Gender elevated over sex is sexism
The more one investigates an idea, the more one should come to understand it seeing its positives and negatives. I have studied the idea of gender and its uses for some time now, and I keep coming back to the same conclusions. The elevation of gender over sex is social prejudice at best, social sexism at worst. I want to see what others think.
Definitions:
Sex: The biological expression of a species intended reproductive role
Sex expectations: The biological medians and average that are objectively associated with a sex. For example, men generally have lower octave voices then women
Gender: The non-biological expectations that one or more people have about how a sex should express themselves in public. For example, "Men are expected to wear top hats, women are not."
I do not think there is a debate as to the reality and usefulness of the terms above. The question is about primacy of importance in regards to law and culture. Rationally, which is more important to consider? A person's sex, or their gender?
1. Objective vs subjective
First, sex identification is an objective classification. Gender identification is a subjective opinion. In matters of law sex can be established clearly and unambiguously in most cases, where gender cannot be established with any certainty in any cases. With sex a person can take the attributes of the individual and determine the outcome. With gender, since everyone can have a different idea of how a particular sex should express themselves in society, there is no objective reference. At that point its in the hands of the individual enforcing the law, which ends in disparate ruling across multiple people and inequitable results.
2. Definition of sexism
prejudice or discrimination based on sex OR
behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism
Looking at gender, gender is a social belief that a sex should express itself a particular way. Gender claims are subjective beliefs, not objective facts. Further, it is an expectation that a person express themselves in a way that is not necessitated by their biology.
Lets imagine we have a society that only has one gendered difference between men and women. "Women should cook in the kitchen. Martha does not cook in the kitchen, therefore she is not a woman," that would be sexist. The proper thing would be to tell Martha, "People's expectations of how you should act based on your biology can be ignored. it does not change the fact that you're still a woman." A social belief of how a woman should express themselves elevated above and counter to the realities of their biological existence is simple social sexism.
On the other hand, if William, a male, decided to cook in the kitchen and someone said, "William isn't a man," this would also be sexist. Once again, this is the elevation of a social expectation above and counter to their biological reality. Even further, if William himself stated, "I cook in the kitchen, therefore I'm not a man", this would ALSO be sexist.
Conclusion:
Because gender is subjective and subject to the whims of an individual or group, and placing gender over sex in matters of importance matches the definition of sexism, I just can't see any good reason to consider gender as anything more than a prejudiced and sexist social pressure. We should seek to minimize gender as anything more than an ignorant and potentially bigoted human opinion about people based on their sex.
But maybe I'm missing something. I'm curious to see what other people think.
Definitions:
Sex: The biological expression of a species intended reproductive role
Sex expectations: The biological medians and average that are objectively associated with a sex. For example, men generally have lower octave voices then women
Gender: The non-biological expectations that one or more people have about how a sex should express themselves in public. For example, "Men are expected to wear top hats, women are not."
I do not think there is a debate as to the reality and usefulness of the terms above. The question is about primacy of importance in regards to law and culture. Rationally, which is more important to consider? A person's sex, or their gender?
1. Objective vs subjective
First, sex identification is an objective classification. Gender identification is a subjective opinion. In matters of law sex can be established clearly and unambiguously in most cases, where gender cannot be established with any certainty in any cases. With sex a person can take the attributes of the individual and determine the outcome. With gender, since everyone can have a different idea of how a particular sex should express themselves in society, there is no objective reference. At that point its in the hands of the individual enforcing the law, which ends in disparate ruling across multiple people and inequitable results.
2. Definition of sexism
prejudice or discrimination based on sex OR
behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism
Looking at gender, gender is a social belief that a sex should express itself a particular way. Gender claims are subjective beliefs, not objective facts. Further, it is an expectation that a person express themselves in a way that is not necessitated by their biology.
Lets imagine we have a society that only has one gendered difference between men and women. "Women should cook in the kitchen. Martha does not cook in the kitchen, therefore she is not a woman," that would be sexist. The proper thing would be to tell Martha, "People's expectations of how you should act based on your biology can be ignored. it does not change the fact that you're still a woman." A social belief of how a woman should express themselves elevated above and counter to the realities of their biological existence is simple social sexism.
On the other hand, if William, a male, decided to cook in the kitchen and someone said, "William isn't a man," this would also be sexist. Once again, this is the elevation of a social expectation above and counter to their biological reality. Even further, if William himself stated, "I cook in the kitchen, therefore I'm not a man", this would ALSO be sexist.
Conclusion:
Because gender is subjective and subject to the whims of an individual or group, and placing gender over sex in matters of importance matches the definition of sexism, I just can't see any good reason to consider gender as anything more than a prejudiced and sexist social pressure. We should seek to minimize gender as anything more than an ignorant and potentially bigoted human opinion about people based on their sex.
But maybe I'm missing something. I'm curious to see what other people think.
Comments (233)
I would debate.
It seems to be more complex than just the set of presentations -- most of us have met "tomboy" like women, or men who dress quite femininely (or even cross dress) who nevertheless would never consider themselves trans. And, linking back to sex, why do some trans people choose to have a sex change, or even just hormone therapy. The way you've separated sex and gender and rationalized the latter doesn't appear compatible with doing anything that the world at large isn't seeing.
I'm not saying that social expectations aren't a big part of this, I just feel it's a bad definition to start from.
Quoting Philosophim
No-one says that though.
No-one says "I like soap operas, therefore I am a woman".
I would probably agree that there is a degree of sexism in such a statement, were someone to make it, but it isn't a realistic depiction of gender dysphoria.
Please do! Its important to explore different view points.
Quoting Mijin
If you mean 'trans gender' that is because gender is subjective. If a person does not consider their behavior as only belonging to men, then they don't see themselves as trans gender. But there are people who think, "I'm aggressive, and only men are supposed to be aggressive. Maybe I'm a man?"
Quoting Mijin
That's not a trans gender individual, but a trans sexual individual. Such a person wants to change their body either because they hate their own sex, or desire to be the other sex. Trans gender and trans sexuals are separate. A person can be trans gender and have no desire to change their body, while a trans sexual can change their body while having no desire to change their gender. Desiring to change the body also does not require sexism. Some people truly desire the physical traits of the other sex, but are not sexist. They just want a beard or breasts.
Quoting Mijin
A dear friend of mine who is in the middle of transition has said such things as, "Going bald really bothers me, gender dysphoria is real isn't it?" and, "I keep finding things on the internet that I like are followed by lesbians. I must be a lesbian." He really believes he's a lesbian by the way despite the fact I've pointed out how 'sexual orientationist' his reasoning is. He can't even imagine a sexual encounter with someone else if he doesn't imagine himself as a woman being involved. Its pretty obvious that its a sexual desire he has as a male to be a woman, but he uses 'gender' to lie to himself and others that 'that's not what its about'. Even though he constantly reads lesbian romance novels. Even though I've seen how he looks at himself in discord, strokes his long hair enthusiastically and gets a moment of lust that crosses his face.
Remember that sexism is either ignorance enforced by culture, or a lie for power over something you often can't otherwise control. He can't control his sexual urges. Therefore he uses gender to lie and cover it up. I'm not saying that all trans sexuals want the other sex's body for sexual reasons, but if they claim gender is involved, its sexism. How do you think doctor's evaluate gender dysphoric kids? "I always wanted to be a girl, I played with dolls as a child, and always acted like a girl."
Lets looks at the DSM-5 diagnosis criteria for gender dysphoria.
"Some people who identify as transgender do experience “gender dysphoria,” a psychiatric diagnosis that refers to the psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity."
A strong desire to be of the other gender or an insistence that one is the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
In boys (assigned gender), a strong preference for cross-dressing or simulating female attire; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong preference for wearing only typical masculine clothing and a strong resistance to the wearing of typical feminine clothing
A strong preference for cross-gender roles in make-believe play or fantasy play
A strong preference for the toys, games or activities stereotypically used or engaged in by the other gender
A strong preference for playmates of the other gender
In boys (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically masculine toys, games, and activities and a strong avoidance of rough-and-tumble play; or in girls (assigned gender), a strong rejection of typically feminine toys, games, and activities
A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender)
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria
All of that is sexism. You'll note there are other diagnosis of trans sexualism in the DSM-5. But none of the above stereotypes are required to desire the body of the other sex. If a person was confused by sexism however, they might think that they needed to align their body with the 'gender' they desired to be. There are people out there, especially young people, who believe that because they want to do things we prejudice as belonging to the other sex, that they need to change their body to match so they can do those things without societal rejection.
Sexism is powerful and has made people believe they should stick to certain 'roles' for centuries. There are people out there who believe in sexism, and believe because they do not behave like a normal person of their sex, that changing their body to match that will fix that problem.
Right, its just sexist language when referring to gender. "Trans men are men" if you are referring to men in a gendered way, is incredibly sexist. It implies that there is some role or action that a person can do that makes them a 'man'. If you are saying a trans man is a man by sex, that's not a sexist claim, but one which is provably true or false. Sexism is very powerful, and its 'defeat' has only caused it to retreat and reshape itself into a new term, 'gender'.
Quoting LuckyR
To be clear, gender is purely a social expectation that has nothing to do with natural biology. If we said, "All men should get their left toe removed," that's changing your body for gender. There is no biological innate reason a man should get their left toe removed." If a person desires to cut their breasts off to resemble the chest of a man, that's someone trying to emulate sex expectations, not gender expectations of the other sex. That's trans sexual behavior, not trans gender behavior.
Misandry too. Lets not be sexist ourselves and think this is only one sided. Also to be fair, sexism is not motivated only by negative aspects. Phiandry and philogyny, or the love of men and women can also be a drive for sexism and a desire to be the other sex.
I don't think that's an issue. There is one sex that has been discriminated against in history and had to fight long and hard for their rights.
You can be a man and be a misandrist. And there are women who hate men, but may not have the power to do much about it. Hating or loving one sex is irrelevant to the rights of that sex. One does not have to have power to be a misandrist or misogynist.
I think you are missing that genderroles were part of a culture that got us to where we are now. And that every modern society where they are being eroded, seem to be experiencing problems replacing itself with a next generation.
So did war, ignorance, religion, and many other things that we have learned we can do without and still be successful. Just because something happened to accompany us while we furthered humanity does not mean that it was complicit in our success or needed anymore.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
Do you have any proof of this? What seems to be the case isn't the erosion of gender roles, its the enrichment of society vs the cost of having children combined with birth control. Many people opt out of having kids because they value their luxury time more as well. Some men stay at home and take care of the kids now while their wives work, which is an erosion of gender roles. I'm just not seeing evidence that the decision to not have kids is because of the removal of gender roles in marriage.
There certainly is evidence that the religious have more children. But sure, it's one of those things that is very difficult to isolate from other factors to study it in isolation... still I think it makes sense that it would have an influence. If women have many other possibilities, like say careers, or are otherwise not encouraged to have children, it seems reasonable to presume that they would feel less of a need to have children.
Well, this is an original idea to forward an anti-transgender argument, but this theory has several holes, beginning with the idea that gender is something artificially “elevated”
Gender is one aspect of identity, and it’s our identity, produced by a brain, that determines how we perceive and react to the world. It’s all we got to go on. To suggest that some part of my body, rather than my brain, should determine who I am, is absurd.
Quoting Philosophim
No, gender is not determined by external expectations, but by biological factors - how the brain functions:
… the existence of brain phenotypes in line with the idea of a brain sexual differentiation seems to be confirmed by the … reported studies, including both cisgender and transgender individuals.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7139786/
Perhaps it is simplistic to say a male transgender person has a male brain, or a female transgender brain has a female brain – but the evidence that transgender brain structure and function are different from their biological (physical) sex is there if you care to investigate it.
From one study:
The observed shift away from a male-typical brain anatomy towards a female-typical one in people who identify as transgender women suggests a possible underlying neuroanatomical correlate for a female gender identity.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8955456/
From another:
… results, published in 2013, showed that even before treatment the brain structures of the trans people were more similar in some respects to the brains of their experienced gender than those of their natal gender.
From a study that focused on brain function:
… used functional MRI to examine how 39 prepubertal and 41 adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria responded to androstadienone, an odorous steroid with pheromonelike properties that is known to cause a different response in the hypothalamus of men versus women. They found that the adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria responded much like peers of their experienced gender.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-something-unique-about-the-transgender-brain/
Quoting Philosophim
Gender is part of cognitive identity, so definitely gender. Why should “law and culture” force people to be something they are not? In what situations is this justified?
Quoting Philosophim
Of course, identity is subjective – it is produced in the brain of the subject. But subjectivity does not mean identity should be disregarded. Indeed, it should prevail. It is one’s lived experience – not an “opinion” - not a "belief" - but a reality.
Quoting Philosophim
No, gender is not a social belief. It is a state produced by a functioning brain, encompassing differences in cognition among individuals, which lead to differences in behavior. Here is one well-researched area that would produce different experiences of reality (and thus different reactions to it):
“You see sex differences in spatial-visualization ability in 2- and 3-month-old infants,” Halpern says. Infant girls respond more readily to faces and begin talking earlier. Boys react earlier in infancy to experimentally induced perceptual discrepancies in their visual environment. In adulthood, women remain more oriented to faces, men to things.
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-different/
Quoting Philosophim
No, gender is not based on a “whim.”
Quoting Philosophim
But to not recognize the gender that one claims for themselves would be a prejudiced position, and put sexist social pressure on them.
Quoting Philosophim
Or – we can just accept one’s lived experience that they claim for themselves. Believe them.
In summary, gender/identity should take precedence over the physical attributes of the body. External pressures to be something you are not (which are often based in ignorance) should be discouraged.
I’ll bypass most of your OP and just say taking gender into account is not the same thing as “placing gender over sex.”
There’s more to say about your obsession with transgender issues, but I guess that wouldn’t be philosophy.
Nicely put.
This is clearly not true. For 99.7% of people, biological sex and gender match each other.
Boy, this is a great post. Really interesting. I’m going to follow up on some of the reading you linked.
Or maybe I’ll just plagiarize what you’ve written in future discussions.
Thank you so much!
Quoting T Clark
Be my guest!
So people do say that. But its ridiculous, so we should rightly be putting it in the ridiculous category. You make a good point that "gender dysphoria" (i am skeptical, but lets leave that aside) has nothing to do with such a claim. But I then don't know what it would have to do with. Gender appears to be stereotypes. Those are stereotypes. I'm not sure what could cause dysphoria around gender other than a mismatch of behaviour and stereotype (hence my initial comment).
Which leads me to my actual point: it seems to be the case that most trans-presenting people do not have any dysphoria and are playing a game. One that requires sexism and misogyny.
Have you read @Questioner’s post above? Here’s one of the things he had to say:
Quoting Questioner
The information included in his post puts the lie to just about everything you and @Philosophim have to say on this subject. Maybe you guys will just lay off on your transgender obsession. Probably not.
Suffice to say that you making this claim doesn't make it so. I have presented him with ample evidence that the male/female brain claim is a myth, for example - which got ignored. You can probably use the search function if interested. Its in the Transwomen are women thread.
This is one of a few topis that seems to have people A. telling you not to talk about it (or shaming you for it - which is utterly ridiculous) and B. straight-up not engaging in good faith discourse. Some of our best posters such as yourself and Banno do this. Its bizarre. Just absolute non engagement with what's presented.
Well, if I say that women wear their hair long, that's a gender (social) norm. Hair is biology (like left toes), yet the choice of how to wear it is social. Same with eyelashes and fingernails and ear piercing. Folks get plastic surgery to defy age. Facial skin is biology, but the choice to eliminate wrinkles is social. Thus it's established that certain manipulations of our biological physicality falls under social (gender) events. The fact that some women's hip area is less ample than the social norm leads to cosmetic surgery to augment that area, even though their hips were perfectly biologically female to begin with. That's not sexual. So a man getting the exact same surgery is also not sexual (is social), by my reckoning.
No one is arguing you can't have a sexist identity. You haven't argued that a gender identity isn't sexist.
Quoting Questioner
You should quote the rest of the conclusion as well:
"However, the relationship between gender behavioural differences and brain dimorphic areas is still not clear, since such differences may be the result not only of anatomical features but also life experiences [34,35,36,37]. Furthermore, the popular explanation that there is a female and a male brain on the base of gender behavioural differences is not supported by a strong empirical background [11], as, for example, men and women share more similarities than differences [38,39,40,41,42,43]. Furthermore, a great variability in behavioural and psychological aspects is shown between genders [44]. Moreover, the size of the brain differences is usually small"
So no, you haven't proven anything. We both also need to be careful how you're defining gender. If gender is defined as a social expectation of behavior by a sex apart from biology, then you need to demonstrate that it is hard wired into the brain. For example, is it hard wired that "Men should wear top hats while women should not?" Of course not. Its just as likely that a society forms that claims the opposite. Which again, is just sexism.
Quoting Questioner
I have investigated it. The brain science is still quite nascient. The most important things I consider in any study which claims that transgender brains are different from cis, is if the study includes sexual orientation, and if the person has not been on any medication for transition. This is because male homosexual brains have some resemblence to female brains. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-says-brains-of-gay/
...and if this is not taken into account in trans studies, the gay brains shift the average to conclude, "Trans brains are more female". When sexual orientation is taken into account, there is no discernable difference in the brains of trans vs non-trans males prior to taking medication.
Quoting Questioner
I never said the law should force people into identities. I noted that when gender is elevated above sex in matters of culture and law, its sexism. You are free to identify in a sexist way, but we should not elevate a sexist viewpoint over the objective division of sex. So if you think you should be in sex separated spaces because you act, dress, or behave a certain way, that's a sexist viewpoint. Its much better to take an objective viewpoint for legal identity. Man and women can be seen as sexist roles, or they can be seen as objective descriptors of biology. In matters of law, the objective descriptor makes for better laws.
Quoting Questioner
Should prevail? That's a statement, not an explanation. If I have the identity of a murderer, you're saying that should prevail? Everything you do is lived experience. That's not an argument about why gender isn't simply sexism.
Quoting Questioner
You're conflating 'gender' with 'sex' here. Sex differences are not gender. Gender is "I believe men should wear tank tops, and women shouldn't." Its completely subjective as to how I, another person, or a group of people believe a particular sex should behave in society.
Quoting Questioner
Its not based on anything biological. And I can hold a completely different view of how males and females act than you with the same justification you have toward your views. Its just a prejudice.
Quoting Questioner
That statement does not address my points or have any explanation for why you think it is true behind it. You need to address the points I made in the argument explaining why gender is sexist, then demonstrate how it isn't.
Quoting Questioner
I believe when people have sexist views. I never said I didn't. And none of us should accept that a sexist outlook should take priority over actual biological differences in sex.
Quoting Questioner
I see no evidence of this in your points.
He didn’t just make a claim. Unlike you and @Philosophim, he provided references to evidence. If you want to question his evidence, that would make sense, but all you do is wave your arms.
