with bodies, not personal identities.
Quoting unenlightened
Correct. No disagreement here. It only matters in specific cases that are tied completely to biology. So men can't menstruate for example. There are certain diseases and conditions that can only happen to men or women. Sex is about biology, and nothing else.
Quoting unenlightened
Right, this is gender. And yes, you're correct. Gender is often prejudicial, and can sometimes cross into sexism. My point is when you tie gender as necessarily coming from sex when it clearly doesn't, for example saying you're a biological woman if you paint your nails, its sexism. We have bodies, and gender is our opinion about how those bodies should behave and express themselves within a particular culture.
Quoting unenlightened
I really haven't waded into the sports discussion, as I'm more concerned about clarity of language first. Sports to me is about bodies. Therefore there should be questions about transexuals in sports, not transgendered people in sports. If I'm a biological male who has done nothing to become transex, I should not be allowed in a woman's sport. I leave it to the medical community to determine how far a man should transsex to be viable competition in woman's sports.
Prison is the same. Do we separate women and men because of gender, or because of the physical realities of their sex? Its sex. Therefore a man who expresses their gender associated with their idea of a woman, should still be in a male prison. A transexual women could be in a female prison after an evaluation has been done to determine how much transex has occurred for the safety and sexual protection of the other sex.
Quoting unenlightened
That wasn't my intention and perhaps I wrote that poorly. Sex would be biological, so clear. You would be a female on hormones, or a male on hormones. I think what makes more sense is that such things would be stated in 'gender-neutral' ways, as gender is not sex or the body, it is an aspect of culture.
Quoting unenlightened
Do not be suspicious, say what you mean. Treat me as an honest person until I show you otherwise. We need honest and trusting discussion to be productive. Say what you feel, I will take no offense. This is philosophy, not politics. Here is where we should be willing to say and explore every facet without judgement (ideally anyway).
My point is that sex is bodily, so areas of the world that are separated by bodies should not consider transgenderism. Like I noted with sports and prisons above. And on the flip side, areas of the world that are separated by gender, should not concern themselves with differences of sex. So a woman who wears a suit is still a woman. How she expresses, dresses, or behaves, has no impact or change on her sex.
My position is that there is not a thing "sex" that is or isn't binary, nor do I want there to be. We talk about men and women and it is uncontroversial for me (or you) to say "I am a man" and there is no need to enquire as to my hormones my genitalia or my genes. I also talk about "my wife", but if pressed, I cannot produce a marriage certificate, yet I think everyone understands well enough. (We held hands and jumped over a broom.)
Thank you for clarifying
This is you imposing your morality on the world. It may be your ideal, and how you would like it to be, but it is a long, long way from the actual.
The actual is that a woman with a beard is a freak. Therefore, a woman with a beard might prefer to 'pass as a man'. And in that case, your insisting on referring to her with the female pronoun is not merely oppressive, but dangerous and possibly life-threatening.
I don't think this is morality, this is just a proper way to identify people.
Quoting unenlightened
This is a case of morality. First, I'm not saying people can't emulate other sexes and attempt to pass in casual settings where sex does not matter. I'm only noting that when sex does matter, emulation should be deemed good enough. Growing a beard does not mean a woman has a prostate exam for example.
Calling a woman who is emulating as a man is not dangerous. What's dangerous is if people think they should commit violence against a woman who is emulating as a man, or has secondary sex characteristics that are typically associated with a man. We have not yet discussed pronouns yet, but we may here.
The problem with pronouns is they have traditionally been sex driven, not gender driven. In old times if I was told I was going to meet my future wife and I would love her, everyone knew she meant 'female sex'. Now, that doesn't mean this tradition needs to continue, but there should be a good reason to change it.
So, lets think about it. Gender is a cultural construct, or an expectation of how a particular sex should act. Is this consistent across all cultures? No. In fact, this might not be consistent across even small groups of people or individuals.
The purpose of communication is to convey an idea clearly and efficiently. When I say a 'car' you don't think a 'truck'. When pronouns mean sex, the conveyance is clear. Bodily female or male. Pronouns, which are not culturally bound, must remain culture neutral to keep their clear conveyance. Since different cultures have different ideas of gender, it is not rational for pronouns to be used to match culture, to keep their clarity.
What you're looking for is 'slang'. Slang happens when we take a word that means one thing in a language, and repurpose it within a culture. Thus the word 'drip' can mean more than water droplets trickling, but 'snazzy dress'. If I call someone a snazzy dresser instead of saying, "You have drip", I am not participating in slang, but cross culture language.
This means that if a group of people, or a sub culture wants to call a transgender person a pronoun that doesn't fit their sex, its fine. But that's slang, not official. Requiring other people to use slang is of course, wrong. Being offended that people do not use slang is also wrong. I don't have to use the word 'drip' or 'jelly' or 'cool' if I don't want to. Can people who use slang push it to become part of the vernacular? Of course. But that doesn't erase the other meanings of the word in the culture either. I have no issue with people using pronouns as slang. But if they insist that pronouns as slang should eliminate the normative use of the term, I'm going to reject that. Pronouns as sex identification is far more valuable as a culturally neutral term than as slang.
This is very grand wording and may sometimes even be true. It doesn't seem useful in the case of my position on trans.
I believe people should be the gender they consider themselves to be. I have no theory of sex or trans and don't need one.
I agree with that definitions can be limiting.
Quoting Philosophim
I understand but I choose not to take that approach on this issue.
Quoting Philosophim
You've made that point several times. Here's my point again, which only applies to this particular matter.
In culture, the matter of trans identity is still finding its way. Trans people themselves have a range of views and approaches. For now my opinion is that we need to remain open to a range of understandings in the space and not police the language and conceptual frameworks too much. That's all.
Perhaps today some people would call a Tom Boy transgendered, but when I was growing up those girls were not considered transgendered and things were vastly more conservative about gender roles then. It was one of the types of normal girls. If someone had thought they were truly transgendered they would have used a much harsher name.
Quoting PhilosophimOf course other people can disagree. But saying that the Malaysians disagree, doesn't mean I am transgendered. I haven't become something else. I am in a place where some people would think I am outside the proper role/set of traits. I'm not saying they are wrong and I am right. I may not even be thinking I am anything in particular. But I don't become something else because of how they see me.
This I can understand. My counter, and you may disagree with me, is that trans people are people, not a specialized group. We all speak English and share language. It is the responsibility of those that want to move beyond their isolated culture to invite us all in and allow our input as well. I appreciate your viewpoints Tom, we'll catch you another time!
Quoting Philosophim
Why do you think it has become important for those advocating for changes in the way society thinks about gender to alter the traditional association of pronouns with plumbing? Isnt it because they believe that the use of these pronouns has evolved in most cultures to associate maleness with power and privilege not accorded to femaleness? You may believe that these pronouns only refer to plumbing, but centuries of self-justifying oppression against a group that is categorized on basis of plumbing shows that most have not understood the relation between plumbing and gender roles the way you do. So how do we define what it means for the meaning of a word to be used accurately?
The etymological history of language shows that the meaning of words continually shifts over time. Shouldnt accuracy of words be defined on the basis of the dominant way they are actually understood by a culture, rather than by recourse to categorization based on a presumed authority ( such as biological plumbing) that the culture is not paying attention to? Why was the word negro changed to black? After all, one could argue that it is merely a translation of the French word for black into English. But those who advocated for a change knew that this is not how negro was understood by the dominant culture of the U.S. in the mid 20th century. The word black was chosen as a more accurate verbal representation of a being with equal social status to whites than the word negro symbolized.
Similarly, allowing individuals to chose their preferred pronouns over he or she is designed to offer a more accurate verbal representation of what they consider as their gender and/or how they want their social status to be perceived. To what extent they succeed in achieving this through their chosen pronoun will vary from person to person, and Im sure some will try out different variations to see if they achieve the desired response. The ongoing reinvention of gender-related language is a an experiment still in progress. Like all etymological changes that have taken place in history, we will likely go through a number of permutations before society settles down for a time with a consensus on what accurately reflects the emerging understanding of the relation between sex, gender, status and power. But I am assuming we will not be returning to he and she for the same reasons that negro is not likely to be making a comeback any time soon.
:up: No worries. Disagreement is fine. We're not all the same. Thanks for the chat.
Great question that I'll try to clarify. Lets say a woman acts 'aggressive' and no one blinks an eye. Within that culture, its accepted that someone of her sex can act that way. However, she enters into a culture where aggressiveness is seen as male. People tell her, "You're acting like a man with that aggression." At this point she understands within that culture that her behavior is seen as belonging to the male gender, not the female gender. If she says to herself, "I don't care, I'm still going to be me." she is transgendered in that culture.
Basically, its understanding the gender of a culture, then not being pressured by that culture to follow the gender expectations.
Quoting Bylaw
Yes. To be a transvestite is to dress in the manner as the opposite sex that clearly conveys this to other people. This does not mean they are transex, just transgender.
Quoting Bylaw
Just because we use the term transgendered more today doesn't mean it can't be applied retroactively to the past. Telling someone, "You're acting like a boy," is telling someone, "You're acting like the wrong gender".
Quoting Bylaw
To be clear, being transgender does not mean you've changed your sex. You have not become, "Something else". You are simply dressing, acting, or behaving in a way that a particular culture expects people of a particular sex to do. If I'm a male that likes putting on nail extenders and painting them hot pink, I'm still a male. The action I'm doing is transgender, as normative American culture expects that only women do this.
Here's a more historical example:
It was related to the mother color of red, which was ardent and passionate and more active, more aggressive. Even though you reduce the shade level, it was a color that was associated with boys, Eiseman said.
An article titled Pink or Blue, published in the trade journal The Infants Department in 1918, said that the generally accepted rule is pink for boys and blue for girls. The reason is that pink being a decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, it said."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/colorscope-pink-boy-girl-gender/index.html
As you can see the colors which are escribed to modern genders were once reversed. Did men suddenly become women and vice versa once we switched colors? Of course not.
Quoting Bylaw
I agree! I think we can take questions of 'transgender' and look at them more in depth. If your boy is open with their feelings, why do you think that shouldn't be? They're still a boy whether they hide their feelings or not, so what's the reasoning behind a gendered idea that they should be stoic and unsharing? Separating the body and gender continue to show more benefits and clearer points then blending them together.