Quoting AmadeusD
Well, I certainly have never told you not to talk about this. I think it’s fine. And I don’t understand why you would say I’m not arguing in good faith.
Thank you for agreeing with me then. Glad you accept the premise of the OP.
Quoting T Clark
Correct my little passive aggressive bird. Your bias against me has nothing to do with philosophy or anything intellectual in the slightest.
Quoting T Clark
Then you clearly did not read the OP. Oh wait, you already said you didn't. Way to go you!
Quoting T Clark
I just replied to his post. I think its customary to allow a rejoinder before declaring victory right?
Correct. The definition of gender is how one or more people believe a sex should behave socially. There is nothing innate in being a sex that indicates one should wear their hair short or long, or even that how you wear your hair should have anything to do with your sex. That's gender. That's sexism.
Quoting LuckyR
This is not gender. Any sex can get these things done. If you believe only one sex should get them done, then its gender.
Quoting LuckyR
Its if there is a subjective opinion that doing or not doing these things should be encouraged or limited by your sex.
No, that is your definition, and it goes against commonly accepted research.
"Sex" is how you're built. "Gender" is a part of who you are.
According to the American College of Pediatricians:
Although often used interchangeably, the terms sex and gender are not synonyms. According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), gender is defined as the “lived role” of male or female, resulting from the interaction of cultural and psychological factors with a person’s biological constitution.
These definitions are complimentary, not contradictory. Mine is the colloquial version of the medical speak below.
"lived role" - Socially constructed expectation of behavior
of male or female - of a person's sex
cultural and psychological factors - subjective opinion from a group of people and the self
a person’s biological constitution - Their sex
Is that all? Do you have anything more to say to my last response?
I read this differently, since we live inside our heads
Quoting Philosophim
one's own psychological factors, not the factors of others
Quoting Philosophim
The brain is part of your biology
Quoting Philosophim
Much of your argument depends on one's identity being something produced outside of them, and I cannot accept that presumption.
That’s not what I said, and you know it. More importantly, you didn’t respond to my primary point which was:
Quoting T Clark
Quoting Philosophim
I think your ideas on transgenderism are poorly argued and supported and I think it’s important that the weakness of your argument be demonstrated. Whether or not I’m doing a good job, that’s what I’m trying to do.
Quoting Philosophim
I did read the OP.
Quoting Philosophim
It’s true, I wrote my post before I read your response to @Questioner’s post. Now I’ve read your post and the article Questioner linked to. The results presented in that article were fairly clear, if certainly not without qualifications. Sexual identity, or gender identity, or whatever you want to call it—and even brain structure—can be affected by genetic and hormonal effects both before and after birth. You ignored that.
No, my argument simply notes that gender is a subjective opinion of how a sex should act in society, and that this is essentially no more than prejudice or sexism if we say it is more important than the reality of your sex itself. A gendered opinion can be from the self, or society, so it does not need to be produced outside of an individual.
Quoting T Clark
You are doing a terrible job. I don't mind if you don't like me. I don't mind if you don't like my arguments. But we're not on reddit. We're on a philosophy board. You don't have to like me. So swallow the personal attack accusations and actually give a coherent argument that addresses the OP instead of basic trolling and passive aggressive sniping.
Quoting T Clark
This is just lazy. I responded to, and posted several articles. Which one TClark? Maybe a quote? You've let your own bias turn your brains into mush and I'm about done with it. What a disappointment that one of my favorite posters isn't any better than some fresh face single digit poster.
I went back and looked through all my comments on this thread. They were all civil. The only comment I found that was not philosophically appropriate was what I said about your obsession with transgender issues.
This is a controversial and provocative issue. If you’re going to mess around with it, you need to come up with better arguments. Something with substance. That’s what infuriates me about this, not your opinions, but the low quality of your arguments.
Whenever you want to actually getting around to actually addressing them, let me know.
I think we’ve already hashed out our differences on gender and sex; but I would like to point one thing out as just food for thought:
You say that:
(underlined for emphasis)
If gender is “the non-biological expectations that one or more people have about how a sex should express themselves in public”, then the stereotypes of social roles based off of sex would be genderism and not sexism; for your definition of sex and gender entail that such stereotypes have nothing to do with sex itself other than being loosely tied to sex in an illegitimate fashion, so, thusly, it cannot be sexist since ‘sexism’ has as its object of thought what is discriminatory about sex (which would be the first part of your definition of sexism).
So:
This idea of ‘a woman’ or ‘a man’ here, in your terms (as far as I can tell), refers to gender and not sex since it pertains to stereotypes based off of sex.
I think maybe your response would be that stereotyping sex with a gender is sexist because it tries too tie too much to sex; but nothing about sex in your terms has been discriminated against (such as their voice tone to use your example). Instead, the person would have been, at best, misgendered.
It seems like by noting misgendering is sexist; you have actually implicitly adopted a more realist framework about gender that is incompatible with your definition of it.
Likewise, if gender is about 'how a sex should express themselves in public' and any 'stereotypes of social roles based on sex' is sexism; then it follows logically that a person who voluntarily identifies with a gender (such as 'femaleness') is being sexist against themselves.
You seem to have ignored (again, and along with with Questioner) have obviously, and unfortunately obviously on purpose, ignore the several sources (and quotes there from, along with explanations of how they link with the context we're talking in) I have provided. I sent you to them. You have not bothered to look.
That means I don't need to care. Questioner has not provided any support that trumps several metastudies for any points hes made. The only one you seem to want to point to is the brain one. That is a myth. For which I have provided ample evidence. You not looking at it shouldn't become my problem.
Quoting T Clark
Because of the objective reality of the above lack in your engagement. You've literally responded to nothing except to stand behind Questioner going "yeah, get 'em!". Its not fun to see. You're usually good at this. Iin this case, you've not engaged with any argument whatsoever and just leaped straight to ad hominem.
In any case, that position betrays the claim. If brains are sexed, then that's sex. Not gender.
The claim that one can be born in the wrong body then looms large. Are we claiming that? I don't think so. That tells me there's no consistency here.
:mask:
E.g. a "transwoman" (typical XY) is a gender dysmorphic, modified (mutilated) adult male [I]in drag[/I] and not a woman (typical XX). Afaik, "she" is almost never attracted to (or found attractive by) a "transman" (typical XX), I suspect, because usually "she" (and/or "he") is also gay (XY-XY / XX-XX).
I went back and looked at all the posts you and Philosophim made in this thread. I have no idea what you’re talking about when you refer to quotes and sources and explanations.
Because you aren't even clearly reading my responses to you. See below. I am not trying to be purposefully rude - this is just extremely hard to be polite about. You are ignoring the key aspects of arguments against you (including sources), while presenting none of your own and riding coattails (in this specific thread, only). It doesn't really call for civility. It calls for ignoring you, for the most part. I'm trying to do neither.
Quoting AmadeusD
Sorry if you looked before I fixed the quote.
See, this is what's annoying any non-biased intellectual should be able to spot from a mile away.
Humanity has normalized primal, brutish behavior. This was required, yes, for a time. But times pass away, and so do (or at least should) those who so adamantly cling to them.
Humanity has evolved. From beyond a little monster that can't keep his thing between his pants (which grows into a so-called "normal" adult male, only after learning consequence of course). To that of a refined intellect. A refined intellect, the only class and creed of human that will be permitted to live, can see an attractive member of the opposite gender at a young or any age, and see a fellow intelligent being. Not a piece of meat to essentially impale. This is what the "average" pathetic attempt at calling those who cannot a "straight" male, who is pained and otherwise damned to live a life of. Never knowing one of the opposite gender as a true equal. This is the mental illness being made "normal manhood" that is what truly should be considered "homosexual" or "not capable to reproduce."
Until you see that, you'll be forever lost. Not that it matters. What's done is done. And what must be, will be. You will see it is those who know they are threatened (rightfully so) who attempt to commit effective infanticide (lack of reproduction and outnumbering the scourge that is un-evolved man who chose violence and lust over peace and purpose) by attempting to enlist society (many if not most like the damned) to cast certain (superior) forms of life as "homosexual" or "gay" or (not eligible to reproduce) when it fact it remains starkly the opposite. They lost. And they won't ever realize until far too late. Perhaps they never will. But it matters not.
No different than the first fish that evolved strange or "queer" features. It brought forth a previously untold wealth of development and progress by being able to traverse land (in that case physical, but perhaps in this new case, mental) territory its larger and more powerful peers never could. And it shan't be disrupted by the lesser evolved.
It's been like this from the beginning. From the death of Socrates. To now. "Common stereotype of smart people being bullied" in movies. It's all the same. The perpetually inferior suppressing the momentarily superior. Fortunately. The smart people are now behind the nuclear launch buttons. Will the lower class and unevolved throngs of humanity obey? Or will they destroy themselves? Does it matter? :smile:
The slaves, clearly created to build and work for the elect (naturally smaller and a bit more silly, more emotional and basically everything else it means to be an actual human being), were already given more than they ever deserved. Clearly more than they could ever understand. They live better lives than even the highest of kings 1,000 years ago. And they still have no appreciation. No understanding. No sense of what it means to be human. But, when humbled, they'll learn real quick. This is the fate of all who stand in the way of true progress. Which is not shiny machines and towering skyscrapers, but peaceful streets and lovable neighbors one actually wakes up in impatience to experience. This cannot be achieved by military might, prudent math, incredible science, not even unbound intelligence, no. It can only be achieved by the one thing humanity was given at the beginning, the one thing these other things (while incredible) ultimately detract and rob us of.
I don't understand the term 'true progress' either. What's false progress in contrast?
How does this apply to, say, women's sports? I think, in those cases, physical attributes take precedence over gender/identity. To take an extreme example, if Mike Tyson in his prime started identifying as a women, he would not be allowed to box in the women's division. That would be insane.
So, I’m at fault for not taking into account— searching for—arguments you made in a different thread. Is that right. And since I didn’t, I’m arguing in bad faith.
Anyway, we’re not getting anywhere. Let’s leave it there. Or at least until the next time.
Quoting Bob Ross
I thought about this very thing when I was first mulling this over, but it turns out 'genderism' has a different meaning.
genderism -Also called gender binarism. the belief that there are only two genders, that a person’s gender is fixed at birth, and that gender expression is determined by gender assigned at birth.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/genderism
So the word is taken already. Which means the definition of sexism still fits for preferring gender over sex.
Quoting Bob Ross
Correct. And yet it is still a form of sexism.
Quoting Bob Ross
To be clear, it is the elevation of gender of sex that is sexist. Not necessarily the observation of it. Lets say a woman behaves in a stereotypical 'girly' way. Its an observation. But if I take another girl who does not behave in a 'girly' (gendered) way, then tell them, "You're not a woman," that's sexism.
I think misgendering is when we associate stereotypes about sex on the wrong sex. So if a woman is 'acting masculine' and we say, "You're a man", that's misgendering. Of course, misgendering is again, another form of sexism. It is placing the expectations one has on a sex's behavior over the reality of the person. It is an indicator that if you do, or do not act and behave in a certain social way that you are 'not your sex'.
Quoting Bob Ross
Correct.
There are plenty of straight men who transition as well. I believe there are more straight men who've transitioned today than gay men. The majority of them often have an inward sexual orientation to being female.
But I have presented you with a compelling argument and much evidence that it is not. What you may be defining is cultural mores, or accepted practices, but gender is part of a person's identity, and an identity is an internal feature of who we are. It is one's mental construct of themself.
If you mean me:
I have 168 posts (169 with this one) and my face is not as fresh as it used to be.
If you don't mean me, sorry for the misunderstanding.
Stop assuming a male human being is "gay" just because they aren't sexually attracted to the given, often limited selection of "women" that happen to be available. (Or that they are and unlike you or at least those around them, they have self-control, discipline, and a refined sense of self, even in the face of temptation where the other person does not!). That sort of thinking is what's "gay" or queer, which actually only means odd. It's a sad shame how humanity fails to realize this. Why would you assume the few limited group of people you were born around and into (the average modern person only having 4-5 "close friends" and only any sort of knowledge beyond immediate recognition of a few dozen), this small group we're acquainted with is supposed to define how all men and women and people are out of a sea of 8 billion? That's beyond silly. It's simple. And simple men never make it very far.
This is not true, I had the last word about male vs female brains, in a reply to you, citing more accurate and recent research, that sex differences in brains can be read with fMRI
Quoting AmadeusD
This is your interpretation of my motivations for posting what I did, and it is wrong.
Well, I wouldn't use the words "right" and "wrong" - just different.
I'm going to ask you to put on your thinking hat - and ask yourself - where is the seat of my perception of myself? Is it in the brain? Does your perception of yourself - which is constructed by putting together all your thought processes - tell you that you are one particular gender rather than another?
I think we really need to get a firm understanding of what identity is, and accept that gender, in most cases, is part of that identity. Yes, outside perceptions may influence our identity - but they trigger an internal dialogue - and then how they are analyzed, processed, and responded to are determined by our brains.
Here's a quote from The Neuroscience of Identity -
... that there are two parts of the prefrontal cortex used for processing information salient to the human identity—the medial prefrontal cortex, or mpfc (BA10) and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, or dmpfc (BA9) (Lieberman 2018). The mpfc is active during our default mode, or when we are not focused on the external environment, and biases us to shift our thinking to become egocentric, while the dmpfc is active when processing salient social information pertinent to one’s position in groups as well as the perspective of others. We quite literally process thoughts about ourselves and thoughts about others in different parts of the brain. This is a reflection of the dynamic and co-optive nature of identity.
https://creatingwe.com/news-blogs/articles-blogs/psychology-today/the-neuroscience-of-identity
Good question. Since sports involve physical attributes, rather than mental, I think it's pretty apparent that transgender women should not be allowed in female sports, since with their male bodies they would have an unfair advantage.
What about traditional women's spaces? Suppose you have a man who identifies as a woman walking around in the women's locker room at 24 Hour Fitness with their junk hanging out? I don't think women should have to put up with that.
No, I would say that only transgender women who have completed their transition should be allowed in female changing rooms.
Everyone has a personal identity, but that doesn't mean its more than a subjective identity. For example, I can have a personal identity that I am a doctor. To be a doctor objectively, I must have a Phd. No one is required, and I am not entitled to other people recognizing my subjective identity as a doctor if I do not have a Phd. People are only required to recognize that I am a doctor if I have a Phd.
Gender is specifically an expected set of behaviors that we attribute to a particular sex in society. So for example, "Only men wear top hats. Only women wear flower hats." Of course, someone else could just as easily say, "Only men wear flower hats. Only women wear top hats." We would both be right because gender is not objective, it is subjective.
What then is a gender identity? First, you have to have a gendered view. You believe "Women/men should do X." "Women/Men should not do Y." You are one of those sexes. You look at the gender you have established and think, "Even though I am sex A, if I follow my expectations of how sex A should act, I really feel like acting like sex B" Basically, "I'm a man, I feel like acting the way I think a man should act." Or "I'm a man, I feel like acting the way a woman should act." Which are all fine. But the moment you go, "The way I think a man/woman should act makes a person a man/woman" is the point that you enter into sexism, or elevate gender over a person's sex.
Quoting Questioner
No, not at all. I'm talking to T Clark. You sir/ma'am are excellent. Wonderful posts, citations, and polite discussion. You have my respect whether we agree on the outcome of this discussion or not. :)
I’m surprised you’re disappointed—we’ve been through all this before. I’m not disappointed, I’ve heard these arguments from you before.
Quoting Questioner
To the point, you learn what sex you are. Then you have to decide if a sex should act a particular way in society. Some people don't. Some people think along the lines of society. Some people think uniquely. If you have constructed in your head that only men should act in a particular way, then you don't behave like that, you can start to think, "I'm not acting like a man."
Of course, if there was a young man who came to me and said, "My baseball team thinks, I'm not a man because I like ballet," I would tell him, "You don't have to act any particular way to be a man. You are a man because you were born one. Do not worry about the expectations from society, be your own person." Basically I would teach them that such views of the sexes is unhealthy. Gender is something we should grow out of, not grow into.
The reality is that you can act and be whatever you want in a free society. Some people will think its cool, and some will think its not. Some people will tie it to your height, your weight, skin color, hair color, or sex. Part of growing up and maturing our minds is realizing these are superficial judgements of ourselves and others that limit us. You can be white and like rap. You can be black and not like rap. You can be a woman and hate kids. You can be a man and adore kids. Find what you like and how you want to live without basing it on other's or your own expectations of how a body like yours should act.
Quoting Questioner
My point is that its not a healthy identity, and if elevated over the sex that we are, over the body that we are, is sexist. Just because we have a personal identity of ourselves, it doesn't mean the rest of the world sees us that way, or that such an identity is actually healthy for ourselves either. No one is debating that you can have a gender identity. My point is that when it is elevated in importance above sex, it becomes sexism.
Quoting Questioner
So interestingly, trans gender and trans sexual are separate situations. A trans sexual desires specifically to change their body to resemble or be as close to the opposite sex as much as possible. You can be a trans gender person who is also a trans sexual, but be a trans sexual who is not trans gender. I believe the conversation about trans sexuals is very different from trans genders. I do not believe trans sexuals are sexist, and I believe it is this portion of people that we should be studying more closely and helping to fit into society better.
As who? A male? That's nice. But you're not a female. And unless you transition, never will be. So your male opinion is not welcome in the arena of female comfort. How arrogant must one be to think they're allowed to make decisions for not just random individual women, but ALL women, who they've never even met?
I recommend some male boundary therapy. Stat. :cool:
Check your male privilege mate. It's just not welcome.
So look at that T Clark. We have a poster with a little over 100 posts. They come in, they're polite. They post great arguments and points. They cite papers. They run absolute intellectual and moral circles around you. A fantastic human being.
And what do you do? Are you inspired and think, "I should do better." Nope. You come in with this little sad sentence that has nothing to do with the argument and everything to do with your sad state of bias and possible need for attention. How does it feel to be a troll? Someone who contributes nothing positive at all to an intellectual discussion and fills up the space with irrelevance? How is what you're holding onto made you into a better person today?
I'm sorry, but to use the example of calling yourself what you do for a living is to indicate to me that you have not processed a single word I have said.
Quoting Philosophim
This contravenes my earlier posts, and I am not inclined to repeat them. But I will say it is not about the kind of hats you wear.
Quoting Philosophim
Not quite. it is not only about what you do, but what you are.
Gender is a part of you "being."
Quoting Philosophim
You keep talking about "expectations" and "acting" - as if you have no notion of the identity that exists in one's head - the brain's activity that produces one's unique sense of self.
Your identity is not defined by others, but by yourself.
Quoting Philosophim
Honestly, this is a bit of a convoluted sentence, and strikes me as faulty reasoning. I'm not sure what expectations have to do with a person's claimed identity.
You know I can read this, right?