Quoting Philosophim
This isnt quite accurate. Trans isnt simply slot ratting within an already defined and culturally familiar binary. It can mean transcend as well as transition between. It can just as well be true that a transgender perceives themselves to be acting in a way that defies all gender expectations of a culture. Not because they are acting like either a male or a female , or some combination thereof, but because their gender is idiosyncratic and outside of the familiar categories.
Wouldn't it be far easier to get people to stop associating maleness with power and privilege? Do you think changing the meaning of pronouns is going to erase this? No, that's stilly. People associating more to a word than its meaning and general use are using slang. If there is slang that implies being a 'he' means power, then the slang needs to be addressed, not the culturally neutral term of the pronoun.
Quoting Joshs
'He' is a biological mail, 'she' is a biological female. That's it. Anything more attributed to that then this is slang, and an issue with the people involved not the language.
Quoting Joshs
Of course words can change over time, but there is still the question of whether this is a positive or negative change. What you're talking about is stereotyping and sexism. First, the entire culture is not using pronouns as a form of oppression. Most of us are just using it to identify sex.
Second, anyone who uses them as a form of oppression is adding more to the word than intended. They are 'genderfying' the word. And as you can see, that creates a problem doesn't it?
Third, there are multiple cultures who all have their own uses of words, but when we communicate cross cultures we understand we need common ground. The minority culture may ask the majority culture to use the minorities terms, but they may not demand it. Makes sense right? If most people used the word 'cool' to describe something awesome, and a minority demanded that the majority stop using it that way, I don't think it would go so well.
Quoting Joshs
Excellent point. But we have a very objective reason. Slavery. A difference of use that was so controversial an entire war was fought over it because negro was synomyous with 'inferior person'. But pronouns don't have an objective abuse like this. Further, the color change had the same underlying meaning it was trying to get to, "that they had black skin". The idea that pronouns change to gender defies the entire purpose of the underlying word, which is to describe sex.
Quoting Joshs
Society is not obligated to view you how you view yourself. This is what a child does. "I'm strong!" "No you're not" *Child gets mad and storms off* Part of maturing is realizing that you exist in society and other people see you differently than you see yourself. Part of existing in society is learning how to get others to see you the way you want, which requires effort on your part. No one is every obligated to see you as you see yourself simply because you tell them they should.
If I want others to see me as strong, I need to lift heavy weights. If I want others to see me as kind, I'ld better act kind. Even then, people will have their own opinions. "Nah, they're not that strong, that's just 120 pounds" "Kind? All they did was listen to another person's problems, that's basic."
Now, can someone tell a local group, "Hey, would you mind calling me he or she? It makes me happy." That's fine. People can say "No" or they can say, "Yes". Its up to them. But it is using the word differently as initially intended, asking them to covert it to a slang which describes gender in that group. No one is obligated to participate in your slang. No one is obligated to see you as you see yourself. It may be kind to. Some people may not mind. But it is never an obligation or something that should be enforced as being official.
Quoting Joshs
That is what we're doing here. Appreciate your input to the discussion. :)
Quoting Joshs
I disagree, on the points I addressed earlier.
Quoting Joshs
I'm not sure I understand. Gender is a cultural expectation for how each sex should act within that culture. But culture doesn't make all actions about gender. For example, all people wear shoes. All people breath. Its not transcending gender, its just being a human.
Maybe you mean in a case in which there is an expected way for one gender to act, but not an opposite in the other gender? Can you give me an example, I think that would help.
Quoting Joshs
See, if a man or a woman started to walk around barefoot, I wouldn't see that as transcending gender. That's just defying cultural expectations for people.
Quoting Philosophim
And one could argue the purpose of the word negro was to describe color of skin. But it was likely never simply a neutral label, because it was shaped right from the start by the cultural context of its use, just as pronouns were never purely about biological sex. The modern scientific concept of sex didnt even exist until recently. Tracing the etymological history of male-female pronouns through different cultures would produce in every case meaning in which whatever natural sense of the binary was hopelessly and inextricably entangled with cultural understanding of gender roles.
Quoting Philosophim
You want to be careful here , because look how easily we could insert the word negro into your account. In fact , conservatives like William F . Buckley used a justification not unlike your argument for not supporting the civil rights movement. Society was supposedly not ready for such changes. The burden was upon the negroes to convince the larger population of the need for the changes they advocated. I agree that whether ones cause is worthy ultimately will be decided not simply by our own desires but by convincing others. And I would argue that this is precisely what we are now seeing across Western cultures. Advocates have put enormous effort and passion into changing minds, and as a result todays culture, especially the young, are showing a desire to change their vocabulary.
I did note that. And I also agreed with you that it had grafted a connotation onto it that was entirely too negative as to ever be disregarded. I also noted however that the new word continued with the non-offensive use of the term which is simply describing skin color.
This is not a good analogy for the change of pronouns.
1. You aren't disregarding the old words to make a new word, you are using the same word. We're still using 'him' and 'her'. This would be like me still continuing to use negro but saying, "Yeah, but it doesn't mean slave or black anymore, don't think that way."
2. The disregard for negro was to regard what was offensive or oppressive. There is nothing offensive or oppressive about the part that pronouns were used primarily to identify sex.
So you are not creating a new word to keep the inoffensive part of an old word. You are saying we remove the inoffensive point of the word and replace the meaning of the word with something else entirely. Why erase a word describing sex? What's the benefit?
Quoting Joshs
I would like to hear more specific examples then general claims. My understanding is that in most cultures for most uses of the use of pronouns, it refers to sex. This is also not argument against my point as to why pronouns are better used to describe sex than gender. Please address that point if you would.
Quoting Joshs
Don't just tell me I should be careful. Tell me how I'm doing the same thing. Otherwise I'm going to handwave this away considering your analogy with negros doesn't work.
Quoting Joshs
Correct. And as philosophers we should ask if their arguments are valid and helpful. If we started spreading telling all of the children in America that the president should be a king, does that make it right? Of course activism is happening. That's not an argument for it being right. Try to go back to my points that sex is a fine neutral term that crosses cultures, whereas gender creates cross cultural problems in communication.
Or, at least [to black box moral realism/antirealism]I would not now be an immoral person, but back home I'm not. I'd rather couch the issue as I would be seen as immoral there. And even if housekeeping came in and caught us, I don't think I am now an immoral person. But, yes, absolutely, I will be seen as such. It's a kind of reification and simplification of the more complicated process. Or to shift to emotions. If I go from my usual day to day contacts with people who have some broad common views of how one interacts. I then end up at a wedding reception with people from a culture where insults are part and parcel of all rites of passage and they aim a lot of at me. I don't think it makes sense to say 'I am an angry person.' Better to me: I get angry when insulted. Insults mean something different to me which leads to...... Quoting Philosophim
So, are you transgender as a transvestite when you dress that way, or all the time? What if you are traditionally male in your culture 99% of the time, but once in a while you dress up as a woman to get sexual pleasure? But then otherwise a violent, womanizing professional rugby player (on a men's team) who only talks about cars, sports and how to fix things with tools around the house. :grin: Apologies to anyone offended by my tongue in cheek ethnology example. And in a sense the reason it works is the sexual frisson this occasional behavior creates due to the contrast with his usual way of being. It's not finally showing his true nature in secret. Or, the same man otherwise who instead likes to be dominated sexually, sometimes. I suppose I am probing here because I think it might be better not to label people and in a binary way (not just that it's binary between male and female, but also binary between being transgender or not.) Not that it has the horrific moral overtones of the one drop of blood determination of race, but perhaps has a similar misleading binariness. Quoting Philosophim
But that's just the thing: to me, at least in general, they were not told that. It was not a term of insult, nor was it part of getting them back on the right side of the gender fence. It was a kind of minority normalness. Oh, she's a tom boy. Now that might have been in the subculture I was in, loosely urban U.S. But it was a fairly diverse group of children and people - well, that's urban. There was a qualititative difference between being called a tom boy and being called a 'fag' say. One could say, parent to parent, Oh your girl's quite the tom boy and not get into a fist fight.Quoting PhilosophimMy quibble has less problem with this last description - the actions are transgendered there, which they would be even if I never realized during my whole stay. Rather than become transgendered. And natives often understand that that's just the way people are from other cultures.Quoting PhilosophimI did understand that one wasn't changing sex in this situation. I just don't think you're changing anything at all. The new situation is what is happening in the way you are viewed. Just as the viewing one as male - if the other group thought you were actually male when you're not - doesn't make you male, the viewing you as transgendered doesn't make you differently gendered. I understand that the two judgments/situations are not the same, but me, I'd avoid labeling the person as going from X to Y, and rather describe it in terms of how the different players are viewing the situation.Quoting PhilosophimOne could, I suppose come up with arguments why emphasizing statistical tendencies (different tendencies the different bodies have) might have been useful in tribal situations. But I'm not even sure that holds.
I'm trying to understand your position by posing questions to you that your position entails an answer to... Why does not extend to teh age, race, weight and height one 'considers' themselves to be? This exact logic is why 'adult babies' are a thing. I would assume you note the patent mental arrest involved in that notion? Why do you not apply the same logic to people who are, lets say, unique in their aberrant (socially speaking) perception of themselves? It just seems like you'v enot thought about htis at all, and rely on compassion for a position that has much, much deep implications than "i don't like to upset people"
I treat people as it seems reasonable to do so. If someone is commanding me to refer to them as female when they are patently male (and, in the two specific circumstances I'm recalling - aggressive and mildly violent about it) I'm not doing that. You can go fuck yourself. You are ill.
If someone politely lets me know that they prefer to be called x I have no problem with it. How one wants to be referred to is literally no moment for anyone but them. How they identify matters to everyone around them. And for this reason, your position seems to me obviously lacking in further considerations thank "Hi, I like to be refered to as 'she''
Quoting Joshs
Hmm. Your account seems to suggest, as I would argue, and have done elsewhere, that the concept of being 'transgender' is actually twofold:
In one case, it's an individual claiming to be another gender. I.e, "I am a woman". They are identifying with an existing member of a binary. So, in those cases, I think we are right to say they are either correct or incorrect about what they actually are. Otherwise, calling yourself a woman means literally zero.. But, this leads me to scenario 2...
In this scenario, the person is claiming some identity other than man/woman simply because they think those labels are restrictive. The patent fact is they are not restrictive in traditional uses - no one thinks a woman in a suit is a man, or a man who cries at movies is a woman - the idea is that they are less effective members of their grouping in the binary. So, people who want to escape what they perceive as a restrictive label are attempting to invent a special identity that encompasses only their exact (current) psychological traits. To me, this is absurd in the sense that it makes the concept of 'gender' exactly the same as giving somoene a name, and then using hte name to refer to them. If you want 'other genders' they must be defined, to have any meaning.