I apologize then. Let me read over what you've written and see if I understand what you're saying. Please correct me where I am wrong.
First, you speak about identity. What is identity to you?
Identity can have a few meanings within the scope of the discussion:
the distinguishing character or personality of an individual
the condition of being the same with something described or asserted
sameness in all that constitutes the objective reality of a thing
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/identity
But if I'm following what you're saying, you seem to view identity more as identification:
a: psychological orientation of the self in regard to something (such as a person or group) with a resulting feeling of close emotional association
b: a largely unconscious process whereby an individual models thoughts, feelings, and actions after those attributed to an object that has been incorporated as a mental image
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/identification
A personal identity is a subjective notion of our distinguishing characteristics. But what is a personal gender identity? I think to you it seems like its largely an unconscious process that comes from the brain and is something that is innate to a person's being. Do I have that correct? Again, please correct me if I'm not, I'm not trying to misrepresent you.
Now, I'm going to ask you to define what sex is. Then if you could, define what gender is please. Are they the same to you? Different?
Once you differentiate sex and gender, what is the difference between a sex identity and gender identity? I'll try to listen the best I can.
Quoting Questioner
Yes, I hope you took it as a compliment. Disagreement with another person on an issue is the most common thing in the world. I find it very nice to discuss with someone who is respectful about it and brings in ideas you can see they've thought about and believe in. That's where real discussions are.
So if a flat chested woman gets breast augmentation to look "feminine", that's succumbing to social preferences that women should have large breasts. The identical surgery in a transwoman should also be social, right? After all, there are examples of flat chested women, ie large chest size is not a sexual/biological marker for being XX.
Quoting Philosophim
I'm not going to question the legitimacy of these personal anecdotes.
I will just say that, if you're wondering why few people agree with your conclusion: that putting gender over sex is sexism, it's because few if any people can relate to your personal experience.
For example, in my case, I'm almost 50 and I've never heard anyone, whether cis or trans, doubt their gender on the basis of a behaviour (except while joking).
And it just feels part of the culture war nonsense that tries to subliminally attack trans, gays and every other LGBTQ person in society. My opinion is that these discussions are very low quality for this forum. I’m not sure we should entertain the level of discourse that comes out of the rising hate we see in society.
If we’re talking about the science around transsexualism, how the situation is for transsexuals in society and history, if we talk out of respect for transsexuals, then that’s fine… but wrapped in this form of moral judgement is just low quality in my opinion.
We can easily have a civil discussion between each other who aren’t transsexuals, but a civil discussion that isn’t having insights and perspective from the people it’s about is seriously lacking in being able to have a qualitative level. If any in this discussion are are trans, that’s good, but it risks just becoming a bunch of hetero males discussion LGBTQ topics through a very narrow lens.
I like this example because it lets us break down the terminology. If the woman is getting breast augmentation because society tells her its the way women should look like, that's succumbing to social norms. If she gets it because she thinks that what a woman should look like to her, that's also gender, or her own prejudice.
But, if she wants to get them because she genuinely wants them for herself and doesn't care about whether she should or not because of her sex, that's not gender but simply doing what they want.
Quoting LuckyR
Again, not necessarily. There is a difference between a trans sexual and a trans gender person. If the person is a trans sexual, this is not gender. This is the desire to embody the other sex, and changing their secondary sex characteristics to resemble the other sex is not gender. They would get whatever they desired for themselves without regards to what society would expect as 'reasonable'.
If a trans sexual wanted large implants because they ALSO fell for societies pressure for large implants against their better judgement, then they also succumbed to social pressures. If a person wasn't interested in changing their body, but felt that society expected them to and that they couldn't have the 'gender' of a woman if they didn't get them, that is also succumbing to social pressures.
In each case the seemingly only justification for breast augmentation is if the person simply wants it for themselves without any consideration that 'this is what society expects a woman to look like' beyond the statistical norms of sex expectations. (Read the first post up top for definitions if needed). I would also argue that a person can get body changes done due to normal biological expectations. So while a woman may be on the .01% of tiny breast size, they don't like being outside of the statistical biological norm. I feel that is a more complicated subject then mere societal pressure, but we can tackle that in a follow up post if you're interested.
More than fair. Trans people make up anywhere from 1-5% of the population, and that rise is mostly among the young people of this generation. Most adults will likely not talk in such terms, but kids and the very young who are still learning about the world make this conflation. And of course you still meet an old timer every so often that has a view that seems contrary to what you would expect.
My friend is in their early 40's. They've been interested in exploring being female since I met them decades ago. I've never judged their desires fyi, and have always accepted them for who they are.
That's a very biased take without evidence. Would you like to explain where in the OP I'm trying to attack trans or gays?
Quoting Christoffer
If its low quality, please point out why this specific OP is low quality. If you think I am hateful, please point out where. You don't silence or suppress hate. It only grows, festers, and comes out in underhanded ways down the road. You shine a light on it. Point out to people why they're expressing hate. You don't change all minds, but some minds can be changed. I particularly don't want to be a hateful person, but if I am unknowingly it would be great if someone pointed it out correctly.
Quoting Christoffer
The topic is about trans gender, not transsexualism. I view them as two different discussions.
Quoting Christoffer
My good friend of many years is several years into transition. I have immersed myself in the trans community for quite some time now. I've also read papers, seen debates, and many different approaches to the subject. So I do include the insights and perspectives of trans gender and trans sexual people. Feel free to voice where you think I'm wrong, include your own perspectives, or demonstrate where the argument specifically needs more than what is provided.
Quoting Christoffer
Everyone is welcome to the discussion. And gender is not owned by LGBTQ. Gender applies to every single human being. The idea that it is owned by a certain group of people is wrong.
I learned a new word in the thread "SEP reading on possibility and actuality" - and thought it might be a concept that can be applied to this thread, and your question about identity.
The word is "haecceity" - often termed as "thisness" - the essential presence that causes something to be an individual.
If we look at this from a biological standpoint, we can consider the human brain in terms of its structure and function. The brain is the structure, and the function of that structure is to produce the mind. The mind consists of all the mental output of one's brain, and that mental output produces an individual's "thisness" - or "haecceity" - the sum total of that person's reality.
In that reality, is that person's concept of self - their identity.
Identity is not external to a person, but part of their "thisness" - their "haecceity"
Sure. Lets view identity apart from gender for a moment. I don't believe in a soul, so all of our thoughts come from the brain. Identity is one type of thought in the brain that asserts something. "I am X". What is that X? It could be sex, gender, job, family member, club member, race, species, etc. Our brain has the remarkable ability to claim that "I am X" and attach an emotional affirmation to that which makes us feel that its good or true.
Just because we can identify ourselves as "X" it doesn't mean we actually are "X". As before I mentioned a person who believes they are a doctor without a phd. But perhaps they correctly identify that they are a brother. Because "Identity" as a whole, is often comprised of parts. We can be correct in some of those parts, and incorrect in others.
In other words, an identity claim can be incorrect. There is nothing innate in one's identity that has any value apart from an emotional feeling, or whether its correct or incorrect. Having a positive emotional feeling about an identity that is incorrect, doesn't mean we should elevate the feeling over the objective reality of the identity. That is one of the few times we can clearly say, "That would be wrong."
I did want your definition of sex and gender, and if you find it different from what I will provide, please provide it. Sex is simply the biological expression of reproductive intent of a species. In humans, there are two sexes that are needed to join to reproduce, a male, and a female. I could be a male, and personally identify as a female. But sex is an objective reality. So if I identified as a female, when its objectively true that I'm a male, I would be wrong. My feelings or desire that it be true are irrelevant.
Gender is again, a subjective belief that a sex should act in a particular way in society. That might be what they like, clothing, hair style, speech patterns, or body language. When you have a gendered view of the world, you believe that a man should be like Y, and a woman should be like Z. But this isn't based on any biology besides their sex. Its based on what you personally attach as emotionally positive vs emotionally negative to a sex's behavior in public.
So then what is a personal gender identity? First, you have to have a gender identity. You need to believe that men should be like Y, and women should be like Z. Then, if you mostly favor Y, or Z, you say, "I like to behave in public like Y or Z." Therefore I fit the gender of my choosing.
Now can one's gender identity be wrong? No. If you believe that men should be like Y, and you act like Y, then you have 'the gender of a male'. But all this means is, "I believe men should act like Y, and I act like Y." The moment you cross into the idea that a prejudiced belief in how a man should act, means that acting that way overrides your actual sex, you have crossed into sexism. Sexism is objectively incorrect. Therefore there is nothing wrong with believing that a sex should act a certain way, but it is an incorrect jump to believe that acting or not acting that way has anything to do with whether you are that sex or not.
That is elevating gender over sex. And that fits the definition of sexism. So then, if you believe in different definitions, please spell them out. What is sex to you? What is gender? Are your definitions backed by the literature? Should gender ever be elevated over sex? If so, how is it not sexism?
I think he likes you better than he likes me.
Sure thing! I can have a reasonable conversation about this, so thanks for that (merely in service of us continuing a decent adversarial relationship on this here forum :P ). What do you require for a 'full transition' as such?
Quoting Questioner
I reject this entirely. Our conversation resulted in my presenting multiple, corroborative pieces of evidence and you presenting potshots that don't quite get you to your conclusion either way. I am happy to leave it where it is, but it should at least be clear my perception (upon review, also) of this is not what you're saying. We need not litigate it again. It was a circle of frustration (for both., i'm sure).
Quoting Questioner
Mate, you haven't even read the sentence you've quoted correctly. This is why it's so intensely difficult to think you're doing this in good faith. The sentence you have quoted is a criticism of T Clark. Not you. You stand on your own merits, and I respect that.
Quoting Questioner
Then that puts paid to the entire mental experiment. Either there are brains and bodies which are typically aligned(right), and can be misaligned (wrong) or there is a failure in one or other of those elements, to be objectively anything. This would mean gender isn't real, and sex is meaningless in some significant way. I don't think either of us are driving down that road.
What I would say is that if you have a male body and female brain something has gone wrong. They are not aligned, and, on the vision needed for your side of the argument, cause you immense distress to the point that society is obligated to affirm you and adjust itself to your self-perception (which, in this case, is biologically seated and so cannot be overcome). I simply think this is bollocks and there is no science anywhere that backs it up. We disagree there, so there may be no more to say. Onward...
Quoting Questioner
This is, unfortunately, a metaphysical question and not one apt to resolve our dispute. I'll try to answer anyway, which should illustrate this:
We don't have a fixed identity. No one does. Our 'self' obtains in a set of dispositions, feelings and reactive faculties which are different moment-to-moment. The 'seat' of our self-perception is reflexivity observation of the world around us (one reason why, if gender is a social construct, you don't get to choose your own!). It is simply reading the room and understanding what it says about your mishmash of "selfhood". Perhaps my rejection of fixed identity also means there's not much more to say.
Quoting Questioner
This is slightly misleading (but don't worry, it will be addressed because my 'corrective' isn't major) as there is strong overlap between these faculties, so the line saying "we literally..." is just blog-speak for those out there unable to process the nuance of neuroscience, the lack of replication etc...
That said, it is largely true, so what do I make of this? Well, given that these are networks in neural pathways, they are subject to change through out ones life and thinking can quite literally change one's neural situation significantly. Is the idea here that one can be trans at t1 and not at t2, or vice verse, swings and roundabouts? That's not meant to be reductive - it seems required to put too much into this piece of neural data. I would add to this a bit of a can of worms, in that psychedelic psychotherapy seems to intensely change how we process both types of information (disclosure: friends of mine do this work and I used to have a hand in designing similar studies locally).
I'm unsure what we're using this data to say about the present conversation. I take it that the idea is that Gender is biologically driven (rejected, but we can ignore for my purpose here) and so is not sexist.
Quoting Questioner
So this seems a little bit of a hide-the-ball. They are somewhat determined by our brains, but our brain's behaviour and it's influence on further thought rests on current thought (and habit, more importantly). There is every reason to believe this is ephemeral in some significant sense and cannot 'determine' anything about us. I accept that there is a feedback loop when it comes to identity, so I'm not denying your premise - but I think you have the cart before the horse. We gain identity, at all, from how we are treated as babies and young children. We don't get active in creating an identity for some years which should give you pause. """
Quoting Questioner
I am failing entirely to see how the latter retorts the former. Brain activity also produces immense and transient anger of the littlest, stupidest things and often we have no control over this (in the moment). That doesn't make it an identity or something unchanging. Detransition, that is happens at all, seems to speak to this. If you're identity exists in your head, you act it out as an expected set of behaviours so others around you see you as your internal identity. So, whether or not identity is a fixed internal property, your behaviour (gender) is not at all that. You act and meet expectations to be seen. We all do this. Trans people are just more complicated (bear in mind this says nothing about hte legitimacy of the internal identity aspect. That could be 100% inarguable and this point would stand i think).
Quoting Philosophim
For my part: I agree Questioner is great, and have no problem with you butting in a bit. I do it. It seems a decent way to engage in good conversations you're not part of
Quoting Philosophim
I was a battle rapper for some years. I had a totally different identity then. Similarly when I was a stand up comedian. Similarly when I was a fairly robust figure in the psychedelic space. Similarly when I was a depressed, teenage rocker. These things all change throughout life and hte idea that there is a fixed identity when it comes to gendered behaviours (i.e claiming 'a gender') seems erroneous. I've spent long periods wearing make up and womens clothes and behaving as they say, as a soy boy. I was not trans.
Awesome! You've lived a neat life.
@Philosophim, don’t take it personally: there are a lot of far-left people in this forum that will try to irrationally crucify you for merely trying to have a good faith discussion about LGBTQ+. For some reason, it is like a sacred cow for people like T Clark. Keep up your respectful, good-faith discussions!
The irony is that people like @Philosophim don't come across to me as even necessarily right-wing on LGBTQ+ and yet people like @T Clark bash them anyways out of paranoia.
To be clear, you are insinuating that good-faith discussions about LGBTQ+ that are central to politics are ‘low quality for this forum’.
Can you give some examples? Liberals throw the term ‘hate’ around like it is this catch-all, vague term. I would be curious to hear what recently has happened to the LGBTQ+ movement that you would consider hateful by its opposition. Is anyone who opposes the LGBTQ+ movement being hateful categorically for you?
Some topics don’t require any serious knowledge of anyone’s experiences—let alone nuanced experiences from a particular group. E.g., do I need to get to know people that perform math—like doing 2+2—to have reasonably conclude that it is 4?
When we need keen, nuanced insight from a person is in expert-testimony. Trans people aren’t experts on transgenderism by being trans: that’s like saying I am an expert on male biology because I am a male.
Are you a woman?
CC: @Questioner
This is a fallacious argument. Can you not vote on gun rights because you've never owned a gun? Can you not have an opinion on how ALL cops should behave despite never having been a cop? What you are doing is group identity politics, where you ignore the fact that everyone has an intellect that they can use to formulate opinions so that you can thought-police your political opposition.
To be clear, you are making the claim that a man has male privilege merely because they have the right to have an opinion about a topic. Why would you believe that? Are you against sexism?
The problem, though, with this is that you are purposefully equivocating discrimination based off of gender vs. sex (in your own definitions) because ‘genderism’ is already taken. By your definitions, what you are describing as ‘sexist’ is not sexist: it is discrimination based off of gender (unless, perhaps, I am grossly misunderstanding). This would entail that you would need to come up with a different ‘ism’ word (or even maybe coin one) or just use the phrase ‘discrimination based off of gender’.
Normally I don’t die on semantic hills (; , but this actually matters; because your basis of your argument for, e.g., it being wrong to say a woman isn’t really a woman if she doesn’t stay at home and cook is that it is discrimination based off of sex (i.e., sexism) but yet it is discrimination based off of gender.
When we shift the focus from sex to gender, in your terms, then it gets interesting to me because your definition of gender seems to imply, by my lights, that maybe you consider it just sociological, irrational expectations that we have of a sex which we shouldn’t; so this makes us wonder what is wrong with misgendering someone in your view if it all just irrational expectations based off of tastes. Think of it this way, imagine there are different stereotypes of pizza lovers. There’s most notably the cheese-is-a-topping people (let’s call them the cheesies for short) and the pineapple-on-pizza-is-great people (let’s call them crazies for short—I love throwing people under the bus for eating pineapple on pizza :smile: ). Now, imagine I thought that all stereotypes about pizza lovers is purely relative to tastes; and someone tells me I’m a cheesy because I am currently eating cheese-pizza. However, they do not understand that eating cheese-pizza does not thereby implicate one as considering cheese a topping: little did they know I’m a crazy; and so I do not really fit the stereotype of a cheesy—they mispizza’d me. Now, the central question is this: what did they do that was immoral there by mispizza’ing’ing me? Perhaps we would say they did something immoral by bringing it up (as maybe it’s taboo or something to talk about it); or maybe they would be doing something immoral if they knew I didn’t fit the stereotype but insisted I did anyways (maybe for trolling purposes). However, what we couldn’t say is that they are being sexist. We would need to evaluate how immoral it is to mispizza someone on the grounds of merely confusing or purposefully misidentifying someone with a stereotype vs. a different one.
What I would say you have done here, unless I am misunderstanding, is, by analogy, shifted mispizza’ing a person to discriminating against them based off of sex; for if I discriminate against someone because of their pizza stereotype then I have not thereby discriminated based off of there sex.
It is also worth noting that misgendering someone is different than discriminating based off of gender; just like mispizza’ing someone is different than discriminating based off of pizza stereotypes. If I refuse you service because you a dirty cheesy and only accept crazies in my shop, then I am being a pizza’ist; however if I accidentally or purposefully mispizza you, then I am ascribing to you what you are not: which is not discrimination itself—it’s a false attribution.
This is what is really interesting though about your view:
I honestly didn’t think you would accept that (: . This means that, by analogy, anyone who self-identifies with any stereotype of pizza-loving is thereby being sexist against themselves.
Quoting Bob Ross
I understand your concern, and I had that very same concern as well. It is not out of line for sexism to apply to both sex and gender.
'Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism
Do I think we could call discrimination against gender a subset of sexism? Yes. Gender at the end of the day is still targeted at a person's sex, just sociologically instead of biologically. If you want a clearer separation, biological and sociological sexism might suffice.
When words are already taken, there should be a good reason to use them for something that means something contrary or wildly different to the original meaning. While the gender community has attempted to equate woman and 'woman' as a gender, I would never do such a thing in my own philosophy as that's a clear attempt at conflation and equivocation. The 'first to market' often wins, and the gender community knew what it was doing when they quickly captured 'genderism' to imply that anyone who doesn't believe there are only two genders should have a negative connotation to them.
Quoting Bob Ross
I'll adjust this caveat a little. "Irrational" might be a little strong. While I also wouldn't call them 'rational' either, it doesn't mean that gender roles may form based on lived experience. If you were raised in a household where all men worked and all women stayed home, you might be surprised one day when you leave the house and find a man who stays at home and a woman who works. Its a pre-judgement. And pre-judgements in themselves are not wrong. They're simple adaptations of expectation that are common to our environment. Pre judgements become 'isms' when we find facts that contradict our prejudices and then insist that our prejudices must be right.