So, if, and your account seems to take this as true, "gendered language" is constantly evolving to allow for infinite identities, we're talking about people naming themselves in contrast to everyone else. I have no problem saying that someone who is doing this is narcissistic and domineering.
There's also the fact that, on an account where gender is 1:1 tied to sex (lets, for a moment, accept that conception) - people whiney about not wanting to be in either group can just keep it to themselves. They are wrong, and its not encumbent on society to allow for people's grandiose self-image. That is nto my take, but it illustrates something that I think people are afraid of saying to avoid some kind of backlash. Which is cowardly, if the above were true and just as JS Mill rightly pointed out 200 years ago - social/public opinion is one of the strongest forms of oppression. The absolute shitshow of talking about trans issues in public is an extremely good reason to think opinions are stymied.
You are way too educated and too smart to let yourself get away with this sort of thing. I'm going to leave it there.
Quoting Bylaw Perhaps they are all worried that the other side will convince you that your sins are virtues.
Instead of having to learn via intuition and experience, everyone wants an adhered to label. One side thinks you can change your label, but once you have that label on your head we know you.
I think there's a huge fear of having to navigate reality, which is concrete and specific and detailed.
A familiar argument from trans bigotry talking points. When people straw man trans using exaggeration to argue that - 'next people will want to identify as an air conditioning unit or a maidenhair fern' - that's just bigotry wrestling with social change.
The fact that there are some people who are delusional or make other strange claims is irrelevant to the crux of this issue. Trans depicted as a type of Pandora's box is a popular trope. I heard the same sorts of things said about decriminalising homosexuality (it will only encourage deviancy) and gay marriage (it's not natural). Some people still believe these things.
As I've said, I have no interest arguing against the anti-trans talking points and biological essentialism that are all over the internet and here in this thread. As I said, I'm not a biologist or a social theorist. Happy merely to support the trans community. I arrived at this through years of talking to trans people. And no doubt my view on this will continue evolve.
I accept that there are individuals whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. People who are denied the ability to express their gender suffer greatly and may even suicide. It's not a simplistic case of 'hurt feelings' that would be a trivialising of the matter.
Are there some trans people who are aggressive or mentally unwell? Sure. We would find this amongst almost any group of human beings. So what?
So I don't mind at all if you disagree with me. Your view is likely to have strong support. I have no interest in some interminable debate on this issue.
Quoting Philosophim
I havent mentioned the move to discard black in favor of African American. What was behind this initiative? The concern was that black, in referring to a biological feature common to certain people , associated that group with the concept of race. Race is no longer considered by geneticists to be a coherent scientific notion, and has been used mainly to discriminate against individuals. It wasthought that African, on the other hand, would direct one toward a cultural rather than biological identification, just as indigenous or native peoples accomplishes relative to Indian. African American has not replaced black the way that black replaced negro and colored, partly because an increasing percentage of blacks in America were not born there, and partly because the term black was redefined away from its racial connotation in favor of culture and ethnicity.
The term person of color achieves something similar but in a more inclusive way. Its important to note that built into the embrace of blackness as a term is that it includes within its meaning the sense of being a minority in danger of marginalization. In other words, it is considered important that a word which distinguishes one group from others on the basis of the particular surface indicator of skin color should be used not only as a banner of pride but of continuing struggle for acceptance.
This strategy to knowingly keep using a term that in part connotes marginalization is seen in the embrace of the word queer. It has built into its sense both the recognition that certain groups have been considered as freaks, perverts or pathological by the dominant culture, and that these groups are turning that meaning into a positive by celebrating their non-conformity. By contrast , the term homosexual has been rejected because it is considered to be hopelessly compromised by years of medicalized pathologizing of gays.
You have argued that black means the same thing as negro or colored; they all refer to skin color. But the fact is all these words mean different things in different contexts for different people. What is relevant here is that there were predominant meanings associated with some of them that were damaging to the group they werent being applied to. The terms colored and negro werent phased out slowly, but all at once. In 1967 in the U.S. one could find the word negro used in almost all publications. In 1968 they all but vanished in favor of the new term black. Did black mean skin color in 1968? It certainly could be used this way, but its emergence was associated with bold messaging such as black is beautiful and black power. Beauty and power are concepts that were not generally associated with negro and colored. Blackness was designed to be as much a cultural as a physical concept, reflecting the rapid and dramatic changes in attitude that took place in the 1960s.
Can we equate he and she with the damaging cultural stereotyping associated with colored and negro? Many women would say yes. But what evidence do we have that cultural stereotypes are ingrained within the word she that have affected women on a day to day basis? For starters, applying for a bank loan, mortgage, credit card or job was a very different experience for a woman than for a man. But one might ask, is there a way to change attitudes about femaleness without eliminating she? Cant we ameliorate the imbalance by substituting humankind for mankind, and using the word she as often as he in generic descriptions? Or perhaps put an asterisk or something after the word she to catalyze the kind of shift in cultural presuppositions that swapping negro for black aimed for? Of course, it would require more than this to bring our language up to date with our cultural attitudes. Why do we refer to certain inanimate objects, like a ship, as she? Is it because a boat looks like a vagina, or because we apply a certain cultural notion of femininity to things? And what do we do about languages that use grammatical gender? Do such languages not color the whole world in terms of anti-feminine bias?
So far Ive been arguing that harmful cultural prejudices make their way so frequently into what we mean when we use a word like negro or she that the groups affected by these uses felt it necessary to call attention to such uses by playing with the language. Your concern has been that, however we decide to re-educate ourselves concerning the detrimental cultural aspects, we must protect those words that provide a clear meaning of physical and biological differences. Blackness allows us to have our cake and eat it , too, by changing attitudes without getting rid of the physical meaning. But eliminating words that refer to the biological sex binary would seem to block access to such clarity.
But how many of the occasions when we reflexivity use the word she involve a need to know the biology of the person we are dealing with? When we describe someone as being a black person, it may be a description that helps us and others to identify them, just as clothing and hair color, height and weight. But in social interactions we dont insert the world black into every sentence because it isnt relevant anymore. (not that long ago, pronouns such as Massah were used to different blacks from whites in a room). And yet , he and she are built into all social interchanges. I suggest the reason for this is our tacit belief that our cultural assumptions concerning the roles and behaviors of maleness and femaleness of those we are interacting with is relevant.
And perhaps it is. That is, sharply defined , binary differences in role and behavior were the way that so many of us lived our lives for long that we really didnt have the concept of alternative genders. They didnt exist because we werent ready to think of ourselves in such multidimensional ways yet. For older and more conservative people , that is still the case in their social circles .They dont have a need for language that expresses gender fluidity when there is very little of it in their own circles. But for a younger , more progressive population, the old, simple gender categories seem artificial and constraining, since they no longer think or act in terms of these roles. So he and she need not be used in social interchange. And when there is a need to refer to biological sex differences, which is relatively infrequent, there are plenty of ways to do it. Some may accept a biological binary, some may not. For those that do, they can simply refer to it directly, leaving out all gender implications.
In sum, it seems to me that , on the one hand , youre advocating for a split between cultural gender concepts and words pertaining to biological sex. But on the other hand, youre in favor of elevating what should be an infrequently used, technical vocabulary (sexed plumbing and genes) to the status of everyday usage in all social conversations (he and she). It seems to me you confuse the fact that our culture has traditionally communicated this way with the reason they have done so. If you really want to keep biological and cultural ethnic or gender terms separate, then there is no earthly reason to force blackness, he and she into conversations where they are largely irrelevant, and that means most social conversations.
No denial that she's hiding what she is. Gender often asks us to behave, act, and dress in ways we would rather not. Much of gender is a holdover from a less technologically advanced and enlightened society, and is too often an undercurrent of sexism. Gender is a social construct, and a social construct that pressures you to act, dress, or behave a certain way.
Quoting Bylaw
All that it takes for a person to make a transgender action is to do something cross gender. What I think we in society label as a "transgender person' is someone who engages in cross gender behavior in public in their daily life. Everyone is going to cross some culture or group of people's idea of how a man or woman should act. If a person constantly and willfully crosses that line, despite knowing the culture would frown on it, that's being a 'transgender person' in that culture.
Quoting Bylaw
Sounds like a kink or fetish to me. Which is fine. In matters of sexual gratification, "You do you." :) Specifically why I wouldn't consider it a cross gender action is that society does not assume that women and men's expected dress is designed for their personal sexual pleasure.
Quoting Bylaw
See, this is one of the weirdest things to come out of the transgender community to me. Sexual orientation, sexual fantasies, and sexual practices, do not change your sex or are even transgender in my view. Sex is weird on so many levels I just don't blink an eye. Sexual pleasure and kinks are often about taboos or 'I shouldn't be doing this." Which is normal to both sexes. Its completely unsurprising that cross dressing or cross gender role play would turn some people on. We already processed that sexual orientation doesn't change your sex with gay people. That would be like saying, "As a man you had sex with a man, so you're a woman now." Its absurd to me.
Quoting Bylaw
I think because you were not a tom boy, that you don't have the understanding of what tom boys went through. Further today we're seeing some tom boys being told they're transgender and should transition. Finally, I'm sure you understand you don't have to say specific words to understand that logically, you're implying something underneath. Calling someone a tom boy is expressing publicly that a woman is not behaving within the cultural gendered norm of their sex.
Quoting Bylaw
Same with calling someone else's son a girly man or mama's boy. Being transgender doesn't have anything to do with your sexual orientation. The issues with sexual orientation and crossing the gender divide differ in societal importance, and in general there was a much bigger backlash to sexual orientation crossing than gender crossing.
Quoting Bylaw
To be clear from earlier. Everyone makes transgendered actions. To be identified as 'transgendered' you must be someone who willfully violates gender norms consistently and willfully.
Quoting Bylaw
Viewing you as transgendered doesn't make you differently sexed. Being transgendered by definition, is committing actions associated with the cultural expectations of the other sex, and not your sex. You do not own gender. Culture does. Gender is not genetic. You can be a girly boy or a manly man. Neither is gender. You can like painting your nails or not as a man. That is not gender. Gender is culture's expectation of how you should act based on your sex.
Good conversation Bylaw, I really appreciate you digging in. :)
While I appreciate the compliment, I caution against despairaging anyone here for their view. Josh's argument may be genuine, and that's what philosophy discussion should be about. Lets hear each others viewpoints and think about them. Josh is not insulting me nor do I believe he is trolling. Lets just give people the benefit of the doubt for productive conversations. :)
Quoting unenlightened
I also appreciate the compliment, but in my own understanding and assessment of morality, I really do not see it as a moral issue. If you want me to explain I will, but I also understand if you wanted to simply post your comment and leave it.
Quoting substantivalism
Yes. People are more rationalizing than rational. It takes effort and often times training to truly think rationally. Rationalization is about creating arguments that give you what you want. A person who is rationalizing will not accept rational refutation of their rationalization easy, because the point wasn't to be rational, it was to give the mind a non-cognitive dissonance way of justifying getting what they want.
And before I or anyone else thinks they are above it all, we're not. We all do it on some basis and its easy to slip up even when actively trying not to.
Quoting Philosophim
Do you think that the umbrella of transgender can include within it a notion of gender ( genderqueer) not tied to any knowledge of biological sex? For instance, those who believe that everyone has their own unique gender, just as everyone has their own personality dispositions, and that biological sex is not relevant to this fact.
I agree with this. I avoided doing so. His view is his view. His method of defending is a bit of a game. But also, you may not agree that's the case. I let you know how i felt, and I note you took that on board as well :)
However, as I read through your comments to others, i'd like to offer a caution back: Stop intermingling 'male/female' with gender language. Sex is immutable - you're correct. And even if there some "other categories" or something, male and female obviously refer to sex - and given your OP, it seems to be hampering your efforts to clearly enunciate what your meaning is.
As noted earlier, this is pretty silly. You're describing the function of names. People are allowed to choose their own names.
What is it about he and she that make it important to use these terms in everyday conversation? If you are in a room with 5 white people and 5 black people, most likely none of the conversation will include terms that refer to skin color. Why not? Because skin color is not considered relevant or useful to what we need to be reminded about each other in the interchange. But such a conversation will be littered with he and she, his and her if it is a group of 5 men and 5 women. This is certainly a matter of habit, built into our language use, but is it any more relevant and useful than inserting skin color into the conversation of a mixed group? Can you see that the origin of the everyday use of he and she goes back to eras when there was a sharp difference in roles between men and women? Of you think its silly for individuals to invent their own roles, is it any less silly for an entire culture to impose binary roles?
I'm sorry if you are not aware - I did not make this up. THe fact that you have some store of 'trans bigotry talking points' makes it absolutely clear you are not being reasonable or sensible here. You've taken a position, you're afraid to mvoe from it and you're now deploying buzz words of social opinion to impugn a position based on fact.
There are adult babies. They claim their identity in exactly the same way trans people do. It is a fact of life. If you are having trouble conconciling the two, that's for you to work on. I provided an actual example of where this type of social politic can land up.
Quoting Tom Storm
It is extremely important to the crux of this issue. Ignoring the factor of mental illness, delusion and the violation of others rights based on it, is, ironically, the half of the story you refuse to acknowledge in the discussion. I pointed that out. And here we are. Quoting Tom Storm
As do I. This has nothing to do with what we're discussing.
Quoting Tom Storm
It is decidedly higher (including incidences of harm to others) among trans males. It's actually the maleness that matters, not the transness. Most people aren't capable of delineating the two.
Quoting Joshs
Nothing. Most of hte time, people are referred to by their names. Which was what I was saying about that suggestion of yours. I'm not entirely sure why this question has come up?
Quoting Joshs
Oh, yes, obviously. Men and women have on average very different experiences of hte world, even if you can conceptualise a socially equal 'treatment'. Though, we're definitely going to be differing on the extent to which we have moved toward that goal.
Quoting Joshs
I think that if there are children, and adults - and you're an adult of age 35 - claiming to be a child of age 10 - society has a right to either impose on you the role garnered by your literal status of being 35 (ie, you are not 10). Is age just a convention? Possibly but that seems wrong.
Analogously, if 99% of people can ascertain sex by facial features (seems to be true) and that the other thing, gender, is almost invariate with sex, is 99% of people, who can identify accurately, on sight, 99% of other people's sex and gender, I really dont see the onus as on society. Its on the odd ones out to conform, if they want to take part. This applies to myself in many ways, as I am a very unusual character. I have had to made decisions to step away from certain social activities and institutions because I don't fit in. Nor would I want to. And that's fine. 99% of peple are on their buzz, and I'll be on mine. What I wont do is command, or guilt other people into acquiescing to my odd, and usually somewhat irrational requirements. Likewise, If you're a female, and don't want to be, tough luck. Thats how you were born. Where I live, it is 100% the case you are allowed to be racist to white people in public, and sexist to men. Its awful to deal with. Am I supposed to start making demands from my society to respect my white, and maleness?
Quoting Joshs
There really still is. So, one thing I'm not really prepared to debate (at least in this thread) but is something I see as patently true, and sits behind at least some of my takes on this topic is that I think it is not reasonable to think males/females or in typical parlance 'men and women' are the same, or that they would be the same in any circumstances. They are biologically different, on average, in significant ways and require different things from the world, and provide different things to the world. That this is the case seems inarguable to me, and so attempting to minize the aspects that make people what they are seems odd to me, and counter to reality. Knowing whether someone is female will alter the way i speak with them, in light of what I can assume their experience has been in a world where females, on average, experience certain positives and certain negatives and male, a differing (and, obviously - though again, we'll disagree in degree - disproportionate) set of those.
If you don' think the above is reasonable, we're living in two different worlds and it may be that we're not able to aptly discuss the issues. To be clear, in this specific case I am decrying the ridiculous demand that i refer to you as a member of some group you've invented to represent some imaginary grouping, which includes only you,,,on some indeterminate set of personality properties. Just tell me your fucking name.
Quoting PhilosophimTo me it then has little to do with the self. Unless it does. But if it doesn't. My wife wore a headscarf in one country, but she hadn't changed. Just a practical and perhaps safety issue. Some people on the other hand are transgendered. IOW for them they decide to shift over on what for them is an essential level and or they feel like 'really' they have been but his this essential nature. In those situations I feel comfortable given them a name that implies something essential. I just don't think it makes sense when most of what happens is in other people.
Quoting Philosophim-Sure, my point was that with names like these there is anger and negative judgment.Quoting PhilosophimWell, we're all doing that, we're just at varied distances from the places that see them this way. And given subcultures and individuals, we're all probably near people who do this. Stuff happens when they see me. The do/feel/react in certain ways.Quoting PhilosophimNor does it make you differently gendered. It doesn't do anything unless it leads to action on the part of that person making the judgment.Quoting PhilosophimThat last sentence says it for me. The actually event is in the beholders. I act in way X in my city and people don't see me as transgendered, except in some neighborhoods. I travel to another land or enter a subculture's turf in my country or meet by partner's parents and her big family. They judge me differently. I didn't become transgendered. What I am like triggered a set of thoughts in people. Something happened in them. Their expectations got contradicted and this led to irritation, fear, confusion, hatred, whatever....in them. They changed. They didn't change gender. But something occurred in them.
My point isn't restricted to this term 'transgendered'. It would hold for many other terms where I would say that reifications of procceses into nouns coupled with misapplying the reification (the label) is aimed at the place where actually there was no change. Where the change process happened elsewhere.
Quoting PhilosophimThanks. I think we actually agree about many things, but, yeah, I'm being stubborn about a few points.
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting AmadeusD
I assume by biological differences between men and women youre not referring to feminization of brain connections producing characteristic gender-related behaviors from birth. Rather, I take it the differences you have in mind are socially imposed due to womens capacity for childbirth, their size and strength relative to the average man , etc.
So you think the use of he and she in everyday conversation, and the gendered grammar of many languages, arose due to their different social roles based on bodily differences? I think they arose just as much because of a belief shared by many cultures in history that women were mentally inferior to men, that they were biologically programmed to be too emotional, to have limited intelligence, to act in childlike ways , to not be responsible or capable enough to study religious texts, go to school, get a job or vote. I dont think we perpetuate the ubiquitous use of he and she pronouns simply because of differences in life experiences between men and women
A recent paper suggests that it is deeper than culture:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2310012121 [Paywalled and I haven't read more than what I've quoted.]
Pretty much correct, although, I am not entirely unconvinced of the former.. .
Quoting Joshs
This isn't what I'm speaking about in those passages. BUt that said, It seems to be that (insert my quip about 99% of people accurately recognizing 99% of 99% of 99% yadda yadda Here) is the reason the two language terms arose (or sets of "Him, he, his/Her, she, hers") due to the fact that 99% of people would find them useful for both grouping themselves and others. Quoting Joshs
This, to me, is quite bizarre either etymologically, practically or historically. There's nothing about the terms that imply this, noting that it is a fact that many cultures considered women inferior to men. You've, in this utterance, accepted that women is a distinct group. Men and women are different to degrees to make this distinction reasonable. You don't need anything negative or perniciious to make sense of htem, so i don't infer it.
Quoting Joshs
We simply don't need any other reason. If you think there is one, you're free to think that. I can't see that it's the case, and it doesnt seem needed. Bit of Occam, i guess, seeping in.
Quoting wonderer1
Im actually sympathetic to this argument, but very carefully qualified. Let me ask you , to the extent that you think theyre onto something, would you agree that , since anything biology is capable of , it will do in many ways, it is reasonable to assume that a whole range of intermediate differences in functional brain organization are regularly produced? This would give biological justification not only for binary differences in gender behavior , but also for gay and transgender identities. Of course, all this would be intertwined in complex ways with culture.
This is a really interesting question. Don't think there's any good answers currently.
From what I know of the neuroscience, you can fairly compare the brain differences between cis men and gay men, with trans women and non-trans, straight men. Clearly this is only going to cover one, even if albeit, a large one, slice of the population of trans women but it would be helpful, I think to understand some multiple causes of the different types of identity.
An odd goal if you're going to make it about geographic locations which are strongly associated with race. It wasn't to eliminate the concept of race, it was an intention to remove the negative connotation people had with the word 'black'. That also failed. Many black people do not like the term african american. They don't have African ancestry, they've been in America for generations and find the term insulting. And people just take the negative connotation they have with the word black and carry it over to African American, making them a two word description that's that much different from a one word 'caucasion' or 'white'. Strange we don't say, "European American" for white people eh?