So a man could be surprised that a woman works, but accept that. While a sexist person would see a woman working and insist that she should not simply because of a belief, and not because of any fact in front of them.
Quoting Bob Ross
Nothing. They made an assumption about you based on their past experience and what you were doing.
Quoting Bob Ross
Correct. Nor were they being "pizza-ist". :)
Quoting Bob Ross
To go back to gender, my point is that gender becomes sexism when elevated above sex. So if you as a man think that men cannot like the color pink, even though every objective fact demonstrates there is nothing preventing a man from liking pink, insisting that a male who likes pink isn't a man is sexist.
But maybe you have a general approach that "Men should be tough". You find a man who's not tough. You might not like that he's not tough, but you don't assume he's not a male or treat him like a female. You have a prejudgement, but you don't let your prejudice become sexism.
Quoting Bob Ross
I neglected to add, "If the person elevates their gender over their sex". I hope the above clarifies it. Good dive into this!
This does not apply to transgender persons.
Quoting Philosophim
This does not apply to transgender persons.
Quoting Philosophim
But there is. It's a mental understanding of who you are.
Quoting Philosophim
No. Your identity is produced by your brain, not your body.
To be transgender is not based on a wish that it be true - it is true.
Do you not understand that to declare yourself transgender makes things a lot harder for a person, not easier, and one would only do so if it was the only way they could be their authentic self?
Quoting Philosophim
No. Gender is an internal, emergent property of the brain.
Expectations flow from it, not into it.
Quoting Philosophim
Sex is the biological differentiation to male or female of physical structures in the human body.
Gender is the male or female differentiation in the brain.
Quoting Philosophim
It sounds like you're asking for permission to deny transgender persons their authenticity.
Please don't gaslight me. You made a presumption about something I said or did.
Quoting AmadeusD
The conclusion does not follow from the premise.
Quoting AmadeusD
When terming "difference" as "wrong" - judgement comes into the equation.
The "obligations of society" to accommodate difference should not be the sticking point.
Quoting AmadeusD
You are talking about changes in outlook, not identity.
But, granted, our identity may get fine-tuned as we process new stimuli, and develop our mental faculties. But there are some parts of it that are fixed, determined by the basic structure of the brain.
I also have some trouble with describing the seat of self-perception as observation - since observation is by itself only stimuli and has no effect on us until we analyze and respond to it.
Quoting AmadeusD
Yes, how much easier it would be to just believe it when someone says, "I am transgender."
I'm wondering why we don't do that?
Quoting AmadeusD
Yes, I agree. I did not say gender was the whole of identity, only part of it. That a newborn is born with some identity I think is a reasonable claim to make.
Quoting AmadeusD
Identity does not only exist when it is being expressed, but when you are all alone with nothing but your thoughts. Otherwise, it would be like saying the Sun only exists when you see it.
Its fine to disagree, but why? In every other case it applies, what makes trans gender special?
Quoting Questioner
Again, why? You may be right. But without a good reason we can't know that. For a claim about reality to be valid, there needs to be a situation in which the claim is correct, and a situation in which the claim is incorrect. Otherwise we're not talking about something real.
If it helps, there are people who detransition who claim they had their identity wrong. There are also people who go through therapy and might think they are transgender, then find out it was some other issue. I want to be clear, the fact that an identity can be wrong, means it can also be right. So the possibility of someone mistaking themselves as being transgender means they can also correctly identify as trans gender with the proper definitions.
Quoting Questioner
If it is a correct objective assessment of who you are, then it is knowledge. If it is a subjective assessment, then it is simply a belief of who you are.
Quoting Questioner
Remember that I already agreed that every thought is produced by your brain. But we also realize that our thoughts assessments about reality can be wrong.
Quoting Questioner
Again, this has to be proven, not merely asserted.
Quoting Questioner
Incorrect. People often times believe things that are wrong, and stubbornly so. Many times a belief in something wrong is to their own detriment, because the feeling of being right is more important than acknowledging you're wrong and adjusting.
Quoting Questioner
Every thought is an emergent property of the brain. This doesn't describe what gender actually is. Further, my definition of gender is the common definition of gender used in gender theory.
"The social sciences have a branch devoted to gender studies. Other sciences, such as psychology, sociology, sexology, and neuroscience, are interested in the subject. The social sciences sometimes approach gender as a social construct, and gender studies particularly does"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender
Quoting Questioner
This is close enough. As long as we both understand it is an intended reproductive role of the species.
Quoting Questioner
If you mean biological, that would be a sex difference, not gender. If you mean gender as used in gender theory, then there is no evidence of any physical brain difference. Meaning gender is not an innate biological reality, but a social construct built upon thoughts and beliefs. Basically its information the brain processes, not something native to the brain itself.
Quoting Questioner
This is an avoidance of the question. True thinking does not desire a conclusion, then construct premises that support that conclusion. That is called 'rationalization' and is not intelligent. Real reason thinks through the premises and comes to a conclusion that it cannot doubt. Meaning even the first conclusion should be questioned severely.
What you seem to be telling me is that you think gender should be elevated over sex only when a transgender person wants this. First, you haven't demonstrated why this isn't sexism. Second, why does it apply only to trans gender people? Why couldn't a cis person want this? "I don't believe women should be anywhere but the kitchen (gender), therefore I'm going to disown my daughter if she ever works a job." Is that right?
Finally, I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'authenticity'. No one is doubting that there aren't trans gender people who believe they are the other gender. I'm just noting it is sexist if they think their gender should be elevated over their sex.
All I'm saying is, let's put it to a vote then. Ask every free woman on Earth right now: "Should women be in charge of women's rights or should men make decisions for you?" I don't think the answer will come at a surprise to anyone. So what do we do with reality? Do we call it "technically irrelevant" because it can be framed against semi-tangential alternate situations and scenarios, even though it's clearly not? This is one of those stubborn non-philosophical issues. One that happens to be timelessly and famously relevant in the context it was lifted from. Mob rule i.e. "the will of the people" (just the way things are).
Why should a sane, rational adult person not be the one chiefly in charge of their own experience and ultimate quality of life? Answer me that, and I'll show you a green dog. :wink:
Quoting Bob Ross
Again, let's put that to a vote. You'll find the resounding answer is something about "ingrained male patriarchy" and "historic systemic abuses and ultimate deprivation of personhood toward women" and all sorts of other phrased goodies like that. I mean, they're not wrong. Do you think history is made up or fabricated in terms of oppression and violence against women?
You've never been a minority in "the real world" (AKA a non-civilized country), have you? It's hell, mate. Absolute hell. You have no idea how grateful you should be for your apparent ignorance in that particular area. Hopefully you'll live out the rest of your days in such a blissful state of not knowing. I mean that sincerely.
Quoting Philosophim
I have sufficiently answered these questions in previous posts. Your position is predicted on the inaccurate premise that transgender persons are not who they say they are, and this is just false.
Quoting Philosophim
Not according to my research:
The most common reasons cited (for regret) were pressure from a parent (36%), transitioning was too hard (33%), too much harassment or discrimination (31%), and trouble getting a job (29%).
The detransitioning rate is actually pretty low. According to Google - A 2021 systematic review and meta-analysis of 27 studies, pooling data from over 7,900 patients, found the pooled prevalence of regret after gender-affirming surgery to be approximately 1%. When detransition does occur, it is often temporary.
The detransition rate varies from country to country, depending mostly on the level of community support. In Denmark, the regret rate is 0.06%, in the UK is 0.47%, in Australia it’s 1% - but in the US it’s closer to 8% - (where external factors like family pressure, societal stigma, and discrimination are higher) – but of those, about 62% later retransitioned.
***
In any case, it seems we cannot agree on the most basic definitions and facts and have fallen into repeating ourselves, so I will bow out of the conversation now.
Geez, now my feelings are hurt.
I don't believe you have. If you aren't going to add any more, its been a nice conversation.
Quoting Questioner
First, that didn't prove that no transgender people cited that they had their identity wrong. Here
"“There are so many reasons why people detransition,” said Sinead Watson, aged 30, a Genspect advisor who transitioned from female to male, starting in 2015, and who decided to detransition in 2019. Citing a study by Lisa Littman, MD, MPH, published in 2021, Ms. Watson said the most common reasons for detransitioning were realizing that gender dysphoria was caused by other issues; internal homophobia; and the unbearable nature of transphobia.
Ms. Watson said the hardest part of detransitioning was admitting to herself that her transition had been a mistake. “It’s embarrassing and you feel ashamed and guilty,” she said, adding that it may mean losing friends who now regard you as a “bigot, while you’re also dealing with transition regret.”
“It’s a living hell, especially when none of your therapists or counselors will listen to you,” she said. “Detransitioning isn’t fun.”"
https://blogs.the-hospitalist.org/content/doctors-have-failed-them-say-those-transgender-regret
What you cited is ' cross-sectional nonprobability study'. Lets break down why that is a problem:
"Surveys of people's opinions are fraught with difficulties. It is easier to obtain information from those who respond to text messages or to emails than to attempt to obtain a representative sample. Samples of the population that are selected non-randomly in this way are termed convenience samples as they are easy to recruit. This introduces a sampling bias. Such non-probability samples have merit in many situations, but an epidemiological enquiry is of little value unless a random sample is obtained."
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4817645/
Further, lets add up your percentages: 36, 33, 31, and 29, That adds up to 129%. Notice that it only reports, "The most" as well. So its not reporting all. Meaning that your study does not counter my point.
Quoting Questioner
Irrelevant to my point. My point was that people can be wrong in their gender identity. You did not counter this.
Quoting Questioner
And this is why you have my respect Questioner. Thank you for bringing your view points, politely exchanging with me, and understanding when we've both said our side and there might not be any more to cover. You and I do not have to agree on the outcome, but I hope you enjoyed thinking about it with me. I hope to see you around again on the forums!
For clarification, my understanding of the terms trans sexual and trans gender seem to differ from your usage here. That is, to my understanding transgender is an umbrella term for all folks whose (internal) gender identity does not completely conform to their biological sex, which includes those who take hormonal and surgical steps (which describes trans sexuals), but also folks who don't take those steps.
Thus why my postings have tried to delineate the borderline between sexual and gender motivations, as described in the OP. But the more I think about it, the blurrier that borderline becomes, to the point that the umbrella term of transgender seems most accurate, since it's an umbrella term, ie all TS are TG, but not all TG are TS.
I think it is the case that massive numbers of people agree with this sentiment. You may just have a bubble into which outside voices are refused entry. Most do. Those of us who actively go out of their way to avoid this understand that its basically 50/50 on these types of claims.
Quoting Bob Ross
Yes. That is the tactic to get you to shut up. It begs the question why he bothered to come in to say that. Trying to shame people away from important conversations is how backsliding occurs.
Quoting Questioner
What you quoted was a criticism of T Clark. If your response to is to deny the facts of the matter, I can't help you. You are wrong. Point blank period. It would be far more becoming to just say "Ah crap, read that wrong - sorry."
Quoting Questioner
It does, though. So... okay. Stalemate.
Quoting Questioner
This is a neat trick, but is absolutely inapt for what we're talking about. If you are supposed to have an aligned body and brain, and you do not, then something has gone 'wrong'. Nothing interesting or controversial there. If you're building a pyramid and fuck up by an inch at the bottom, the alignment at the top will be wrong for a Pyramid (well, that's hyperbole.. you'd need to be out by more than that to make it not a pyramid, but you get me i'm sure).
Quoting Questioner
Can you clarify why you've said this? If this weren't the case we wouldn't be having any discussion whatseover. The entire issue is that society has been made to accommodate this identity claim (no comment on reality, just illustrating why this is in fact the sticking point). If people just kept to themsves and did what they wanted for themselves, we'd have no issue - but once you expect other's to participate (pronouns, going into locker rooms, being "judged" as your preferred gender) then it becomes what matters.
Quoting Questioner
This tells me you are not up on the problem of Identity. I am exactly talking about identity. If you do not get this, read some more about it particlarly Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit. Generally considered the best work on the topic in a generation.
I'm going to pause here to address something you intimated to Phil: That there are no detransitioners who claim to have had their identity wrong. That is definitely 100% not true. Chloe Cole, Helena Kershner, Keira Bell, Ky Schevers, Elisa Shupe and honestly the list goes on. I just want to make you well aware that you are clearly not getting the full picture here - largely because almost all research in this area is activist driven and therefore liable to be incomplete and biased. Not all, but largely.
Quoting Questioner
This does not seem true. People are become convinced they are not human, for instance. We call this mental illness. I get the feeling we're just getting dangerously close to areas you're not comfortable with.
Quoting Questioner
For every reason that's been put forward. It seems like you're actively trying to ignore most substantive responses. I don't even tihnk 'trans' is something one can objectively claim (obviously) so why would i simply "believe" the claim, which I don't think is coherent? I also don't believe when someone tells me they're clairvoyant or a light worker or whatever. But that's their identity. They believe it.
Quoting Questioner
Not unreasonable, but i can't conceive of what a being which has no self-awareness could hold as an identity. Seems totally wrong to me.
Quoting Questioner
It wouldn't be like that. But to respond to the substance, you're right, identity doesn't only exist at those times. But thats what gender boils down to, so I can't really see this going further. We may simply need to leave off. There's enough here that makes me think you're not adequately engaging, and i'm sure you think the same. I like you, so I don't want this to get bad.
:up: :fire:
I don't think massive numbers of people agree with the specific claim of this thread, but go ahead and cite me wrong: I'm happy to hear it.
If you instead simply mean that lots of people are anti-trans: sure. It's been whipped up as the moral panic of the day. You talk about living in a bubble: well, the vast majority of people who have strong anti-trans views have never spoken to one, maybe not encountered one.
They've been force-fed that this is the prime issue to care about, and it works because it's easy to sell the idea that something that makes a person uncomfortable must therefore be immoral.
Here in the UK, so many people will ignore the damage that brexit did to the country, the grift and russian-backed treason of the Reform party (our equivalent of maga), because "the Left think men are women", or whatever version of the talking point.
No, we are not using slang and colloquial language. Part of what philosophy should be doing is finding clear words and concepts that allow clear thoughts. A massive issue with 'trans' is that it is trying to unite two separate concepts that are different enough that it needs to be pointed out. There is much confusion over the topic for many people, and adding in these distinct terms erases a lot of the confusion. A trans gender person does not have to think they are the same as a trans sexual. Being trans gender does not mean you have to align your body with how you want to act in the world. Act in the world as you wish. It is sexist to think that your social behavior implies that you are not your sex.
Quoting LuckyR
I think this is good btw. Please keep pushing that boundary. Maybe there is a blur that I'm not seeing, but I think for the large part they are very separate things.
Quoting LuckyR
I don't see it that way. First, its not true that all trans sexuals are trans gender. There are people who only want the body of the opposite sex, but do not want to act in the stereotypical way that the other sex usually acts. With that body they may feel the need to 'perform' but genuinely want the body of the opposite sex and would rather be left alone afterward. There are men who want breasts for example, but keep their beards. Women can also grow beards and have facial hair. Because it is rare, there is a social push to keep it shaved or have hair removal. So they defy gender for their biology in this aspect.
But, I would love to hear examples of this blurring. Again, maybe you're right. While I do think there is a clear division from my observations, maybe there is some place where the division blurs and maybe a third term should be invented to capture that point.
And you have equally zero claim that massive numbers of people don't agree with the specific claim of this thread. In fact, its irrelevant. You have a claim presented to you. Are you able to demonstrate why it is false? If not, then it stands as true. Lets not worry about what other people think, what do you think? Why is the premise of the thread wrong? Practice philosophy with us.
If you are concerned that I am somehow immoral, therefore you don't need to talk to me, realize that is a tactic of thought suppression. If it helps, one of my closest friends has been transitioning for several years now. We stay in touch regularly, and I would take a bullet for him. Its important that you realize that just because there is a narrative out there that is against trans individuals for the wrong reasons, does not mean that everyone who is against a particular trans ideology is immoral and cannot be reasoned with.
Quoting Mijin
You’ve hit the nail on the head with this. Give the people something to be disgusted about, and you can con them into accepting all sorts of damaging policy.
In the US, the push to deny transgender persons their rights has been a real distraction – a bugaboo - and a convenient excuse for the administration to gut medical research, science, and the civil service, and transform the military. The US even voted against the recent UN resolution titled “Safety and Security of Humanitarian Personnel and Protection of United Nations Personnel” (a recurring UN General Assembly topic, addressing threats like violence, kidnapping, and attacks against aid workers and UN staff, aiming to ensure their protection through international law and host country responsibility.) - citing “radical gender ideology” as one of the reasons for such a huge policy shift.
The resolution passed at the UN, in a vote 153-1. The US was the only country that voted against it.
Laws should never be based on disgust. As Hannah Arendt tells us in The Origins of Totalitarianism - disgust can be used to justify damaging ideological outlooks and moral standards that do not align with basic human rights.
Consider the first paragraph of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world …
And so, the following position from @Philosophim presents as being based on disgust, rather than sound philosophy:
“I'm just noting it is sexist if they think their gender should be elevated over their sex.”
Imagine referring to people who wish to live in the gender their brain tells them that they are - as sexist!
As if the obligation to accommodate the prejudices of others should supersede Article 12 of the Declaration of Human Rights:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
What should be “elevated” is the human right to transgender persons to live an autonomous, authentic life free from persecution - that right should be elevated above living their lives according to the expectations of others, especially when those expectations are grounded in a disgust for a state of being they do not understand.
You're asking me to prove a negative, otherwise your claim stands?
This is a philosophy forum; if there's one place such sloppy reasoning wouldn't fly, it's here.
Quoting Philosophim
I made no such claim or insinuation.
I said, in my response to Amadeus, that a lot of people have been duped into believing that transgenderism is immoral, but even there I am not suggesting that people with that belief are necessarily immoral (though many are -- just an excuse to find a marginalized group to beat up on. But most others are just poorly informed). So it's quite a leap to suggest I was calling you immoral, let alone advocating that your speech should be suppressed.
I imagine being currently in the UK, with a particular bent, makes it largely untenable to expect a balanced view on things which is not in any way a disparagement of you - Nigel Garage has said plenty of batshit stuff over the years (as has Rees-Mog, Braverman, Mordaunt and the rest). You're not being unreasonable, and that is not what I'm trying to say. But why not acknowledge that you, and others on the other side are in bubbles? Plenty of conservatives are too. Wouldn't deny that for a moment. If you could just be honest about the reality that you live in a bubble, and so do many others, you could get out of it and have a worthwhile discussion. I had to do this at great psychology pain about 10 years ago due to the abject racism, sexism and in-group shaming that goes on on the left. Which I am still on.