Quoting Joshs
Which again, is terrible. If you're a fifth generation black man in New Jersey, you have nothing culturally in common with Africa. Race does not dictate your culture. Its racist to think that way.
Quoting Joshs
No, race is very important still. Both to combat racism, such as shunting all black communities into their own district despite odd geographical breakdowns in the district, and more objectively in the medical community. If you're black, you are more likely to have certain genetic diseases or issues that someone of another racial decent would have. Its difficult to impractical to erase race. We want to erase prejudice and racism associated with race. A person should be able to say, "I'm black" and that be no more impactful on someone's judgement about them then, "I have brown hair."
Quoting Joshs
Sounds like its about being afraid from calling out people who aren't white, but still get lumped in together as 'not white'. Isn't it odd that white is not a color with this phrase?
Quoting Joshs
I'm going to preface this with some information about myself. I taught high school math at minority inner city schools for five years. Often times my kids and parents were 60% black and 40% hispanic. So my views on this are real world practical and not armchair theory. If you want to accept people, don't give them special words or terms. Also don't eliminate race, because black people are black, hispanic people look hispanic, etc. Neither shame NOR pride should be given about someone's race. Pride should be in your accomplishments and character in life. Educate people that race does not mean culture.
I also lived several years in an all black apartment complex as a white person. I got to know a few blacks over the years and I can tell you right now, being black does not mean you ascribe to 'black culture'. I would say off the cuff, 20% of people really liked stereotypical black culture, about 60% just went along with it, and 20% hated it. People are people and no different than any one else. There is no pride needed in being black, just like there is no pride needed in being white. Its just a biological aspect of yourself, nothing more.
Also, in places of economic success, you find there's really not a 'struggle for acceptance'. I've worked in high level jobs with middle class black workers who were popular or not based on their personality, not because they were black. We have to be very careful not to ascribe anything to skin color or race besides the biology, and how that was adapted for the climate their ancestors adapted to. Anything else flirts with prejudice and racism. I see the same flirtation with transgenderism and sexism when people assume gender affects sex.
Quoting Joshs
Correct because this word was a poorly defined word used to lump a group of people into a weird and negative context. The root meaning of 'queer' is 'strange'. I agree in this instance to change the word. Homosexual is more of a scientific identity, and I would think the slang term of 'gay' would have more negative connotation. I think in general because these words aptly and accurately describe the situation, "A person of one sex who has attraction to another person of the same sex," that its not innately offensive. The concern here is to make sure that people don't discriminate against homosexuals, no matter what we call them.
Quoting Joshs
I understood your point about changing from negro to black. But did you understand my reply in how that does not apply to pronouns?
Quoting Joshs
I still think this is a damaging solution. You are not beautiful because you are any type of color. You are beautiful because you are pretty to others. You should not have pride nor shame in your skin color. It shouldn't matter besides attraction preference. That's where we need to get to as emphasizing that your skin color or sex makes you more or less special is just another form of racism and sexism.
Quoting Joshs
Which, if true, does not change my point about pronouns describing people's sex. If your name is Angela, a gendered name associated with being female, it doesn't matter if you mark, "he/him" on your application. People aren't stupid. A better solution is to not name your kid names highly associated with one gender so people don't know from your name alone. And if you notice on forms, people do not ask what sex or race you are except to keep it optional. Changing pronouns and clearly telling people what they are brings sexual connotations to situations that shouldn't require them.
Again, the more important part is to ensure that women are not discriminated against. That we educate society that barring certain biological general differences, one should take a person on the merit of their character and actions than their sex.
Quoting Joshs
No. People are going to look for sex always. Just like people are going to see that a person is black or white. Pretending it doesn't exist, or saying, "I'm white" when you're clearly black, is not a rational way to solve the problem. The problem isn't with being a particular sex or race. Its about societies prejudices and isms in how race and sex are treated.
Quoting Joshs
I don't think this happens frequently. It happens. And when it does, we should evaluate how to handle it.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, that's basically my point. We can't ignore biological realities, and sexual biology is a reality that has real consequences in life. We need to work to stop sexism, not eliminate the identification of sex.
Quoting Joshs
Probably not many. In my own writing I generally avoid pronoun usage unless its pertinent. If I'm talking about a woman giving birth, I'm going to use the word she. If I'm talking about someone doing heavy lifting I'm going to use pronouns because physical labor is associated with strength, and it gives a picture of they type of men and women in that job.
People in general are not 'not a sex'. So when describing a person its fairly important in the written or spoken word. I can say, "He was wearing a dress," versus "She was wearing a dress," and different images come to mind. Its not a statement that makes any judgement values. Its just a statement of the situation that conveys the reality of what's going on clearly.
Quoting Joshs
While I agree people are going to ascribe cultural expectations, or gender to hearing about a sex, there are also practical and biological considerations as well. If I'm interested in a mate based on my sexual preference, I want to know the sex. And as mentioned earlier, its nigh impossible for most people to imagine a sex neutral person as that isn't the norm of day to day experience, or the reality of the people we are describing. Just as we should not be ashamed to mention a person is black as an attribute only, we should not be ashamed to mention sex as an attribute only.
Quoting Joshs
This is honestly what I'm going for. Let sexes be the sexes and understand that gender is a cultural construct that flirts with prejudice and sexism.
Quoting Joshs
No. That's just an aspect of your personality. Gender is "Cultural expectations of your sex". Expectations from you apart from your sex are just cultural expectations of people. If you remove sex, you remove gender.
Also, I really appreciate your thoughts and replies. I can see your viewpoint articulated well and I hope the discussion is enjoyable. :)
Right. And my point was that sexual preference has been treated much more harshly and in a different light than transgender. There is tacit acceptance of transgender actions up to a point. Even a hint of an incorrect sexual preference was often extremely villified. The grander point is they are two separate topics, so lets keep it that way if possible.
Quoting Bylaw
No disagreement. If you're separate from that culture, you're not 'transgendered'. And this is also my point in dividing transgender from transex. What gender is, can be so different from culture to culture that we can't use gender as a cross cultural description of a person's sex. Sex does not care about culture and should not be confused with gender.
Quoting Bylaw
That is determined by the culture you are in. If you are viewed as transgendered, then you are in that culture. You can try to change their minds, but its ultimately their decision.
Quoting Bylaw
You became transgendered in that culture. I think this is the confusion some people have. You do not own gender. Gender is not a personal identity. Culture creates gender and you decide to act in accordance with those expectations, or not. If you understand those expectations, and go against them in public, then you are transgendered in your explicit violation of the cultural norms.
A man who wears a kilt in Scotland is not transgendered. A man who wears a kilt in a cultural setting where its seen as female gendered, they are transgendered in their specific dress. When you 'identify' as a gender, you are explicitly identifying your gender with what is regarded as gender within that specific culture. So if you're a Scottish man and get told you're "Dressing like a woman," you would claim, "No I'm not! This is a kilt that men wear!" Your gender you are referring to is the male gender in Scotland. You don't own gender. Gender owns you because it is an expectation from people other than yourself that they expect you to comply with.
Quoting Philosophim
:up:
Absolutely. There is all sorts of evidence for that, along a variety of different spectrums.
Quoting Joshs
Again. Absolutely.
I referred to this phenomenon already, so I must be aware, right?
And then you proceed to dismiss my awareness of this issue as per below. Are you in a hurry?
Quoting AmadeusD
Half the story? Or 35%. Or is it 10%, or...?
I've already said in my view the fact that there are people who are unwell and make other claims based on identify should not impact upon those people who are trans with their specific claim. I don't think this is hard.
Quoting AmadeusD
The key point you are missing is that they are not trans. So it actually has nothing to do with the specific claim of trans people. You're invoking a slippery slope fallacy again. Many people go to the doctor and claim back pain without having any in order to get out of work. This does not mean that there are people don't experience back pain and need support. As my doctor will tell you physical evidence for the cause of back pain is not always available.
Quoting AmadeusD
Nice attempt to turn it around. You are 'absolutely clear' about nothing in relation to my opinions on this issue. I was identifying that a well known anti-trans talking point was raised by you. How do I know it is a well worn anti-trans talking point? Because it comes up almost every time people have anti-trans conversations - on line, on TV, in the media, in person. You're not the only one to pull this out.
I also think that your attempt to psychologise my approach is unprofessional. You are in no position to know my motivations, so please don't do this. Stick to the arguments. I'll try to do the same.
But this discussion is interminable.
I'd be interested in understanding what is your opinion should society do in relation to transgender issues? Can you provide a few dot points regarding a useful framework. For me, the issue is trans is here, how do we support people?
Theres two sexes, male and female. Gender is more fluid, but is in many ways grounded in sex. Identifying is ones own business, but identity doesnt magically change reality. Also, if sex is assigned, then weve officially rendered these words meaningless.
I cant wait when this social media-created nonsense goes away. Treating the (statistically) rare trans person with basic respect and dignity should be a given. That sex is a biological fact should also be a given. The rest is a stupid waste of time, which I now have unfortunately contributed to. Seems unavoidable these days.
According to Google Ngram, "gender assigned at birth" didn't show up in print very often until the mid 1980s. "Sex assigned at birth" didn't appear in print until around 2000. Then the curve was almost straight up for both phrases.
When I first encountered trans people in the 1970s, they presented to other people very much the way gay people did: "I'm different than most people; I've been dealing with this difference for a long time and it's difficult; I want to express the 'real me'".
Gay people and transgendered people both had to 'make it up as we went along'.
30 years later, the situation was considerably different for transgendered people. There were now publications, medical support, groups, and politics. Trans people were more likely to take risks and push boundaries. And, of course, being assigned the wrong gender or sex at birth became a corner stone of a peevish identity -- like OBGYN doctors could tell which gender a baby would be 15 years into the future? Those misleading genitals, though! The doctor saw a penis or vagina and labeled the baby accordingly. Outrageous!!!