Quoting Mijin
I can taste the bad faith - I am quite sure now that it is not unintentional. I will not engage. We;ve been here. I think it was correct for Wayf to suggest not to get into these threads. Not because they aren't meaningful (they are meaningful and obviously important), but because they just end up like this. A shame. There's lots to be said, if one will get out of their bubble. This has become two people with fingers in their ears ignoring everything else. Its funny that in dealing with the Bubble issue its "I know you are but what am i?" type of thing while trying to shame one into not discussing something they feel is important - as you did explicitly here. A shame.
:heart:
Would you agree, though, semantics aside, that sexism in the sense of sex would be divorced from sexism in the sense of gender given your definitions of sex and gender?
Before I respond, I think I need to grasp better what you are conveying here. Am I correct in thinking that ‘elevation’ here refers to contradiction? That is, that being sexist in the sense of gender happens when the gender of a person contradicts their sex?
Exactly, it is shame that this forum doesn't support free speech and the free exchange of ideas about philosophy; as we could have productive conversations that help further the knowledge base.
I still love you.
No. I'm asserting that if gender is elevated over sex, its sexism. That's not proving a negative, that's disproving an affirmative.
Quoting Mijin
I'll let the first claim be a pass. If you insist that I'm asking you to prove a negative, please point out specifically where and why its a negative. This requires more than an assertion.
Quoting Mijin
Not a worry. It can be difficult to glean what a person is feeling over text, so I try to spell things out as clearly as possible.
Quoting Mijin
Relax, its not a hard accusation. Would you like to engage with the topic then? You seem to have some feelings and thoughts on the matter, and I think its important that those thoughts and feelings are expressed. I don't want to go around thinking I'm right when I'm wrong. But if no one points out where its wrong...then I have to assume that I'm right.
I actually meant that more than semantics. Biological sexism would be treating a man with a voice within the range of an average female like they aren't a man. While its not the average biological sex expectation that a man have a voice range that high, it does happen. Treating them as a woman because they have a rare, but perfectly normal expression of being male would be biological sexism.
Gender sexism, or sociological sexism, would be what we've been talking about. Tophats and all. :)
Quoting Bob Ross
No, elevation means favoring gender as indicating that a person is a sex over the fact of their sex. So if a woman wore a top hat and you called her a man, that's sexism due to the woman defying a gender expectation.
Quoting Bob Ross
I disagree with this Bob. I've been able to post this topic, and I've seen a wide variety of topics that cover things which might be taboo or difficult to talk about. There still needs to be some moderation which handles approach and tone. It may be the case that people who read it may not want to discuss it properly, but that's a far cry from it being banned to be discussed at all.
This will always happen when discussing meaningful yet highly emotional subjects. We can't be turn away from topics just because some people have emotional difficulties with them. If anything, we need to address those topics more. I'm glad you've joined in and given your viewpoint, its very valuable for good discussion.
Absolutely.
One of my guilty pleasures is occasionally listening to the political "debates" on youtube and other media. And you can bet, every time a MAGA supporter finds themselves needing to defend the indefensible: large-scale grift, illegality and contempt for Americans' lives...the response is something like "Yeah but the Biden administration was paying for mice to become trans!" (or some other BS trans talking point). Something that, even if it were true, would be totally inconsequential compared to the malfeasance being pointed out to them.
I live in Worcester. Just moved here a few days ago
Quoting AmadeusD
So in the same post you are making claims about what life is like in the UK, despite not living here, but I cannot do the same? And where you live doesn't affect your ability to research all sides of a topic, but I can't?
How about we both agree not to resort to poisoning the well?Quoting AmadeusD
Please elaborate. You made a statement, I asked in good faith whether you meant you are suggesting the same statement of the OP, or something else?
Because you're asking me for a cite that most people don't consider your very specific claim to be true. It's obviously not a reasonable request -- the only evidence would be the result of a survey asking "Do you believe that transgenderism is sexism?" but there is no such survey. And you conclude that I must accept your claim.
By the same logic, we can conclude that most people are afraid of the oogie-boogie monster.Quoting Philosophim
I have. I have given arguments for why your concept of transgenderism does not reflect reality.
Not at all. I've posted what gender is, what sexism is, and demonstrated why when gender is elevated over sex, it meets the definition of sexism. There's a clear argument being made here that is open to discussion and is not a matter of opinion. And its not that you must accept my claim. Its that my claim, if uncontested, is correct by fact. If you don't answer it, I'm right. Emotions are irrelevant.
Quoting Mijin
Can you demonstrate why these arguments counter the point of the OP? Again, if not, then what I've posted stands. If it were so simple to counter, you would. Walking away generally means, "I don't like what you said, but I can't prove its wrong." I want you to imagine for a second that I have power in real life to make actionable change, and this argument is the basis upon which that change is made. Are you satisfied walking away, knowing that you could have demonstrated I was wrong? Its your last chance.
No, that's irrational. No-one has demonstrated that the oogie-boogie monster doesn't exist and isn't feared by millions. Therefore, you need to accept that claim as true?
Quoting Philosophim
Yes, because firstly I showed that people regularly exhibit traits that are somewhat emblematic of the other gender while maintaining their own gender. And secondly the association between transgenderism and transsexuality demonstrates that gender dysmorphia is not as simple as wanting to wear a dress or whatever.
Straw man, as I have no idea what you're talking about. You're attacking something that doesn't relate to the OP. Cite the argument of the OP and address why it is wrong please.
Quoting Mijin
I also agree with this. This does not counter the claim of the OP in any way.
Quoting Mijin
The OP does not address gender dysmorphia. That is irrelevant. Further I noted that trans genderism and trans sexualism are separate things that do not require both to exist in a person. I have not see any counter claim to this. Present one and you'll have a point that we can explore.
So far, the OP stands.
A "straw man" is when someone misstates an argument for the purposes of attacking it more easily. I was not misstating your argument, I was trying to explain a logical point to you.
The point that you are not getting is that the idea that a claim is true by default, until someone can prove it false, is irrational. It's trivial to show this with claims that cannot be falsified.
No, a straw man is when you build up an idea that the presenter never argued for or backed, then attack it.
Quoting Mijin
No, its not irrational at all. That's how arguments work. Falsification means that there is a situation in which the claim could be false. For example, my definition of sexism is wrong. Or the elevation of gender over sex does not fit the definition of sexism. Or gender is wrong. Its absolutely falsifiable. Can you prove it to be false however? If you can't, then its true.
This is an interesting OP. I more or less agree that gender should not be elevated over sex, but I don't agree that this is sexism. Let's look at your argument:
Quoting Philosophim
I actually don't like this definition as grounding a moral argument, but let's accept it for the sake of argument.
Quoting Philosophim
There is an equivocation occurring here between two different definitions of sexism:
The examples you give will not allow us to distinguish (1) from (2), but other examples would. For example, suppose someone says, "Men are better boxers than women." This claim is sexism on (1) but probably not on (2), given that the social expectation is not counter to biological reality.
More simply, the definition of sexism on which you are relying says nothing about the social expectation being "above" or "counter" to biological reality. In fact it says that any behavior, condition, or attitude that fosters stereotypes of social roles based on sex is sexism, regardless or whether such things do or do not elevate the social expectation above and counter to biological reality.
What this means is that the definition of sexism that is operative in your argument requires defense, given that it is different from the dictionary definition you provided. I do not think someone who elevates gender over sex—such as a trans rights activist—is sexist. Rather, they are nominalist. They want to elevate self-identity claims over biological norms. They desire a social order that is in no way based on biological sex.
Thank you, I'm grateful for someone addressing the OP.
Quoting Leontiskos
That's fair. We can say at this point that even if it is sexism, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. We can address it after we resolve if it fits sexism first.
Quoting Leontiskos
Ah ok. Bob pointed this out earlier and I had given it some thought as well. I thought at first there might be a better term for what I was describing and thought, "genderism". Turns out that word is taken and means something very different.
Quoting Philosophim
Sexism is therefore also defined to include both sex and gender.
'Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism
To your point though, it feels like sexism by gender is a version of sexism that seems different enough to support a unique identity. I proposed the following:
Quoting Philosophim
Both delineations are sexism, but we can now categorize them by types: biological vs sociological. So keen insight. Does this suffice? If not, feel free to counter more. If so, feel free to propose that despite it being sexism, that is not inherently wrong in itself.
Happy to help. :grin:
Quoting Philosophim
Right.
Quoting Philosophim
Regarding the term 'sexism', I think Merriam-Webster does well insofar as it does not deviate from those last three words in its definitions: "based on sex." Whatever sexism is, it is based on sex. Yet the trans activist is relying on a basis other than sex...
Quoting Philosophim
...and as you say, their position is based on gender.
Quoting Philosophim
...But the other strange thing about the trans activist is that although their position is based on gender, it does not involve "prejudice or discrimination" in the way that those words are commonly understood. The way those words are commonly understood, one is only discriminating on the basis of gender if they prefer one gender over the other (and they are only discriminating on the basis of sex if they prefer one sex over the other, or act in a way that ends up favoring or controlling based on sex). In the case of the trans activist what is occurring is not any kind of gender favoritism (such as preferring masculinity over femininity or vice versa), but rather an elevation (as you say) of gender itself.
Such a person prefers gender-based categories over sex-based categories. As you rightly say, they elevate gender over sex. There is something new about this move. It doesn't fall into traditional categories such as sexism or racism, because what at bottom is being elevated is the act of self-identification or self-creation. The trans activist effectively says, "It doesn't matter whether you are male or female; what matters is how you self-identify, and that is what should be the norm for policy." As I said in my last, this is a form of nominalism, where human constructs are being elevated over reality-based concepts.
Quoting Philosophim
I'm fine with that. I see what you are saying. :up:
Quoting Philosophim
I think the Merriam-Webster definition is too broad for a moral concept of sexism, given that it would vilify even things like, "Men are better boxers than women." But maybe we really do need a non-pejorative usage of sexism.
Quoting Leontiskos
Another way to put this is to provide an exhaustive list of the possibilities:
Sexism (based on sex):
Sexism (based on gender):
If this is an exhaustive list of the possibilities of sexism (as prejudiced or discriminatory), and the trans activist does not attach to any of the options in this list, then the trans activist must not be sexist. So the question is whether, "favoring gender-based categorizations over sex-based categorizations," can be called a form of sexism. In a traditional sense it cannot given the way that it differs from the traditional possibilities that constitute sexism. Namely, it is a cross-genus favoritism rather than favoritism within a single genus.
But gender is based on sex. Its a belief that a person should act in a certain way in society without regards to biological limitations. "Women should not wear top hats, men should". Its really just a fancy encapsulation of a cultural prejudice against a sex. Calling it gender doesn't suddenly make what's going on any different.
Quoting Leontiskos
I would argue its definitely prejudice, but gender alone is not sexism. That is why I've specifically stated "It is the elevation of gender over sex that is sexism." Let me explain.
Everyone has pre judgements. A pre judgement, or prejudice, is not inherently wrong. Maybe you were raised in a community where only men worked and women stayed home and took care of household duties. As such, you would become prejudiced to thinking the next woman you meet is a stay at home care taker.
Prejudices can be challenged, and it is how the person responds to that challenge that determines whether a prejudice is upgraded to an 'ism'. Lets say our sheltered man leaves his community and goes to the city where he finds that women often work. The man might be surprised, or even think at first, "That shouldn't be done." But if they adapt and realize, "Women can work too," their prejudice did not become an 'ism'.
An 'ism' happens when someone insists on their prejudices despite clear facts to the contrary. "Women CAN'T work outside of the home! This is crazy!" There's not any real reason the man finds that they can't, despite his mere dislike and discomfort that they can. This is when sexism occurs.
So to be clear, I don't think its sexism to declare gender, or even declare a gender identity. It is when the prejudice of gender elevates itself above the reality of sex that it becomes 'sexism'. Going back to our previous example. If the man said, "Since you work outside of the home, you aren't a woman, you're a man." this is obvious sexism. In the same way, if the man saw another man being a home caretaker and said, "You're not a man, you're a woman because you stay at home and take care of the house," this is also sexism. There is nothing inherent in one's sex that gender ever has any right to supercede. It is this superceding that is sexism.
Quoting Leontiskos
Hopefully with the above you see that this is not categorized as sexism. Having a preference for one sex or the other is not sexism. Sexism would be if you had a preference for one sex, and treated that sex better in ways that were only backed by your personal like, disregarding merit, capability, or objective good of the person.
Quoting Leontiskos
This is clearly sexism. Its saying, "Because I do things that I expect a man should do that have nothing to do with their biology, I should be considered a man." To be clear, this is not the trans sexual argument, only the trans gender argument.
Quoting Leontiskos
And sexism can be a form of nominalism. This doesn't denote that its not sexism.
Quoting Leontiskos
This is actually a sex expectation based on objective data. However, if a woman boxed and fairly beat a man, insisting its not possible because of the sex expectation, is again sexism.
Quoting Leontiskos
Hopefully my deeper dive demonstrates why it would still be sexism. But of course, please disagree if you see something more.
Okay, I agree.
Quoting Philosophim
Okay, I understand your reasoning.
Quoting Philosophim
Would you say that the elevating of sex over gender is sexism?
Quoting Philosophim
Okay, I see what you are saying.
Quoting Philosophim
That's fine, but aren't you disagreeing with the definition from Merriam-Webster that you provided? That definition makes no distinction between culpable and non-culpable sexism.
Quoting Philosophim
I think you make a formidable argument to the effect that all gender-based identifications at bottom implicate sex, and are therefore also sex-based. I think that's probably right, and I understand your position much better after reading this post. :up:
So the argument here...
Quoting Leontiskos
...is that sexism involves an oppositionality between sexes or between genders. Or we could put it this way:
Quoting Philosophim
Which sex or gender does the trans activist prefer? Which do they discriminate against? Which are they prejudicial towards?
The answer seems to be "none of them," and this is why I'm not sure the trans activist is sexist. Each one of your examples gives a case where someone is unfairly privileging one sex or gender over the other, and it's not clear that the trans activist does this. The trans activist does not opt for any of the positions outlined <here>; they show no favoritism with respect to individuals of a particular sex or gender. If you disagree, then where would you say the trans activist indulges favoritism on the basis of a particular sex or a particular gender?
(I suppose "elevating gender over sex" could mean a number of different things.)
Hello, I'm back. I see you are still incorrectly defining gender, but I will proceed...
Quoting Philosophim
I have figured out another aspect of your theory that is troubling.
You’ve been using the word “sexism” to describe a transgender person’s insistence that they put their gender above their sex.
But – sexism is not a solitary feature. It is relational. It requires both a subject and an object.
The subject would be the person (or group or institution) that expresses sexist beliefs or practices.
The object would be the person (or group) that is being devalued because of sex (or gender).
So, a person (the object) has to be positioned as inferior because of their sex or gender, by the person (or group) applying the belief (the subject). Sexism is not a private belief, but exists in power and practice.
So, in your theory, who is the object? And who is the subject?
Thank you! That's a rare compliment. Also thank you for drilling into it more, its good to test it further.
I am not saying holding a gender or gender preference makes you a sexist. Quoting Leontiskos
I agree with you.
Quoting Leontiskos
I also agree with this. To be clear, trans genderism in itself is not sexist. It is only sexist when it elevates itself as being more important than the sex of an individual.
For example, lets say a man gets turned on by femininity. They wear women's clothing and it feels wonderful. They like it enough and wear it enough that it becomes less immediately sexual, and evolves into the romantic comfort of a long time girlfriend. This is neither sexist, nor wrong. This is someone wearing and dressing themselves a particular way for their particular enjoyment.
Because they like it so much, they decide to go out in public dressed in this way. They don't dress provacatively or indicate in any way a sexual undertone, it really is just like taking a walk with their girlfriend. This isn't sexist or wrong either.
But suddenly the man thinks because they've dressed a particular way, and that they enjoy doing this so much, that they must be an actual woman. That is sexist. That is taking an expectation of how women should act, then identifying yourself with the sex of that woman. If the man thinks, "I should be able to go where women are because I'm a woman," that's sexist. The reality is this is a man who enjoys certain behavior some would prejudice towards women. But the enactment of that behavior in no way makes that man a woman.
So I think we are in agreement to your point, but I hope I've shown how the sexism of the situation doesn't involve that point.
Welcome back Questioner! Remember that my definition of gender is aligned with gender theory and you have not shown any credible evidence or argument that would demonstrate I have not.
Quoting Questioner
Sexism requires a subject, I agree. But an object? If I tell a woman, "Women shouldn't work" when they are clearly working and there is no reason why they shouldn't work besides my personal feelings on the matter, I'm telling them they shouldn't commit an action. Where's the object?
Quoting Questioner
That would be interpersonal sexism between two subjects. But a subject can also be sexist towards themselves. There are men who think they can't cry. There are woman who think they should always agree with what a man says. You can absolutely have sexist perspectives of yourself.
Quoting Questioner
To be clear, when you elevate your gender over your sex, you make your sex inferior to gender. And that is where sexism occurs. "I'm a man who's incredibly sad because my mother died, but I believe that men shouldn't ever cry (gender), so i won't." "I'm a woman who clearly sees that this man's statement is wrong. Its 2+2=4, not 5, but I'm going to stay silent and agree because that's what a woman does." In both cases there is nothing in their sex that would imply they had to do any of those things. It is their subjective expectation of how they should behave as that sex which has elevated their gender over their bodies freedom, and is sexist.
...which I am not doing. I am trying to explain a logical point to you about the burden of proof and null hypothesis.
I mean, that isn't the definition of straw man anyway -- a straw man necessarily includes suggesting the argument is what the other person is saying; beating up on a random thing would be irrelevant -- but even under your definition, that's not what I am doing.
Quoting Philosophim
I've been puzzled as to why you aren't getting this simple point, and wondered if you were trolling...
But then I remembered that of course there are many debates now with the format of "[claim], prove me wrong!". So it is worth just pointing out that that format is almost always bad faith. It's a shift of the burden of proof, and the idea of such debates is to pander to an audience that just wants to see an opposing view get pwned.
The null hypothesis is that a claim may or may not be true. No empirical claim is true by default.
You purposefully omitted answering if you are a woman, which makes me think you are a man. This makes your argument self-undermining and paradoxical; because if I accept your argument that men shouldn’t have an opinion on anything that only directly affects women, then I shouldn’t take your own opinion seriously about this because it pertains something that directly affects women and is being professed by a man. Therefore, if your claim is true, then I must take it as false; and if it is false, then I am back to the idea that I have no good reasons to accept this line of logic.
Let’s put it to a vote: “should people who have never own guns be in charge of gun rights or should gun owners be?”. Should people who have never been a cop be in charge of what cops should be doing or just cops? You didn’t address the obvious flaws with your argument. I don’t see why we should accept that only those that are within the group affected by the vote should be the only ones voting on it. Irregardless, voting is different than having an opinion; and everyone has the right to an opinion that should be taken seriously, intellectually, when formulating laws.
How is it “clearly no” tangential? If you believe that women should be the only one’s with a voice on aspects of law that only affect women directly, then this means you believe that the group affected is the only one that should be able to vote. This applies to laws about police brutality, gun rights, property taxes, conscription, etc.
I am not seeing why we should accept this.
I don’t support an ochlocracy. Are you saying that if men get to vote on women’s rights that this is mob rule?
No one is absolutely in control of their way of life nor can that ever happen. Depending on your view of voting, some people (whether that be all citizens of the nation or some subset) get a direct voice in some aspects of the government for checks and balances.
Even in an ochlocracy, no one has an absolute voice over themselves: it’s everyone’s vote counts equally and every aspect of law is voted directly on by the people.
I am failing to see your point here. Are you saying that if enough people vote that men shouldn’t have an opinion on X that they shouldn’t have an opinion on X? My point was that everyone has a natural right to an opinion on everything; and to deny that on the basis of sex is sexist.
Firstly, you know nothing about me; nor is this relevant to our topic.
Secondly, women are not a minority in the West; so this makes no sense to bring this up.
A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man"), instead of the opponent's proposition.
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:
Person 1 asserts proposition X.
Person 2 argues against a superficially similar proposition Y, as though an argument against Y were an argument against X.
And what did you say?
Quoting Mijin
Again, considering I have no idea how this is supposed to relate to the argument because you don't mention the actual argument, that's a straw man.
Quoting Mijin
But not always in bad faith. Have you demonstrated why this is in bad faith? No. You have to demonstrate that first.
Quoting Mijin
Not at all. The burden of proof is on me. I've put forth an argument. All you have to do is demonstrate why I have not risen to that burden of proof. But you keep arguing around that because...you know you can't. You're not the first person in history to not like the outcome of an argument but can't actually address it. Look at Leontiskos' previous posts. They address the OP straight on, challenge it at parts, ask questions, and are obviously thinking about it. You aren't, and that's because you're afraid you can't. So typical tactics of avoidance. All it tells me and everyone else is that you don't have anything.
I always give a person a few chances though because occasionally people come around and try. I'm certain you'll shrink from the challenge again. Its probably best anyway, I'm heading out for vacation for a while and won't be able to respond after today.
Quoting Mijin
This is when I knew you were done. Go look up what the null hypthesis means. When you start throwing around technical words that make no sense to the discussion, that's a person who's just flailing as they continue to realize they don't have anything substantial.
Yes, but then you do seem to be agreeing with me that sexism qua gender is completely divorced from sexism qua sex in your view. No?
And this is why such a divorce is problematic: gender isn’t about sex in your view but, rather, a expectation based off of sex that isn’t accurate about sex. So, either, by my lights, (1) all gendering is sexism qua gender in your view (because gender is always an inaccurate expectation of a person based off of an erroneous understanding of sex) or (2) gendering someone is not inherently sexist (because does not attribute anything about sex to the person but, rather, something else called ‘gender’).
In the case of #1, all gendering is an ‘elevation of gender over sex’ because attributing a gender is always to attribute falsely facts about them based off of erroneous understandings of sex; and this is always incongruent with their sex they have. Viz., if by definition my gendering of you as a woman or a man is always factually false because gender has to do with attributing traits to a person based off of sex when it is illegitimate, then no matter what I say about your gender I am attributing to you ‘gender facts’ that are always incongruent with your sex.
We can play with this with your example of voice:
If I say you are feminine because your voice is high, then either that is a purported gender fact or a sex fact. If it is a sex fact because voice pertains to sex, then I am not elevating gender over sex. If it is a gender fact because voice pertains to gender, then I am attributed to you something that is not entailed (according to your theory) by your sex; which means I am elevating your gender over sex (in the way you described) even if you are female (because your I am saying you have a female trait which is not entailed by femaleness, thusly giving an expectation of you that is not endowed by your sex).
In the case of #2, we could get out of #1 (in your theory) by saying that gender is not intrinsically sexist qua gender because there are genders and it is distinct from sex. However, then, gender, when properly understood and attributed, is not elevating gender over sex despite attributing things to a person that are not entailed by their sex which may include non-sex based expectations.
Going back to the the voice example:
If I say you are ‘floppy’ because your voice is high and a high voice is a trait we rightly associate with the gender ‘floppiness’ (which has no association with your sex), then I am not falsely attributed a sex-based expectation of you given erroneous facts about sex (such as that you should have a masculine voice because you are male). Thusly, I am not elevating gender over sex (in your phraseology) and consequently am not being sexist even if I tell you that you are not being a good floppy because you have a deep voice instead of a high one. If gender is divorced from sex, then legitimate gender expectations would not entail sexism in the sense of having unwarranted sex expectations.
This is why I noted, and I dare say correctly (: , that you are equivocating sex and gender internally given your terms as if they are the same while also claiming they are divorced from each other. When you say:
I underlined the portions that use gendered terms in the sense of sex and bolded the ones that are using the gendered terms in the sense of gender. Since you have divorced sex and gender, these terms cannot be treated as if they are referring to the same things such as male and male (one in the sense of sex and the other in the sense of gender).
I can rewrite your quote like this to demonstrate it potently:
See how now it has become abundantly clear that floppiness is not the same as maleness; and the onus is on you to demonstrate how they are connected to each other if they are truly divorced. I could legitimately be right that she is a floppy for wearing a top hat and simultaneously agree with you that she is not a biological man (male).
With all due respect, without having read every post you have made, I don’t know of any that you have posted that are threatening to the liberal ideology. My point was not that one cannot have controversial conversations on TPF: it’s that if the topic is too disapproved of by the liberals on here then you get banned or censored even if it doesn’t violate the TPF’s rules and guidelines. Race realism and anti-LGBTQ+ topics are the most notable; and I don’t think your posts on transgenderism and gender/sex have really opposed the liberal views on it. Mine suggested they might be wrong, and that’s why they got taken down.
If it doesn't relate to the argument, and I am not trying to attribute it to you, then it's not a straw man, right?
Next time, instead of just cutting and pasting the response that AI gave you, actually take the time to read it.
I made an argument -- it's not a straw man.
Quoting Philosophim
Note that how we got into this tangent, was I was responding to your points before you went down this "prove a negative" requirement.
No, there is no survey result on specifically the claim of the OP. However, actual definitions of transgender do not match the notion that it is acquired by virtue of noticing a predilection towards a behaviour associated with the other gender. Plus vast numbers of people exhibit at least some behaviours atypical for their gender -- orders of magnitude more people than the number of transgender.
Meanwhile, on the other side, we only have your anecdotes. I don't think even in this thread anyone has backed up your anecdotes with similar ones (though I could be wrong about that, it's IIRC)
Completely? Can you clarify what you mean? Its a version of sexism as sex is always involved. Maybe my answers below will help clarify what I mean.
Quoting Bob Ross
Its just not my view Bob, its the view of gender theory. This isn't a debate about whether gender theory is correct or not. I'm assuming for the purposes of this argument, that gender according to gender theory is accepted. We did have a separate argument on whether it should be considered as valid or not, but this OP is assuming that it is.
Quoting Bob Ross
Gender is inherently a prejudgment, or prejudice. Prejudice in itself is not wrong. We pre judge about many things. I see a tall 300 pound guy and prejudge they'll have a deep voice. They do not. I prejudge that a nicely dressed individual will be polite. They are not. Sometimes prejudices are also affirmed.
"Isms" happen when we stick with our prejudices despite evidence to their contrary. So if a tall and heavy man had a heavy voice and we said, "Impossible. You can't be tall or that weight. No man of that height and weight would ever have a voice that high pitched." You're sticking with your prejudice over reality.
Sexism happens when our prejudices become more important than the reality of the situation. Gender is of course prejudice about sex. I might have the prejudice that men should wear top hats and women should not. If a woman wore a top hat, I could realize, "Oh, women can wear top hats." If I insisted she was wrong, that she should take it off, etc., I'm valuing my prejudice over the reality of the situation. In this case, the prejudice evolves from gender into sexism.
Quoting Bob Ross
Correct, because you aren't making a gendered judgement. You're making a sex expectation judgement based on biological statistics. Its not prejudiced to claim that most women have a higher pitched voice, that's just a reality. Its gender when you say, "Even if a woman naturally has a lower pitched voice, women should speak with a higher pitch anyway." Then when a woman naturally speaks in a lower pitch, it becomes sexism when we say, "You can't do that, that's not what women do!" You're not quite separating the biological expectation from gender expectation here.
Quoting Bob Ross
There is no gender fact. Gender is subjective and by consequence is not a fact about reality, only a fact that it exists as a subjective viewpoint. Sex expectations are facts grounded in biological reality. They are not gendered judgements in themselves.
Quoting Bob Ross
All gender is an opinion about how a sex should act socially. It can not refer to sex is some way. The floppy thing doesn't quite work, so I'm not going to address it further down either. If there's something I'm missing though in not addressing this, please try again using another example closer to sex and gender if you could.
Quoting Bob Ross
I don't think so. I think you're missing that I've also defined that sex expectations based on biology are not gender. Once you truly divorce gender from the biological expectations of the person, and understand its purely sociological, these problems don't occur.
Quoting Bob Ross
I intended all terms to refer to sex. The opinion on how the sex should behave is gender. I do not see man or woman as a role unless I explicitly point that out. Mostly because a 'role' is a subjective prejudice, and I generally try not to give credence to that.
Quoting Bob Ross
I would say that this post I've made pretty much invalidates any idea that trans gender people should enter cross sex spaces. That is would I would call a far left viewpoint, and yet I have no warnings or threats of banning. I understand you've had a few posts banned, but the conservative viewpoint would be to first look inward and see if there were mistakes made on your part to see if they could be improved to not be banned. I did review one of your posts and agreed it should be banned Bob, even on a conservative forum. I say this with great respect towards you, and apolitically. When one is on a social platform the way one approaches a subject is just as important as what you're trying to say.
Let me give you an example. So my point here about gender applies to everyone. Its not religious, angry, or based on bias. Its a simple definition of the terms, a reasoning of how they intermingle together, and a conclusion based on those terms and logic. Now, someone could come to the same conclusion as myself but not approach it this way. A person could simply be disgusted by or hate trans people and just say, "Its sexist because its gross!" The later is not a discussion or approaching the idea in a way that invites discussion, but in a way that is invective. Whether its right or not, in a social philosophy discussion board, its not an appropriate way to address the topic in a thoughtful manner.
Perhaps being invective is a conservative trait, but I propose that it isn't. I've known many wise and respectable conservatives who challenge a person to think without using words or phrases that stoke controversy. Now in our conversations, I don't see you being invective. I want to be clear, you're one of my favorite people to chat with on this forum. You have passion, insight, and are eager to explore any possibility. You make me think in ways I haven't before Bob, and that is wonderful.
I would propose that if you are being banned on your topics that it is not because you are conservative. To be clear, you may get a lot of push back from people because it has a conservative bent, but I don't think you'll be banned if you can convey your points without being invective. And what I mean is ask yourself, "Will a person respond to this in anger looking for a fight, or despite not liking it, will they be inclined to at least discuss it?" If I had to note anything in the last post of yours I reviewed, I would caution very much against assuming controversial topics are true without lead up. If it helps, if someone started a post with, "Conservatives as we know are all selfish individuals who think nothing of others," its not going to spur debate, just a fight. Again, I have a lot of love for you Bob, so on this one look inward first before accusing others for your recent difficulties in posts.
Quoting Mijin
You assumed I was asking you to prove a negative. I pointed out that in no way should you.
Quoting Mijin
You may need to read the OP again. This is not a survey argument. This is a logical conclusion based purely on definitions.
Quoting Mijin
No, that's actually what trans gender means. To be clear, no trans sexual. A trans gender person is a person who observes their own or a groups idea of how a particular sex should act socially, then says, "I act in the way of the other gender. Therefore I am trans gender." Trans gender people do not always transition, or even want to transition. Because they feel they match the gender of the other sex, some of them think this gives them a right to be in the opposite sex spaces of that gender. This is very real. There are people not on medication or desire surgery who think this is the way things should work. My argument is, this is sexism. If you think acting like the way you or others think the opposite sex should act in public makes you that sex, that is 100% sexist thinking.
Quoting Mijin
Yes, this is why gender is a prejudice and not a fact. Woman can actually wear top hats and everything will be ok. They're still a woman. Men can wear dresses, they're still men, and everything will be ok.
This is also another problem with someone claiming they are 'trans gender'. What do they feel the gender of a man and woman is personally? How many attributes do they match of that gender while shunning their own? Its honestly a prejudicial argument. You're a man or a woman no matter how you act. Just because you think a man or a woman should act a certain way socially, that doesn't mean your subjective opinion changes the reality of their sex.
Quoting Mijin
What anecdotes? How do these anecdotes apply to the argument? If so, how are they wrong? A claim of, "You're wrong" is not an argument, its an expression of dislike. Liking or not liking an argument has nothing to do with whether its correct or not. 2+2=4 even if I hate that fact. If you want to demonstrate that my argument is wrong, you need to address the premises and demonstrate how your challenge invalidates either those premises, or the conclusion I've made.
Well, I disagree, but I'll try to add more to it here in this post.
Quoting Philosophim
The women who you think should not work.
Quoting Philosophim
Not quite. In any one example of interpersonal action, there is the sender of the action (the subject) and the receiver of the action (the object)
Quoting Philosophim
But this is something different than what we have been talking about. it's got nothing to do with gender identity and transgenderism.
Sexism is an attitude. Attitudes are formed in the brain. Are you suggesting that if a person claims a transgender identity they’re being sexist against their penis or vagina?
When a transgender person claims their true identity, it is not so they can fulfill some expectations society places on this or that gender, or even expectations as that person might see them. It is about being who they are in their head, and a chief element of that is “diachronic unity.” More about that later, but first a little background info:
Gender is a biological reality involving patterns of identity produced by the brain. The prenatal hormone environment during fetal development is crucial to this brain organization. Thyroid hormones, progesterone, and steroids are critical regulators of fetal neural differentiation. They direct development of the hypothalamus, the amygdala, and connectivity patterns. That’s the biology.
It’s important to remember that fetal body sex-differentiation (during the first trimester) is a separate process from brain organization and differentiation (in the third trimester). Studies show that transgender persons’ brain patterns align more closely with their experienced gender than with the brains of cisgender persons of the same physical sex. These patterns - related to emotional processing, body perception, self-representation, and social cognition – emerge from neurological networks and influence gender identity.
And gender is indeed part of identity. Lots of research into gender identity has been done, including investigating the relationship between transgender transition and “diachronic unity.” Diachronic unity describes a stable sense of self across time, like a self-continuity. If the unity is intact, then memories linked with an internal narrative are able to say – “That was me then, this is me now, and I am the same person.”
The interesting thing is that gender transition does not fragment diachronic unity – it restores and strengthens it. Before transition, transgender persons feel alienated from themselves, and it’s hard to imagine a future self. But following transition, their internal narrative becomes more coherent and they feel more connected to their current self. They have reclaimed their identity.
I found three research papers supporting these conclusions. Here are AI summaries of the three papers:
Autobiographical memory phenomenology in transgender and cisgender individuals
Finds that transgender participants rate memories from after coming-out with higher phenomenological quality than memories from before coming-out, and that these changes relate to well-being — i.e., coming-out/transitioned periods are experienced as more connected to the current self, supporting phenomenological continuity
The phenomenology of gender dysphoria in adults
Synthesizes qualitative literature showing that gender dysphoria often produces alienation from one’s life narrative and body prior to transition, and that many respondents describe transition and affirmation as restoring coherence and ownership of their life story. (Qualitative evidence that transition often repairs disrupted self-continuity.)
Exploring trans people’s narratives of transition
Qualitative interview study in which participants narrate transition as a process of re-emplotment of life events; many describe the post-transition narrative as the one that best fits their autobiographical story — again, consistent with increased diachronic unity after transition.
How would you reconcile these findings about restored diachronic unity in transgender persons who have transitioned to your theory that transgenderism is sexist?
Quoting Philosophim
This represents a profound misunderstanding of transgender identity, and the challenges they face as they seek a life in which they can live as who they really are.
I do not think this can be answered by the gender-is-not-sex crowd. What is it then? Stereotypes. Identity isn't inherent.
Women are subjects, not objects.
Quoting Questioner
Again, a person is not an object, but a subject. Unless you're talking English grammar? In which case we're talking about very different things.
Quoting Questioner
How so? If I view that the men should not cry, that is a gendered identity. If I view that women should always agree with men, that is a gendered identity. This sentence specifically is not addressing trans genderism, or 'crossing genders'. To first understand trans genderism, you need to understand 'cis' genderism. That is what this sentence notes.
Quoting Questioner
Sexism is an action that elevates one's prejudices over the biological reality of the the person. I might believe that men shouldn't cry, and that in itself is a prejudice. If I then encountered a man crying and told them, "Hey, stop that right now. You're a man, you can't cry." that's sexism. There is nothing innate in being a man that indicates a man shouldn't cry. That's gender, or a sociological belief in how a particular sex should act in society apart from their biological reality.
Quoting Questioner
One, assuming its 'true' is begging the question. How do we know it is true? A more honest approach (just teaching here, it has nothing to do with whether you are correct or not) is to propose a trans person claims an identity, then indicate why its true. That keeps the logic organized and clear for both parties.
First, I have not claimed why a person is trans gender. I have explained what being trans gender is. To be transgender, you must first have a gendered opinion about the sexes. Men act like X, Women act like Y. Then, you have to pick the gender that is opposite to your sex and act that way while rejecting acting like the gender of your sex. Every thought is in your head, so remember that a thought being in a person's head is nothing special from any other thought in a person's head.
Quoting Questioner
As noted before, the brain science on trans gender is no where near settled. Also, we do not take AI summaries on this board. Its important that you understand the papers and explicitly mark the point that lead to your conclusion. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm saying that AI is not a trustworthy source for arguments. You need to do the work and cite lines that back your points. I do the same.
Quoting Questioner
I never said it wasn't. I have never claimed that gender identity doesn't exist. I've just noted that gender is a prejudice, and that elevating that prejudice over sex in importance fits the definition of sexism.
Quoting Questioner
This is just a basic stability of self. Anyone without psychosis has this. I have changed roles many times in life but I understood that all of those roles were a part of me. I think you're implying that I don't think gender identity isn't part of a person's sense of self. Of course it is. Every thought can be a part of the sense of self. It doesn't mean that identity accurately represents reality, is healthy for the individual, or should be entertained. I loved speeding when I first drove. It was part of my identity. It was something I had to get under control because it was inappropriately expressed on public roads. You can be sexist, and that be a part of your identity. No break in diachronic unity.