Quoting PhilosophimI don't see how their belief changes me. Yes, it's their decision, thoughts arose in their minds. Nothing happend to me. I'd accept phrases like 'you will be thought of as _______' 'people will judge you for being what they consider______________' But that I have become transgendered, nah. Does it count if I walk into a bar in a wider culture that would not consider me something but when I walk in there, that subculture will judge me that way. What is the ontology of location? I'm giggle a bit as I write this, but I'm also serious. I don't grant changes in them to be considered a change in me, for example.Quoting PhilosophimThen I shouldn't get the label, in a context like this. IOW here we are talking abstractly from a metaposition. I understand that if I go to culture X I may be seen as category B. It has nothing to do with me is more or less my point. Also, gender tends to include not just visible/audible behavior but also attitudes and emotions. If they never notice, but I walk around having the attitudes that the other biological sex is supposed to have to the degree I have it, am I transgendered, suddenly because I am there, or not. I, personally, cry more than most women - I'm a guy. But I don't do that on the street. I doubt I would if I was a woman - though that's speculation of course (snorting a bit with laughter again.) But at home, sure. So, at the hotel, in Sicily, sure. Am I transgendered? Or am I not transgendered because they didn't notice and they couldn't see when I walk around or am at the beach that my attitudes and the way I talk to the people I am with are supposedly traditionally female? I'm not hiding, per se. Is it only the act of judgment on their part that makes me suddenly be in a new category? mere presence where the other views hold sway, though clearly not everywhere, even there?
Further I'm not sure there is agreement that others own the judgment:
Do I become transgender if I get off a bus in the midwest, but stop being transgender when I get back on the bus since the other passengers are, like me travelling through the midwest? I we have a stop in a little town in the Midwest, say a bus trip, and I walk into a diner where everyone has different ideas about gender than the rest of the county, am I transgendered or not during my bus trip breakfast?
How do we know if someone is transgender? Must others in the dominant cultural group openly express the judgment? Do we assume they have it but haven't said it, given what we now about that culture or think we know?Quoting Philosophim
So, if I don't know, then I am not transgendered while I am there? But then I at least partially own my gender. It would be part of my identity.
And the person who goes and knows part or a little of the other culture?
Again, this is all part of a more general issue. I think that when the changes are not in the self, but primarily have to do with beholders' judgments (and even this may not exist in your schema - they may be inured to tourists and their difference and no longer notice it, or just be thinking about other things) then it is better to label the scenario and not me.
If people are judged mentally ill in a certain culture for doing things considered within the range of the normal in my culture, and I go there and do them, I am not mentally ill suddenly. Perhaps I am rude not to respect their traditions, given I know it, but I am not mentally ill suddenly then healthy when I get back on the plane.
It's the use of language here and what it implies ontologically. Quoting Philosophim
I don't think there is consensus at all about how transgendered is used. But further I'm with the Scotting guy.Quoting PhilosophimI'd leave off that last sentence, since I'd know not all men wear kilts. Perhaps, adding, yeah, here. I mean, if I actually got into a conversation with someone. But I guess on some level I grant them no expertise. You and I, having this discussion, are in a metaposition. And it sounds like neither of us cares that much how other people behave in relation to gender. In other countries, whatever my challenging personality traits, they tend to be the less visible ones when I am in public regardless of country - that's me, others have different situations. But my attitude on some level is, no, your not some objective expert on what a man or woman is what gender is and so on. I don't consent to the judgment or because I am here you are now suddenly right about my behavior. I do have a when in Rome attitude about many things. I don't point my feet at people in Thailand or make fun of the King. And there are many even fairly subtle things I adjust to when I even go to someone's home for dinner. But I don't grant the objective expertise that seems implicit, even in their country. I don't want to be rude. I've put on kippah in orthodox schools, taken off shoes in mosques and temples. And all sorts of what I would call polite. But that tends to be specific to entering houses and buildings and that's true in my home countries also. All the darn subcultures - including things like corporate and government agency subcultures - where I do some adjustment, though often because of power or not wanting the hassle of dealing with irritated people. It's not like I'm advocating spitting in the face of local traditions.
But yeah, if someone says to me in my kilt that I am dressing like a woman, I'd probably say, 'Actually no. I'm not. But I know men here don't do this.' Unless I thought a crowd was ready to beat the hell out of me. But I wouldn't grant that the person was correct, except for self-protection and then I'd be lying.
I have a good friend who once said, "The age of the internet got rid of taboos." I like the general sentiment. The motivation behind this is people who are different that want to be accepted into society. Its a re-examination of past prejudices and labels. I think its a fantastic subject to discuss philosophically.
Why I do think its become such an issue is because the definition of transgender vs transexual has been blurred. Its confusing. People don't understand it. Laws are being made to help accept trans people into normative society, but we must still balance accurate language use, as well as the logic of what is acceptance versus imposition.
I don't know where you got that.
Dyke is a slang term, used as a noun meaning lesbian. It originated as a homophobic slur for masculine, butch, or androgynous girls or women. Pejorative use of the word still exists, but the term dyke has been reappropriated by many lesbians to imply assertiveness and toughness.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyke_(slang)
Faggot, often shortened to fag in American usage, is a term, usually a pejorative, used to refer to gay men.[1][2] In American youth culture around the turn of the 21st century, its meaning extended as a broader reaching insult more related to masculinity and group power structure.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot#:~:text=Faggot%2C%20often%20shortened%20to%20fag,masculinity%20and%20group%20power%20structure.
The root of both words has always been about homosexuality. Yes, that slang further evolved into an insult to people, but that insult has always had the implication of homosexual underneath it.
Quoting Bylaw
Then you weren't around when it was used on the playground. It was very often used as an insult by kids at other kids. But lets not get so bogged down in this that we get away from the original point that transgender is a cultural expectation in how a sex should act.
Quoting Bylaw
I never said it did. My point is you are not a transgendered individual without a culture upon which you can measure it. Let me give you an example. Lets say a few women in your neighborhood start wearing orange shoes. Then you as a man start wearing orange shoes. Is that transgender? No, because no one cares.
Now lets say women start wearing orange shoes, and society for whatever reason starts to say, "Ah, orange shoes are feminine now." If you as a man start to wear orange shoes, you are now transgendered. The act of you 'being' by what you like, how you act, etc., is not inherently gendered or transgendered. Because gender is how others expect a particular sex to act. If no one has an expectation for a sex to act a particular way, then acting that way is not labeled as transgendered. Do you understand? You cannot be transgendered. Only society can make you transgendered.
Quoting Bylaw
Correct. And that's the point. You are you. Gender is an expectation of how you should act based on your sex by culture, which is enforced by others. You alone cannot be transgendered. You must have a societies gender expectation to cross.
Right, but only because society created a gender and their innate selves did not want to go along with that expectation. A boy who likes the color pink is transgender in their color preference in one society, while not transgender in their color preference in another society. What is societally independent is transexualism. The desire to change your body to the other sex is not societally created, and is a personal desire of the self.
This is why its important to define transgender and transexual clearly. 'Gender transition' is nonsense. You cannot change your gender, as society is the one who creates your gender. You can defy your gender that culture ascribes to you, but you cannot transition. I can be a man who acts like a woman in all respects, but people still expect that as a man, I act a particular way, or gender. Transition can only be applied to transexuals. That is the act of body alteration to emulate the other sex in an attempt to appease personal desires, or attempt to be perceived as the other sex by society.
Quoting Bylaw
Within the different cultures, yes.
Quoting Bylaw
Yes.
Quoting Bylaw
If you never knew that you were acting transgendered, then you would not know you were transgendered in that culture. If someone tells you that your actions are 'crossing gender lines or not meeting expectations', and you still act that way, then you know you are transgendered in that cultural expectation.
Quoting Bylaw
This may be semantics, but I don't think you own gender. You decide whether to meet or defy a culture's gender expectations. That does not change other's cultural expectations. You can own crossing gender. You can even say as a man, "I act like society expects a woman to act." But you don't own the female gender. You are crossing into the female gender of that society. You don't get to dictate or own what that gender is.
Quoting Bylaw
You are mentally ill in that culture, yes. This is why medical diagnosis attempts to cross culture and rely on science careful research and thinking.
Quoting Bylaw
Because mental illness in this case is not defined by you, but the culture you visited.
Quoting Bylaw
Then that is a problem with the word. Words that convey ideas need to be as clear and unambiguous as possible, especially in major discussions about laws and life. And that's what we're doing here. Clarifying the word to the point where it can be used across cultures and allows consistent and rational communication without contradictions or bleeding unnecessarily into other terms.
Quoting Bylaw
Right, you would be implying that "Men in my culture wear kilts." Not that, "I decided alone that men wear kilts." Gender is cultural, and the culture does not care about whether we think its correct or not. We can try to persuade someone that its ok for a sex to act a particular way, but ultimately they have to agree with us. We can also decide which culture we belong to, or the gender definitions that we accept as defined, then decide to obey or cross. But we don't get to decide how gender is decided in any particular culture alone.
This ties in very closely with other traditions you mentioned. There is no objective reason or declaration from God that I wear a particular head piece or bow at prayer. Its culture. Culture can include gender, and it cannot. If I defied bowing at a particular point in prayer despite people telling me I should because in my religion I shouldn't, I would be transculture. (We normally say crossculture). Gender is just another aspect of culture, and follows the same norms just with expectations about how sexes should act instead of situations where sex is not important.
While I take it you're probably joking for effect, I actually take this to be a real, evolutionary and highly effective tool in the human tool box. Artificial shame (or, arbitrary consequence) is the issue. It's pretty much unavoidable if you allow the former it's full extent in a modern society. Such is life. I enjoy a bit of motivational shame (and no, that's not an innuendo lol).
Quoting BC
As with the previous quote from substantivalism, It's hard to tell how much of this is satire.
Otherwise, a faggot of wood is a measure of small firewood sticks; or in another possibly connected usage, a meatball made with various kinds of offal, perhaps a better candidate for an insulting reuse. Available at your grocers:
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/282049626
Beyond the obvious objectivity of biological features or the subjectivity of other human elements there were. . . moral questions I still grapple with. Both in terms of moral oughts and emotional oughts or states of mind that I should take on this.
Quoting AmadeusD It's one of emotional oughts and your perception, apathetic/saving face/guilty/judgemental, of others that I find concerning/intriguing. Not so much because of political narratives which dissuade it but because how I feel about someone may be in sharp contrast to how I feel I should be by philosophical introspection. Even if I never mention that to their face.
Philosophy leaves no stone unturned no matter how socially or personally destructive said "truth" might be.
I understand a close friend of mine is thinking about transitioning. We've had conversations like this, though they were difficult at the time. Its at emotional times like these that I feel we should ask ourselves to be more objective.
Emotional appeals are often irrational and not fully voiced. Its a simple example, but when someone complains about a movie. "I didn't like the movie, it sucks." "Why?" I don't know, but the director should be fired and never make a movie again." While this interchange is inconsequential between friends, if the person has the power to actually fire the director and ensure they never make a movie again, we need to ask if the action taken from the initial emotion is rational.
To me, the transgender/transexual community is finding its footing in its desire to be accepted by society, as well as accept itself. As such it is at an extremely immature stage of rational thinking, and is mostly in a reactive and nascent stage of thought. If it remains this way, it will fail. People do not tolerate such things for long. It needs rational discourse. It needs to refine its language and be more clear in its desires and intents. It needs better arguments. If not, I feel it will cause damage both inside and outside of its community and find itself in a worse position than it started with.
What do you imagine to be the ideal endpoint of rational self-definition within the trans community? In the best of all
possible worlds, how do you see people taking about and performing gender in 50 years? How do you prefer to think about your own gender?
Good question. In the best of all possible worlds:
1. All emotive language is relegated to local social groups. Transgender/sexual language is detailed, precise, and clear in the language cross culturally.
2. Universal acceptance of one's personal expressions and worked out compromises within how that should be expressed within the larger culture.
As for me personally? I don't think of myself in terms of gender. I'm the sex that I am. That's it. I understand there are certain societal expectations of me because of that sex, but I don't find them any more inconvenient or important then any other expectation about me like my looks, my height, my job, or my living space. Ideally, I think that's where we should all be. I don't want to be disrespected for attributes about myself, but I definitely don't think I'm special or should have these things called out either. I'm not, "A short person". I'm just me.
Ideally, I hope people in the trans community gets to the point one day where they realize "They're just people", another part of the human race that is completely unremarkable for being who they are. I feel we're reaching that point with people being 'gay'. Instead of anyone caring if you're gay or not, people treat you based on who you are as a person with your day to day actions. Are you fun to talk with? Are you a good person? Do you lift the world up or bring it down? These are the things that are important. Less of a 'community' and more of a 'part of the human race' mentality.
I wasnt talking about sex. I had in mind memories of growing up feeling different and alienated from most of my male classmates, as well as my father, brothers and cousins, on the basis of behaviors and comportments that I believe I was born with, that I didnt fully understand or know how to articulate. And not overcoming this outsider status until I found a gay community within which I could see myself as normal. I saw many aspects of myself in members of this community. There was the joy of mutual recognition, the relief that behaviors and dispositions that I thought were utterly unique to me were shared by many others in that community. The experiences of those on the Aspergers/Autism spectrum who found their way to a community of shared disposition remind me of my own experience.
It sounds like you have never had to think about yourself in terms of gender because your gender behavior never stood out from your peers. I notice you havent said anything about the studies associating gender with functional brain organization, like that mentioned earlier in this thread by @wonder1:
Sure, I felt the same way. The difference I think between you and I is that I don't feel the need to be accepted by those who don't. I do just enough to not get in trouble, but violate every expectations if I believe its wrong. I do not care if I never find another person like me in the universe. I do not like adoration. I do not want to be viewed as special. I want to mostly be left alone and not criticized for doing the things I like to do in life. I want to be able to chat with other people and it not have ego or fear involved, just an exchange of ideas.
Quoting Joshs
No, I often behave in ways that do not fit the expectations of other people. My differences are not important enough to warrant more than social isolation and rejection however. Those that reject me based on these differences are not worth my time or care. In cases where expression of this difference was dangerous, I learned to play along until I could get away. Those that accept me for who I am are worth my time and care. I have never chased or worried about those that have rejected me for my choices, except for when I was young and first learning to date. Even in that area I eventually learned that shaping myself for what I perceived others expectations to be was a fools errand.
Quoting Joshs
You missed this then. I noted that yes, behavior differences can be driven by sex, but the only way they are provably so is if they are only found in that sex. If behaviors are found cross sex, then they are obviously not restricted to sex alone.
Notice the word 'generalizable'. That means in the median or majority of cases. This does not mean all cases. Meaning a female who is more aggressive than general does not fit the general curve of expectations from being female. It does not mean they are male.
This can be taken in other aspects besides behavior. Height, weight, musculature, intelligence. There is a generalization between all people, and sometimes within sex. But variations from the general do not change your sex. A 5 foot 4 male is not female, despite that fitting the average female height in America. And if you're a man that wants to be intimate with another man? You're still just as much of a man as someone who wants to be intimate with a woman.
Very interesting. Appreciate both parts of the wider response here.
Quoting Philosophim
Yes. I think swapping out a few terms, this is generalizable (it looks like perhaps that was covered further down the thread...).
Quoting Joshs
With the utmost respect, thsi seems a peculiarity of certain personalities. It is not at all obvious to me that your scenario is even a rational response to 'being different'. I was, and still am, a very, very odd person, from most people's perspective sexually, hobbies, mentation, habits etc.. and this from being very, very young and open about myself because I chose not to care what others did. My 'outsider status' never arose, because it didn't occur to me as helpful. I do not think your inability to overcome yours says much more than that you perhaps were naturally predisposed to reject things you didn't relate to.
I want to be clear: i am not trying to trivialise your experience. It's yours. I have nothing to say about it. I'm offering mine, and I am pointing out that people do things differently and react differently. There is no reason to think someone who doesn't feel victimized as you hasn't been through the same things. I think that's a serious mistake, and one which runs rampant through this type of discourse (one of hte main reasons Twitter is such a fucking cess pit... No matter what you say, someone can read your mind!).
Quoting Philosophim
This might be a premature conclusion. IN a world where there are female and male brains, easily identifiable and uncontroversial - aberrations in development could feasibly lead to an otherwise fully male person attaining some behaviour due to their brain structure, only found in 'female brains'.
Would we be happy, then, to note that this is a medical malfunction? Or are we going to still pretend there's a spectrum? Note the premise.
Of course. If the only way a male could have a certain behavior that is exclusive to females is if they had some type of exclusive biological aspect that matched a female brain. And by this, it would have to be a demonstrated defect, incredibly rare and not a variation of brain composition. It would be like a male having a vagina or a female having a penis.
:smirk: Nice
Quoting AmadeusD
Quoting AmadeusD
I dont want to give the impression that my childhood was some sort of nightmare. It was pretty typical, and I know everyone in their own way feels like a freak in some respect when theyre growing up. It doesnt take much;. a weird name, a big nose, geeky clothes will do it. And the value of finding a community of people with common experiences or behaviors is much more than just therapeutic. Its a crucial way to learn about yourself, to define who you are and who you want to be, not by conforming to the group but by comparing experiences so that you can define yourself uniquely. Can one thrive without benefitting from this engagement? Of course, but one has a big advantage if one has the opportunity to learn from the interaction with those like oneself in some respect. Im a no -conventional person by nature, and have always gone my own idiosyncratic way. Plugging into groups on the basis of shared perspectives was a valuable part of the foundation for
Think about non neuro-typical communities. Imagine how connecting with such a group can help a non neuro-typical individual discover their strengths and build their confidence.
Hmm. That's the thing - I don't think everyone does. I didn't, despite, objectively, being rather different and bullied for it. I didn't feel at all less, or more, than anyone else. Maybe I'm the unique one here, though. It may be apples/oranges and I have a 'curse of knowledge' type thing going on. Quoting Joshs
"...for that" or some similar reference, I assume?
Fair enough. As i say, not trivialising - but to reverse the mode of the above response, I think this may be uniquely you. Most aren't strong enough in their personality to allow for this actualisation while under the influence of an in-group (particularly one that feels somehow victimized).
Quoting Joshs
This hits me, intuitively, and having watched the world turn, as incorrect - or at the very least, intensely sanguine and not really how it happens. Groups of affinity aren't designed to foster difference (nor do they incidentally do so). This context is actually an apt one - trans individuals who do not tout the same concepts and ideas we're, perhaps wrongly, discussing, are ostracized as not the 'right kind of trans' (as it is with blacks, Jews, feminists etc....). Affinity groups seem to reinforce irrational self-image.
Quoting Joshs
Being non-neuro-typical, I think about this alot. I just can't get over to the part of the thought that says its important to do so. As somewhere above, maybe that part is just me - but I just don't understand it.
That sure sounds like trivializing folk psychology to me.
Quoting AmadeusD
Lets say you want to excel at something and soar beyond all your competitors. How do you do this? Well, first you have to have to find people to compete against that are the closer to your level of performance as possible. You cant up the level of your tennis game against a backboard; you need a community of players to push you further. Isnt this true in any creative endeavor? Dont we need to hone ours skills in a creative social environment consisting of those who can bring out the best in us? One of the things I loved most about the gay community I interacted with was that they were more colorful, free and creative than the bland hetero environment I was used to. They encouraged my individuality, not my conformity. Their gayness was more of an open tent, a welcoming attitude toward all kinds of alternative ways of being, than a ghettoized clique.
The reason I love living in a big city is that the diversity stimulates my non-conformity more than if I lived in a cave in the middle of nowhere or a small town. How can it be that being surrounded by 3 million people fosters eccenticity and non-conformity better than living an isolated existence? My neighborhood has a sense of community that is built on celebration of diversity. Just because people gather in a group based on shared interests doesnt mean that they are there to form a hive mind. The opposite may be the case. This is also true of romantic love. The relationship may be stifling and confining for one or both participants, or it could be a union that frees each person to be themselves more authentically than if they were alone.
It's neither. I am speaking from my perspective - someone elses is functionally, and obviously trivial in that respect - But i was at pains to point out that I am constrasting experiences, and not putting one above the other.
On the characterization, I'd just point you to any special interest group. Eating its tail. Always. Psychology is a folk practice, so ...idc. LOL
Quoting Joshs
This seems very much not what we're talking about. But, i'm with you thus far..
Quoting Joshs
Agreed (I read this in Eugene Levy's voice lol).
Quoting Joshs
I am glad to hear this was your experience. Hmm - (as above response to wonderer1, this next part is giving contrast - not an argument)I've been in several, disparate 'gay' and 'queer' communities. I fucking hate them. I detest everything I went through trying to be friends with those people. Any opinion that didn't align with the group was grounds for not just ostracization but attempts to belittle me in my work life, family life and other social endeavours. It was harrowing, and disgusting (in two specific examples, anyhow). One of my children was put through essentially a Struggle Session in an attempt to have them tell their school that i was an unfit parent. And this is a common experience. (i note, entirely for thoroughness, that some of my points above might logically lead to my saying that your enjoyment was in fact a result of your conformity(in the sense of alignment - not like they forced you or anything) to the in-group's value system - which is great - find your tribe.. But it unfortunately supports my point, if that were the case - I don't assume either way).