Quoting Questioner
I felt really upset when I learned I couldn't speed. It sucked, I had to leave early, drive more carefully, and it was frustrating at times. If someone told me I could speed to my hearts content I would have been elated. "I get to do what I want without restriction," feels pretty good to most people. Tons of people like being jerks to others. Some people feel 'complete' while smoking ten packs of cigarettes a day. Or drinking. Your subjective feeling of 'completeness' and connection to the self is a bit odd.
Ever been in the fetish communities? I have through research. I'm mostly what you would consider 'asexual'. Its not a major interest of mine basically, but its something I was curious about. Want to know a pattern of speech that consistently emerges? "I feel like my true self." Uh oh. "Why did you leave your husband?" "I had to find myself" (The sex wasn't good anymore, needed more sexual excitement in life)
There are fetish communities where changing their body is a turn on. There is a weight gain fetish community where people gorge themselves into obesity and say, "I'm my true self now". And hate to break it to you if you're not aware, but there are people who also have a sexual and romantic attraction to emulating the other sex. They become enamored by it and want to be it all the time finding 'their true self'. I will link sites if you need, but I don't want to link smut on this forum, and I think its against the terms of service as well. Google it yourself, you'll find it.
My point is someone saying, "I'm connected with my current self" is a subjective feeling that can mean a lot of things. People can feel really good doing things that are objectively bad for them. And participating in sexism can also feel very good an 'natural' for people. Doesn't mean its not sexist or right.
Quoting Questioner
My point that it is that my claim that gender elevated over sex is sexism has not been refuted by any of your arguments so far. Thus I have not misrepresented a transgender individual who thinks that being the other gender means they are the opposite sex and deserve the same treatment. If a person is transgender and wants to act that way in their personal life, I have no objection if they aren't being sexist about it. I also don't care about the challenges a trans gender person faces. That's irrelevant to the discussion. Everyone has challenges in life. We're not exploring a person's particular challenges, we're exploring whether gender elevated over sex is sexism or not.
So to my point again, if you deny yourself the right to cry because as a man, you believe you shouldn't cry, you're making your bodies natural capabilities inferior to your gender identity of yourself. That is sexism. I don't see any way around it.
The common definition is that a woman is an adult human female, and a man is an adult human male. It is a biological referent, not a sociological one. In context, someone can parse the words man and women to be a sociological role, but this is metaphor, and not an actual indicator of actual sex. If someone called me a 'parrot' because I talked a lot, we all understand its a metaphor, not an actual claim that I am in fact a biological parrot.
I'm using the terms here metaphorically and structurally, not literally or grammatically
“Subject” = locus of agency and perspective
“Object” = target of action without agency
Quoting Philosophim
See above
Quoting Philosophim
No. This is not at all how I have been using the term "identity."
What you describe is sexist, but there is nothing linking these examples with the experience of a transgender person.
Quoting Philosophim
To apply this to transgender persons, you would have to characterize their gender identity as a "prejudice" and I hope you can see that this is not the case.
Quoting Philosophim
To whom? the gender police?
Quoting Philosophim
I'm not clear why anyone should justify their identity to another party.
Quoting Philosophim
Again, a profound misunderstanding of what transgenderism is
Quoting Philosophim
Are you sure about that? I have seen them in other threads. And the rules simply state that members are not to use AI to write their posts. I have written my own posts.
Quoting Philosophim
Gender is most assuredly not a "prejudice" - again:
Sexism is relational - anyone can be sexist - whether or not they are transgender - if they hold sexist views towards others - but transgenderism is about identity - it is not relational. Your point-of-view fails conceptually. Sexism is an attitude. Transgender is an identity condition.
Quoting Philosophim
yes, diachronic unity is something to be maintained, even with life changes
Quoting Philosophim
It appears you have no conceptual understanding of what I have been trying to explain to you.
Quoting Philosophim
No. Transgenderism in and of itself is not sexism. I've provided you will ample counter-arguments to this, but you're holding on to your prejudice with both hands, and maybe one foot.
Quoting Philosophim
Anyone's ideas about whether or not men should or should not cry is immaterial to the transgender experience. Yes, any individual can be sexist - cis or trans -
But sexism is about some people reducing others - not about which identities exist. Sexism exists in the attitude and the behavior, not in the very nature of being.
Ah, I'm glad you entered back into the conversation with more information, but you have to understand that I can't keep track of everyone's view of identity in the thread. As this is written by me, I've asserted a definition of identity and have stuck to that. Its ok if you disagree, but since it has been a moment and I don't know if your ideas have evolved further, please clearly define what you mean by identity, gender, and gender identity.
Quoting Questioner
Again, I'll remind you that being trans gender in of itself is not sexist. It is when the gender identity elevates itself over sex. For example, a woman personally being aggressive and thinking, "I'm acting like gender I attribute to men" is fine. If she then thinks, "Because I'm acting in a gendered way I attribute to a male, I should be treated like I'm the male sex", that is sexism. And yes, there are trans gender people who act this way. To your point, this is sexist.
Quoting Questioner
All gender by definition is a prejudice. Again, using the very definition of gender theory which is used in terms of both cis and trans gender discussion, gender is a social construct that conveys a belief in how a sex should act socially. Any time you pre judge how someone should act, that is a prejudice. To be clear, pre judging is not in itself wrong. Any intelligent being pre judges on almost anything based on their previous experience. A prejudice is only wrong if you extend it into an 'ism'. An ism is when we value our prejudices over objective reality. That is why elevating gender over the objective reality of sex is sexist.
Quoting Questioner
That's not an answer. This also was an incomplete sentence and I could not find what you were quoting in full. In philosophical discussions we talk about terms and their truth conditions. Its not about 'the police'. Its about clearly understanding what a term is, if it can be falsified, and under what conditions it would be true or false.
Quoting Questioner
If you are asking the other party to accept their identity, you absolutely have to justify that. You can view yourself however you want in your head. The moment you start implying that others have to agree is the moment you need to start justifying why.
Quoting Questioner
This is not an argument. At this point you should be presenting what trans genderism is and why it is wrong. To be charitible towards yourself, are you sure you aren't mixing up trans sexualism with trans genderism? They are not the same thing.
Quoting Questioner
I may be misinterpreting the rules then. I'm not going to entertain AI summaries because they aren't your thoughts on the article. I'm not discussing with an AI, I'm discussing with you. Again, I will give you the same treatment back.
Quoting Questioner
This is a disagreement or dislike with what I stated. This does not give any argument or reason why it is not a prejudice.
Quoting Questioner
I've clearly pointed out examples of sexism towards oneself. Sexism does not require two people. You can can subject yourself as the object you apply sexism towards. I've also explained that you can have sexism as part of your identity. So again, saying that being trans gender is an identity does not indicate that this identity is not prejudice.
Quoting Questioner
Then it is your job to clarify it and explain what I don't understand if you know that I have made pains to understand your viewpoint and am open to listening to it. An answer like this without explanation is a common tactic of someone who is avoiding answering the point because they don't have an answer. Maybe you do, but answering like this does not convey that.
Quoting Questioner
And neither do I. Read carefully please. Being trans gender is not sexist. Elevating gender of sex is. Having a prejudice that women should cook in the kitchen is fine. Asserting that they must when they see a woman working outside of the home without any other reason than their personal attachment to that prejudice is sexism.
Quoting Questioner
If I am a woman who wants to be a trans gender man, and I hold that men do not cry, isn't that pertinent to the trans gender experience?
Quoting Questioner
Attitudes and behaviors come from the brain right? So its part of your being if you decide to be sexist. Its not a good part of a person's being, and I would suggest they work on changing it. Just like gender right? That's part of the brain too.
I am going on vacation for a while Questioner, but I will reply when I get back. Have a wonderful holiday despite our differences on this matter!
You brought up the idea of a straw man, and then you carried it on.
If you had just said "I misspoke, I didn't mean straw man" that would have been it, and I would not have held anything against you. We all misspeak.
Anyway, I'm going to leave this one for people with more patience. I think the premise of the OP is absurd and it's a bad faith thread.
Go ahead and have the last word, I'm done.
Absolutely. Especially among children and adolescents. My advice is to seek more points of view than you've currently seen. Everything I'm advocating in this thread has been advocated by other trans gender and trans sexual people.
Quoting Mijin
Farewell then Mijin. I'll be on vacation so will respond when I'm back if you change your mind down the road. Have a nice holiday!
I think using clear, easy-to-parse language is good. But that doesn't make it right. If I can be given a decent definition by an opponent, ill use it in the arguments.
You're welcome.
Quoting Philosophim
Would it then follow on your view that the woman who uses a woman's bathroom because she looks like a woman rather than because she is a woman, is engaged in sexism? Or it this incorrect because she is not acting "over and against" sex?
To speak quickly, I think one difficulty with the position is that sex and gender actually are interrelated in a social sense, especially if we consider everything pertaining to appearance as pertaining to gender. If we get away from the rule which says that everyone who looks like a woman should use the women's bathroom, and everyone who looks like a man should use the men's bathroom, then it's not clear how we will "police" bathroom use without invasions of privacy.
Second, it's not clear what the error actually consists in, namely, "Elevating gender over and against sex." It seems to me that if we enforce that consistently, then we can never talk about gender in a way that does not presuppose sex. I guess I'm okay with that, but is that what you're saying? If not, what does it mean to elevate gender over and against sex? And instead of mere examples I would need an actual explanation of what this means. (Does it mean something like believing that one's gender is more important than one's sex, and is contrary to one's sex, and acting on that belief while at the same time requiring others to do the same? I.e. creating public policies that are gender-based rather than sex-based?)
Quoting Questioner
In previous discussions on this issue with Philosophim, I used an argument similar to the one you have used to define a notion of psychological gender as pertaining to a constellation of behaviors unified on the basis of brain schemas originating in the womb. This is a Kantian (or neo-Kantian) idea, except that rather than arguing for a metaphysical basis for categories of mind, biologically-based categories of psychological gender arise naturally.
Many people are uncomfortable with the idea that innate brain schemes organize the processing of incoming stimuli such as to form a gender affective-perceptual ‘style’. Of course such a style, whether we label it with terms such as masculine, feminine or something other, is inseparably intertwined with cultural influences, but this doesnt negate the fact that we arrive into the world armed already with gender-based stylistic proclivities prior to our exposure to social influence.
Those who oppose such a notion simply don’t see any overarching categorical pattern uniting the myriad behaviors and perceptions people report as belonging to their experience of their gender as individuals or as belonging to a group. Becuase these patterns are invisible to them, the only explanation of the concept of gender that can make sense to them is that each individual behavior that anyone claims is gender- related is arbitrarily invented in one’s imagination or is learned from others. The components of the category of ‘gender’, then, have no necessary connection to each other, only the claim by those who say gender is a core part of their being that some arbitrary concatenation of independent behaviors is a thing called their gender.
So does it make any practical difference whether we think of gender in terms of a unified affective-perceptual-behavioral style or a disconnected collection
of arbitrary behaviors that some just happens to call their gender? It made an enormous difference to me growing up gay knowing that my gayness meant much more than simply who I was sexually attracted to, and there was a community of other gay men who, like me, had been forced to become painfully aware of all the ways in which they didnt fit in with their hetero male peers. The recognition of what we shared as gay men , despite our many individual differences in its expression, was extremely empowering.
As a non-Kantian on the matter of gender. Philosophim would say that my awareness of my gayness as a gender was either concocted in my head by piecing together arbitrary fragments of behavior to force a narrative out of them , or forced on my via my unconscious exposure to some outside arbitrary narrative. In either case, I caused myself all that suffering for no good reason other than my own whims.
If I may - it means that your identity formulated by your brain should take precedence over whether or not you have ovaries or testes.
Well said. But I do wonder whether it is a matter of discomfort or an inability to comprehend.
Quoting Joshs
Again, well said. But we must understand that external stimuli are in and of themselves no more than that - stimuli - and the telling is in how they are perceived and processed by a living brain.
Quoting Joshs
I think with this failure "to see" is a failure "to look."
Quoting Joshs
This may very well be, for those who cannot grasp the concept of a gender-based mind, who insist that gender is something externally imposed, rather than the result of neurological patterns.
Quoting Joshs
But, if you ask any cisgender male or female, they will tell you what it feels like to be a woman or a man.
So, I find it curious that when a transgender person says, 'I feel this way or that way." - many do not believe them and search for spurious arguments to discredit them.
Quoting Questioner
We should ask Philosophim this question. I’ll bet you a twinkie he insists that there is nothing a priori it feels like to be a man or a woman, because these feelings are merely the result of arbitrary social conditioning, and the only feelings that aren’t socially imposed have to do with how a male body (not mind) feels different from a female body. (Btw, I edited and expanded my previous response)
Well, that would be a very ignorant position.
Quoting Joshs
I'm sorry that you face that prejudice and that ignorance.
Emphasis added to help provide clarity.
And that identity is something like, "I identify as a woman, even though I am not a woman; and what this means is that I am due all of the privileges and rights that a woman is due, even though I am not a woman."
I would be hard to overestimate the confusion of such a position. It requires first separating gender entirely from sex, and then taking everything that is socially correlated with sex and transferring it to be socially correlated to gender, and then saying that one's gender is just whatever one says it is. The whole idea is hilarious. It naturally induces laughter.
A parallel would be, "You must pretend that I am a rattlesnake, and anyone who does not so pretend is legally liable." "You must feel fear when I shake my rattle. You must train your dogs to abstain from attacking me. You must become poisoned when I bite you. If you fail to do these things we will throw you in jail." Again, laughter is the involuntary response and the proper solution here. :lol:
Mind is the correct answer. So, if a person exists whose mind—which is outwardly presented in behavior, beliefs, choices, expression, speech, etc.—identifies in contradiction to their body—the immutable substance, rather than those characteristics that are manipulated through the mind—what ought we identify that person by?
In fact, what does it mean for the mind to contradict the body? Some examples one might give:
But are any of these criteria bodily facts?
None of these are well-defined. However! One can set up metrics to test claims in the axis of ability. You can think you'll score high, but actually score low on these metrics. So there are physical facts about these things which can be measured, and compared to our intellectual seemings of it.
But can such a test be devised for our "biological reality"? I.e., what it is to be man or woman? If we cannot establish a measure of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, much less have men succeed at the measure for men, but not women, and vice versa, then I do not see how we can even claim that the bodily reality has a greater claim to a person's identity than their mind.
We know what men and women are. The idea we don't has caused the confusion and the extremely tortured, ignorant views hereabouts.
That's exactly the claim I'm testing. What determines conflict between "identity" and "reality"? I gave some examples in which I can claim things about myself which could be false, e.g. I can lift 100lbs. However, such examples are based on particular hypotheticals. Is the claim "I am (physically) strong" subject to a potential conflict with "reality"? And how could we determine such a thing without establishing arbitrary hypotheticals (e.g. "You're only strong if you can lift 100lbs")?
Quoting AmadeusD
I agree that communication is essential and sometimes overlooked in these discussions. I think anyone ought to express themselves such that someone else can understand their experience, and trans people do express their experiences such that non-trans people can understand. At some point, if someone can't or refuses to understand that expression, then that's a fault of the listener, not the speaker.
Quoting AmadeusD
Evidently not. You're assuming some concept in your head (maleness/femaleness, sex, etc.) maps onto the same concept in other people's heads (behaving like a man, participating in manhood, etc.) when it doesn't and claiming your concept to be more important, the reality, and the default. Although just to see, what is man/woman to you? And before you say "adult human male/female", I will follow up to ask what is "adult", and is that necessary to the meaning you're actually trying to convey when you say "We know what men and women are"?
The next part informs this one pretty well. You cannot have an identity divorced from reality and expect others to participate. They cannot. They do not live in that world.
Quoting QuixoticAgnostic
Strong is a relational/comparative claim. It's always easy to figure that out. No humans are strong along most metrics for instance. But if we restrict it to primates, we're somewhere in the middle. If we restrict it to higher primates, we're near the bottom. If we restrict it to humans, Eddie Hall wins... There's always a way.
Quoting QuixoticAgnostic
If that's what you think, sure. It's not what many people think. It also doesn't inform me about their identity if that identity is divorced from reality.
Quoting QuixoticAgnostic
But that is what a woman is (as best I can tell, see, understand and grok from looking at the world around me - and in fact, why there is any debate).
Adult is a well-defined term. It gets used in two ways: Fully grown (in terms of general size and strength) or of reproducing age. The latter is cleaner, the former is easier to write policy around. Both work to demarcate gender in this way.
We know what men and women are. I've just noted, though, that two views you seem to hold are this:
1. I understand women's concerns with expanding the meaning of 'woman' to include males, but I also don't care; and
2. You believe transwomen's experiences are unique in virtue of being women who cannot do what typical women do (lets use Typical to mean 'old fashioned' to not ruffle feathers for now).
The former tells me you're not open to discussing the topic, other than from a single perspective: trans women (i also note you outright said you're not interested in "anti-trans" views but do not define what they might be. The inference from your comments is anything which might want to restrict the social participation in a certain groups self-identity - which is fine, but should be clear so as not to confuse people when you don't respond to perfectly reasonable discussion). I very much hope the inference is wrong.
The latter tells me you're not adequately contacting the subject material. You have to accept "trans women are women" is always true for that question to be reasonable. Otherwise, the answer is simply "no, they have the experience of being men". While reductive, it does exactly answer the question. The question is whether or not they are women. My prior comments my position clear. I just want to point out why it's not a dead end - you just have the choice to not discuss it.
You need more and better research than 'according to Google'.
According to actual expert debates, research, historical perspective, and most importantly, efforts greater than googling the number of detransitioners is unknown because there is no long-term follow-up on any of these studies.
This is a basic fact among those that actually do due diligence, have been following the debate for years / decades, and are non-partisan.
Start your own actual research with Dr. Kinnon MacKinnon at York U, a trans researcher on detransitioners.
Sorry for being so blunt, but my rational heart sinks when I read sweeping statements like yours that are so clearly ideological, so clearly informed by ideology only. If your goal is advancing the position of trans people, you owe it to them to do better research.
I did include another source.
Quoting Jeremy Murray
No, I quoted statistics
Quoting Jeremy Murray
I invite you to read the totality of my posts before making this presumption.
Quoting Jeremy Murray
I take exception to this statement. It shows a clear lack of having read the totality of my posts.
I read this thread from beginning to end before posting. I believe your 'stats' have already been debunked.
Lol, I do wonder who is standing on ideology
You, apparently aren’t, since you can’t be bothered to do basic research, as demonstrated by your lack of basic knowledge on the subject throughout the thread. Again, just do the Google search. Or try Ben Ryan and his hazard ratio sub stack.
Please share your research with us.
https://theonepercentdetrans.substack.com/
Here is Kinnon Makinnon's substack. Try anything he writes. You will find nuance.
I mean, you know he is a go-to in the field, obviously, with your expertise.
Certainly a better source than pop psych.
Thank you for that, but I cannot say that it revealed much to me that I didn’t already know, or posted about.