It is this pitfall I guess that I am talking about. It is common, and seems to exist in all avenues of special interest (political factions, sexuality, table top games, BDSM... anything). Your experience also - I'm just talking about the other side of that coin that I have experienced as a contrast, to support the potential problematic nature of retreating into special interest groups. It has only ever brought me pain and suffering.
Quoting Joshs
Agreed - it's very rarely the intent - Though i think this is a bit naive. Special interest groups ipso facto are trying to create groups of closely-aligned members. Very hard to do so if, for instance, your conception of being Gay/Bi/Whatever doesn't include a civil rights aspect (mine doesn't, really) - or, a great eg here would be Gay communities that do not accept trans men (or the converse, in contrast to it's opposite).
Underline: Totally, and that's the strength or success of diversity, on my view. But if you're part of that hivemind, you wouldn't see it as a problem. Which is, as above, fine. that's your tribe! Dive right in. My point is, had you differed sufficiently from the values of the group, the fact that you wanted a welcoming Gay community would fall by the wayside and your opinions become grounds for rejection. That's the difficult part... Imagine yourself in that predicament, being rejected from a community with your exact interests in their purported aims.
Quoting wonderer1
Perhaps. But psychology is largely bollocks to me, so who knows.
Perhaps someday?
In the Hebrew Bible, they use a few different terms for "man" or "male." The word zachar means male. The word gever means man - it's root g-v-r, ties back to "strength" or "to prevail."
So a adult man is a zachar but not necessarily a gever. And I think this distinction reverberates in society today. Masculinity is achieved, not automatically granted to all males regardless of condition or behavior. So for this reason I think it's wrong to call transwomen "men." They are not. They occupy a unique third space.
Interesting. I disagree but find this really interesting.
What is your response to a trans man who is telling you 'well, this is my identity. I am a man, that's how I see myself and what I am emulating. Poo poo to you" ?
Like you mentioned earlier, there's a difference between how you treat the individual in the moment versus our philosophical ruminations about a certain topic. I will respect someone's gender pronouns ~99% of the time if dealing with an actual individual. Philosophically, whether a trans man could fit the bill of being a gever is an interesting question.
Right, that's gender. Its the same as saying a woman who's aggressive and mean isn't a real woman. When society expects men or women to act a certain way, it still doesn't change their sex.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
If you mean transwoman as in 'transexual', yes. If you mean transwoman as transgendered man, no. A transgendered person is defying the expectations of their sex. A transwoman is defying their very sex, attempting to be another sex as well as practice the gender of that sex.
Are they women though? No. You can never change your sex. Can you emulate and try to get other people to see you as the other sex? Sure. So we do have a third category, transwoman/man when one sex decides to consistently present as the other sex. A man or woman who passes off emulating the other sex well will likely be called that emulated sex in public. But when it comes down to situations that are based on biological sex, a transwoman is not a woman and a transman is not a man. A transman should still go see a gynecologist while a transwoman should not.
Quoting AmadeusD
Was the groups push for you to conform an example of hive-mind? Lets start with the motivation behind trying to force or convince someone to conform to ones own ways of thinking. I suggest this is the structure of anger and blame , which underlie most concepts of justice. If you meet someone and share with them your views of gender or gayness or whatever, and they are outraged and disappointed by your thinking, they have convinced themselves that you are willfully disregarding their needs or suffering. The anger they feel impels them to try and get you to mend your ways , to get with the program, to think more ethically or righteously. Because they believe that your beliefs are irrational, arbitrary, or selfish, they justify their judgmental attitude toward you. They basically have thought themselves into a corner. If they are unable to see the world through your eyes, you become a danger to them.
Whats true of an individual can be true of a whole community united around shared values. I dont believe in the concept of hive-mind, brain-washing or mindless conformity. People dont blindly introject ideas from others. The interpretive nature of cognition makes this impossible. We can only assimilate ideas from others that make sense to us in relation to the way we construe the world, and everyones construction system is unique to them to some extent. If a group all seems to believe the same things and share the same values, it is not because they are being blindly led by the hive-mind, but because they have gravitated to that group based on the fact that they have, as individuals, already arrived at that way of thinking. I have never met any group that thinks in lock-step, regardless of how much the leadership tries to define and enforce a party line.
Once you dig beneath the surface , youll find all sorts of splits in ideology among members of the same group. My impression is that you have strong convictions and values yourself, and that there are issues where you blame others for their moral failings as seen from your perspective. You wouldnt be a part of the legal profession unless you believed in a concept of justice that is able to determine guilt and innocence. So you yourself belong to a community with that shared value, and when you declare someone guilty of something, you are imposing those community values on that person. So what makes you different from that gay community who tried to impose their values on you?
You emphasize your individuality and your not fitting into any group. But all the views you have expressed on this forum fit into a familiar slot in terms of a philosophical and cultural background they draw from. So as much as you may want to think of yourself as an outsider and non-conformist, your ways of thinking express a cultural
worldview shared by many others, a worldview that finds ways to impose itself on others, or at least uses itself as a standard on the basis of which to judge others.
It certainly appeared to be. My unwillingness to acquiesce to what I saw as genuinely horrible in-group policies (one particularly pernicious example in this (very gay) space was the insistence that it's a worthwhile endeavour to try to 'turn' straight guys) resulted in everything, and including physical (albeit, inadequate) persuasion, shall be say.
Quoting Joshs
(imagine i quoted that whole passage) That is pretty much precisely my feeling, but with a little added socialisation problem. Its a self-reinforcing group attribute to be this way. The opinion of hte group keeps your bound to this mode of thinking.
Quoting Joshs
While I would reduce the effectiveness of this to a low proportion of the relevant occasions, I have seen this happen in real-time, so i can't agree entirely.
Quoting Joshs
At a point, I think it is not reasonable to think otherwise, myself. That 100 people who are geographically-bound, and are all gay (i.e less than 5% of people to begin with) all thinking and feeling the same way is just 'the natural course' is bizarre and unsupportable to my mind.
Quoting Joshs
I reject this. Most people find groups because they don't know what to think. And this i see daily across society, at every level. I see this happening in real-time constantly. Some proportion of people in this situation likely do what you've desribed, and become the thought leaders of the group, or create their own, as the case may be. Most do not have teh mental strength and primacy of individuation to be this kind of robust personality among many similar (on my view).
Quoting Joshs
Generally, these are minimal and lead to schisms or outright rejections of certain members. The snake always eats its tail. So, while I agree, this actually goes to my point, I think. It is not true that groups of special interest affinity include those of differing political bents. There are no groups within the gay community in which Douglas Murray and Queer Eye are considered on teh same level.
Quoting Joshs
This does not strike me as at all how i approach these matters. I judge behaviour. I don't give a piss what your morals are - morals are useless for me to assess you. Your actions will tell me what I need to know, in light of my own morals. And in that way, there is no 'blame'. I blame people for being assholes. Nothing so high-falutin' as a moral disagreement.
Quoting Joshs
False - there is no necessity to believe in guilt and 'justice' as they are to be part of the legal profession. I know several local scholars (Ti Lamusse is one example) who got into the law literally to tear it apart. He has failed. But nevertheless.
As it transpires, my wanting to be part of this profession is actually to be entirely sui generis. I would rather not work for a firm, but I have to for at least another six years (though, by that point I hope to be teaching). I don't align myself with any community. I'm unsure where you inferring all this from. Law is not a group of affinity. It is exactly the opposite. We are adversarial and accept every strain of thought, as long as you're not losing your firm money. Simply doing a job doesn't apportion any group membership, other than optically from you, the viewer.
Quoting Joshs
While you're being extremely thoughtful and respectful, this question strikes me as an absolute nonsense. There is nothing to defend - there is no similarity.
Quoting Joshs
Yes. And there is no issue, or relationship to the group-think, tyranny of opinion we're trying to discuss. Unsure where you were going there... seemed to change subject half-way through to moral disagreements per se.
Quoting Philosophim Obviously, though, emotions can be justified or we can even see certain emotional states as something one ought to possess in certain circumstances?
I'm curious then. In being so morally objective is something lost if we were to remove our emotional connection/impetus/drive for such a conclusion in the first place? Perhaps emotions are neither sufficient nor necessary for moral practice including the prescription of moral judgements but they clearly dictate the strength of such judgements. This may lead to a perceived weakness/strength of a moral sort for certain individuals. Is such a 'strength' redundant and perhaps altogether without purpose?
Quoting Philosophim There is whiplash at the moment from both degenerative relativists and authoritarian moral absolutists to a point that layman have to distinguish themselves from two greater evils first before they can speak.
Quoting AmadeusD In such discussions as this, is external hypocrisy seen as a requirement to better mend our society? Or is political/social/moral honesty no matter its implications, whether intended or not, preferred?
Is neutral compromise all that we can fight for here or are there moral mountain peaks to climb ourselves to instead? Leaving some to reap the benefits while others fall onto lesser moral rocks below.
For example, think of the notorious transgender bathroom situation. As far as solutions go its rather simple if not obvious what should happen and its peculiar it hasn't happened sooner. In the same sense in which bathrooms, or in analogy any other public place, can be made independent of race so can they do so for gender expression. . . sex. . . disability. . . intersex condition. . . etc.
Why then the resistance? One such prong of disagreement seems to be that greater pain in the transition to such a gender neutral world would become widespread and hidden from the sight of judicial/societal action. Beyond the rhetoric with which gender roles retain their objectivity by religious conviction or biological necessity. Beyond mere conservative pearl clutching, emotional distain, and the collapse of western civilization. They shout out statistics indicating both rare cases of cross dressing abusers and the prevalence of assaults' on women in mixed restrooms. This is not deniable albeit quibbling on how these statistics may be more skewed given the possibility of under-reporting.
The issue then turns to addressing a societal problem that could be seen as a specific case of true 'toxic masculinity'. Think we will get somewhere now? Or rather is it the case that one or the other side will push us back down the causal run to another fundamental level? Morality or not. . . religiosity or not. . . mental health or not. . . etc.
This minister is using trans people as a political football here. It's 'despicable' is his words.
Someone who admits they squirmed their way into their portfolio, for ideological reasons, isn't even the standard dishonest politician. They are a liar.