Transgender persons experience psychic distress. Yes, they do, no sh*t, but let’s be clear this co-relation does not indicate a causation - that transgenderism does not cause the mental stress per se, but rather it boils down to a lack of support.
As the article makes clear:
[i]… high levels of psychosocial stress and elevated scores on the nonsupport scale, reflecting a strong perception of lack of social support.
… it may reflect a heightened need to communicate suffering, possibly as a response to stigma or barriers to being taken seriously in clinical settings.
… Elevated externalizing patterns and substance-related problems may reflect maladaptive coping strategies developed in response to chronic minority stressors such as discrimination or interpersonal rejection.[/i]
And the treatment required focuses again on social support -
[i]… a trauma-informed approach that builds resilience against chronic social stressors and discrimination is also likely beneficial.
… developing social connections to buffer against the observed pattern of social inhibition and perceived stigma.
… There is an urgent need to address suicidality and the perceived lack of support.[/i]
Trans people definitively do not lack institutional support and accomodations in the West. So, is it just that other people don't accept your self-image? That's true of most people. It is rare to find a group lacking resilience such that the world not conforming to their self-image is considered a 'potentially fatal' aspect of their situation. Even rarer to find the world taking that as rote. This may be the only example.
So what's left is the maladaptive aspects of the trans personality (as such. I don't take this type of framing too literally). This isn't me claiming this is the correct analysis. But I think the analysis which starts with "you are telling me x, therefore x is the case" is probably the worst approach. It will, almost definitionally, result in the group blaming others for their plight. You could apply this to young white men, who are in fact, not given support by institutions and are given the opposite.
Schizophrenics are not upset because the world wont conform to their delusion - it is the delusion which supports the upset. I am not running together being trans and being schizophrenic, though they share aspects. I am merely trying to make it clear that taking the afflicted at their world is a problem. A big problem. Particularly when one of the requirements to enter your discussion is that we do so.
and in that data you found the evidence about the much higher number of detransitioners than you imply?
because supporting trans people includes noticing flaws in the rhetoric and language of their own tribe. I believe I am steel-manning you, as a fellow trans-advocate, into assuming that you would want to know if you are missing something
also please note the language of your own quotes, may reflect, possibly, etc.
this is the language of social science. note the difference in degree of certainty from your moralistic language.
can you concede that you have significantly underestimated detransitioners?
Quoting Tom Storm
I would say trans identities CAN be real and grounded aspects of personhood, but that doesn’t rule out someone inventing a theatrical role for themselves or others and calling it ‘trans’. But that person is not likely to claim that they have felt that way about themselves as long as they can remember, nor would they likely be able to articulate their gender in terms of a unified constellation of features. Their self-depiction would sound more like the fragmented, socially conditioned description of gendered-based behavior that Amadeus and Philosophim have put forth.
This is not true in the US. They have been executive-ordered out of existence.
Quoting AmadeusD
I think this fails to understand how central gender identity is to transgender persons and that it often results in full-person rejection by those closest to them.
Quoting AmadeusD
I think this fails to understand that the best person to tell you who they are is the person telling you who they are.
Quoting AmadeusD
An invalid "whataboutism"
Quoting AmadeusD
Ah, but you have introduced the words "delusion" and "afflicted" - signaling a prejudice that does not accurately describe the transgender experience
No. The stats I find this morning are similar to the stats I have previously posted:
The point-prevalence proportions of shifts in requests before any treatment ranged from 0.8–7.4%. The point-prevalence proportions of GnRHa discontinuation ranged from 1–7.6%. The point-prevalence proportions of GAHT discontinuation ranged from 1.6–9.8%.
Of those who do seek detransitioning -
Of those who had detransitioned, 82.5% reported at least one external driving factor. Frequently endorsed external factors included pressure from family and societal stigma.
The level of dramatics in this is alarming. Can you please clarify what you mean by "out of existence"? Last I checked, trans people still exist in the USA and, for the most part, enjoy the same freedoms everyone else enjoys.
Quoting Questioner
It doesn't. But I can see why that is your take (not disparagement. Its reasonable). The vast majority of "rejection" trans people endure, as it were, is to do with their behaviour and this is often the result of manic issues, and so empathy is needed, but we best not lose sight of the actual reasons***. Exactly like everyone else. I don't deny that there are bigots, and particularly bigots in this arena. If we remove religion (because its another discussion about motivations and being able to parse them, or ignore them I guess) then I think you'll find the vast, vast majority of people you claim this about are actually not going through this as-stated and self-perception has coloured their take. I know this firsthand from several personal friends or acquaintances. So, that's an anecdote, but it stands to reason. I would assume your point is also anecdotal (or even inferential... do you know trans people who have been disowned?). None of this is to discount hte feelings of trans people who think tihs way. But i imagine if I started advocating for young white men who experience racism, ostracization and violence you'd probably be skeptical despite.
** this is, in some large way, based on reading case after case after case where a trans person makes a claim or accusation against another and ends up being found either in the wrong, or essentially making it up. We do not see the other way around, generally. I would need to find the statistics again, but my memory tells me I'm safe in saying that there's some Trans day of Remembrance in California to remember the like 3 trans people killed in the last three years. Its clear that mostly this isn't motivated by prejudice against trans people either, so I can't find a reason to accept the alarms about this.
Quoting Questioner
That would be fair, but that's not at all what it is. It's not "whatabout". It's "apply your same logic and see where it leads". I can see why this isn't going particularly deep. If I were saying "yeah, well look at this" you'd be right. I didn't. I gave you another vessel to pour your view into and see how it looks. I take it that it looks ugly?
Quoting Questioner
It is a fact that some people are deluded. It is also a fact that some people are afflicted by delusion. There is absolutely nothing prejudiced about observing these facts. I suggest your immediate need to frame things as somehow prejudiced (in a negative way. We are all prejudiced constantly, so I want to be clear and not leave myself some kind of out there) or somehow ignorant without explaining or supporting that contention strikes me as a bit naive.
If I can admit that there are "genuine" trans people (in my view of trans, anyway) who are genuinely going through experiences of prejudice but you cannot admit that the above is the case, we have no further to discuss because we're living in different linguistic worlds.
Quoting Questioner
Quoting AmadeusD
Delusion as false belief doesn’t necessarily describe the schizophrenic experience either. Thus the need for the ‘hearing voices’ movement.
[quote]
The Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) takes a deliberately revisionary and, in some respects, deflationary position on the concept of delusion. Rather than treating delusions as inherently pathological false beliefs that arise from a diseased mind, the movement largely reframes them as meaningful interpretations of experience that emerge in particular social, emotional, and biographical contexts. This does not mean that the HVM denies the reality of distress, suffering, or impairment, but it does challenge the epistemic authority traditionally granted to psychiatric judgments about truth, falsity, and rationality.
In mainstream psychiatry, a delusion is typically defined by three features: it is a belief that is false, held with strong conviction, and resistant to counterevidence, and it is taken to be a direct symptom of mental illness. The Hearing Voices Movement explicitly resists this framing. From its perspective, the key problem with the concept of delusion is not merely clinical but philosophical and political: it collapses questions of meaning into questions of error, and questions of difference into questions of defect.
[quote]
This is a Jack Turban paper. Here's some counterpoints to Jack Turban being much more than an activist with an agenda
https://www.theoryandsocialinquiry.org/article/18211/galley/41714/download/ An interesting paper (though not directly related to this, just thought it worth posting here. Jeremy will enjoy im sure.
Quoting Joshs
No, but it does describe some schizophrenic experiences uniquely. That's all the inference there was. If we can accept that this it the case, and we accept that 'trans' experience can differ (you've been very open-minded in this way earlier in your comments) then we cannot discount these possibilities.
In any case, my point was that it is not prejudiced to note that there are delusions and afflictions exist. Trans people are obviously afflicted by something. Perhaps its the reticence to say what, but still claim the distress that makes this so fraught. I don't know the solution because they don't work together...
Sorry, I should have been more precise. I meant the executive order Trump signed January 20, which in part states:
[i]Sec. 2. Policy and Definitions. It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all Executive interpretation of and application of Federal law and administration policy:
(a) “Sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”
(b) “Women” or “woman” and “girls” or “girl” shall mean adult and juvenile human females, respectively.
(c) “Men” or “man” and “boys” or “boy” shall mean adult and juvenile human males, respectively.
(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.
(f) “Gender ideology” replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.[/i]
Quoting AmadeusD
I think an important part of what I said is "rejection by those closest to them" and it is wholly unfounded that this rejection stems from their "manic behavior"
Quoting AmadeusD
Sorry, this goes against everything I have read about the subject. No doubt, it is complicated, psychologically, but the starting point has to be to believe them.
Quoting AmadeusD
Why? What did they tell you?
Quoting AmadeusD
It's invalid because young white men do not face the same misunderstanding, ignorance and prejudice that transgender persons do
Quoting AmadeusD
"Delusion" and "affliction" are not characteristic of the transgender identity. A delusion is a break from reality, and transgender identities are real. Also, you would no more say that a cisgender male is "afflicted" by his brain because it is a male brain - it is just the brain he has. Same idea with transgender people - it is just the brain they have.
1. Ah yep; thanks. I see nothing there that doesn't anything whatsoever to challenge the existence of trans people (and the claim that they are being x'd "out of existence" is pure theater anyway).
Quoting Questioner
This is true, for instance. Nothing in those lines has much of anything to do with being trans other than uses of hte words 'woman' and 'man'. We can use 'transwomen' and 'transman' and do, in most cases so I'm not seeing much of anything worth noting there? Are you able to perhaps parse out what you think supports the claim? Even if its a quippy claim for effect..
2. Quoting Questioner
I'm fairly sure I understood the claim. It seems far more often(to me and on the interrogation I've made of self-report surveys) that trans people will divorce from those closest for reasons important to them, and then retroactively say they were rejected. That doesn't even violate the claim that social/personal pressure caused this (i don't think so, but that's not relevant). I'm just saying that it is quite rare (and i see nothing in your posts yet to support the idea) for people to entirely reject a person for being trans, rather than doing or demanding something or other that doesn't fit with that context or those people. Clearly that can cause distress, but is very different from the claim.
Suffice to say neither of us could support our contention given self-report is all either could refer to. I don't take self-report seriously for various reasons on this matter. So, that's my thoughts but I'm not banging a drum about it or anything.
3. Quoting Questioner
It absolutely does not (in my view). I can understand the impetus, and I understand its follow ons. We're approaching from different angles, it seems and ethically just don't align. The psychological starting point should be "your mind tells you your body is wrong. That's divorced from reality - lets figure out whether we can ameliorate this distress in the least invasive, least dramatic way (probably therapy and appropriate support for non-conforming behaviours or desires assuming we're not talking about hte autogynephile types). Again, that's my position - not something I'm banging a drum about. We may just need to shake hands and leave these points.
4.Quoting Questioner
I've had several good trans friends over the years (50% of which have desisted :P ) and i deal with them from time to time professionally. Professionally, I have to interrogate their stories to assess how best to action their cause (bit of a banal legal pun there lol). More often, the story breaks down into "I didn't like x" or "I don't respect my parents/friends/siblings views on y" and so they left or took offense to something and went on to attempt a cause of action. I am almost always having to advise that there is no cause of action - they made personal choices to do with who they will accept in their lives and what beliefs/views they will accept into their lives. That's fine, but not in any way anyone else's fault and certainly not a legal issue. Granted, this is often a misunderstanding of what constitutes a cause of action, but that almost further illustrates the confusions I'm trying to get at. And it is fully acceptable that this is perhaps an "educated" anecdote in the sense that its corroborative across multiple domains for me.
One of the trans people I knew quite well came to me for counsel about six years ago. I heard their entire life story. I had to pinpoint the moment they psychologically painted their parents as x and that this coloured all of their further interactions, until they tried to assault their parents on the basis they were being 'emotionally abusive" for maintaining that they can't change sex (solely. They respectly pronouns). So I know tihs type of thing happens. I'm just, mostly-speculatively suggesting it is more prevalent, and results in more of the types of reports you're (i presume) referring to than is generally accepted among TRAs.
5. Quoting Questioner
Well, that's a claim. One I think is entirely wrong. You still have not grasped the point of that comparison. The logic is clear. I think this response just shows me I was right about how you're applying the standards across groups. White men (and women) are routinely assaulted (sometimes killed - certainly more than trans people, but that's to be expected given pop. numbers), ostracized, marked out as somehow defective and taught that they are inherently bad and need to work, from birth, to overcome the stain of their sex and colour.
I'm sorry, but it is not credible to claim what you have in my view. Daylight looms large..
6. Quoting Questioner
Hmm. But I am claiming that they are not 'real' in any sense required to get around "affliction" so this is somewhat mooted (not uninteresting, though!!). Even if I were to take this seriously, the "affliction" is that the identify conflicts with their body (or, ought to biologically/evolutionarily speaking). That is an affliction. Plain and simple. If it wasn't, there would be nothing to do about it. But there is, regardless of either of our positions being more correct.
I'm definitely far more reticent to invoke delusion, but if you're under the impression (which plenty are) that sex is non-binary and one can simply change one's sex then you are deluded. I'm unsure that can be argued away. I also suggest that the plenty of trans people who openly acknowledge what I'm saying gives us good reason to think perhaps an absolutist take on "trans identity" as "real" is perhaps fraught.
I massively apprecaite the far more nuanced and polite tone of this exchange. Sorry for any part i've had in creating the previously tension-laded one.
Nothing to be sorry about. I appreciate your attention, and your sharing your point-of-view.
Suffice to say I disagree with your approach to transgender identity, but I feel that we have reached the point in the conversation where I would fall to repeating myself, or arguing, so I'll leave the last word on this to you.
Back from vacation. Seems like some good conversations happened while I was away.
To be clear we mean woman by sex, not gender. And I will not use "woman" by itself to mean gender as it leads to unclear communication. If a man wears some makeup and a dress because that's the way women are supposed to act, that's gender. If they think this makes them a woman this would be sexism.
We haven't really addressed trans sexualism. That is where one alters their body to match or resemble the sex expectations of the other sex. I do not see that as sexism. Sex expectations are biologically expected statistics and are not gender. Admiring and wanting the body of the opposite sex for yourself is an entirely different subject.
The question of whether a man of any type is allowed as a normal visitor in any cross sex space should consider why that cross sex space was created and the purpose it serves. There may be good reasons and arguments for allowing cross sex access, but sexism is not one of them. If gender is claiming the actions or inner feelings of a person make a sex, that's sexism. So if someone cross gender is not cross sex, I see no justified reason to allow cross sex space access from this alone.
Quoting Leontiskos
To be clear, sex expectations of the body are not gender. Adornment of the body is. We are as of yet not talking about transsexuals, or those whose body may be on the extreme statistical end of those expectations. In an informal setting like a bathroom, culture will keep most trans gender people out, as sex expectations as markers for correct sex identification are usually extremely accurate and easy to identify. In the case where there is uncertainty, this will be incredibly low. Once trans gender people are out, it will go back to a low priority and likely be flexible like it was before all of this attempt to make bathrooms about identity instead of places you go where you blend in best.
Quoting Leontiskos
Gender is always about sex. It is the expectation for how a sex should act. I think that's the proper way to speak about it.
Quoting Leontiskos
Correct. Anytime you think gender should shape anything sex related, you've elevated it over sex. Gender is a belief about how a sex should act. But its a subjective opinion. It does not shape sex, justify one as a sex, or shape sex in any way. Its just a prejudice or stereotype. Identifying as a 'gender' is really just saying, "I act like I or others expect that sex to act in society." Which again, is completely worthless in any sex identification itself.
I would say having surgery to appear as a (caricature, naturally) of the opposite sex is sexist pretty much by definition. I just don't think all sexism is bad. Clearly not, as law instantiates several instances of it.
To be clear, anything biological that fits a sex expectation is not gender. Gender is ONLY sociological, and I think this is where the confusion comes in. As of yet, there is no brain evidence of gender. Gender is just an opinion or sociological construct in how a sex should act. It is a prejudice, and if it becomes more important than sex itself, sexism.
Quoting Joshs
No, I would say 'gay' is not a gender. Act however you want. There are prejudices in how a gay person should act, but that doesn't mean you actually are that way. That's like saying, "You don't like Lady Gaga, you can't be gay." or, "You're not gay enough." Its just prejudice. As for being gay, that's a sexual orientation, not a gender. Further, we actually have brain evidence that indicates a difference between male gay men and straight men. While nothing is conclusive, its been noted that some areas of the brain that are normally associated with women are more like women in gay male brains. Does that mean you're a female in a man's body? I would never insult or imply such homophobic tripe.
I'm glad you found people with your same sexual orientation you can relate with. I have nothing against that. But that's not gender. Someone saying, "I think men shouldn't be gay," is gender. Its just prejudice.
I actually don't. I think there are trans sexuals who desire the biological average sex expectations of the opposite sex, and I think desiring that and/or obtaining that does not fit the definition of sexism itself.
Quoting Philosophim
I'm not saying one couldn't be sexist and desire the body of the other sex, but I don't think desiring or shaping their body to the objectively normal biological expectations of the other sex is itself sexist.
Also fantastic discussion by you and Questioner while I was gone.
No, there is a way of feeling like a man. Its sexual. I can grow a beard. I pee a certain way. I have more strength naturally. Its entirely 100% biological. I do have sociological pressures to act, dress, and behave a particular way because of my sex. But I don't have to follow them generally. True strength is realizing I can give the proverbial middle finger to everyone else in society and do what I want. But men or women can realize that.
How else would I 'feel like a man'?
Quoting Questioner
Most people face prejudice and ignorance in life. I have in spades. It does not make his position special or his ideas have any more merit or value, nor my own. Ideas have merit and value not in how we suffer with them, but if they rationally make sense.
First, my apologies for all these separate posts on your topics, I'm catching up from vacation.
I have a major issue with this need to never say anything is 'wrong'. There are lots of things wrong with all of us, and maturity is admitting that. I have a very scarred face that often scares people. Its bad. Its a handicap in social settings. I am flawed because of it. Saying, "Oh but really you're not mangled, its an expression of blah blah blah" is both a diminishment of the reality of my situation, and an insult to myself as if I'm not mature enough to handle that I have things wrong with me. There are schizophrenics who fight daily to be normal despite their handicap. Saying their condition is normal is beyond insulting.
If you are hearing voices, there is something wrong with your brain, period. Its important to realize it, get help, and work to function normally in society despite one's delusion and handicap. The idea of transition is a coping mechanism for severe gender dysphoria. Its not a normal, healthy way of life. And that's ok. But it doesn't mean you latch onto sexism to make yourself feel better. I have something fundamentally wrong with me and cannot live a normal and healthy life without extra effort and work on my part. And that's ok. But it doesn't mean I get run around pretending I don't look like what I do.
If I went around pretending that I had a normal face and asked people to call me 'good looking' because otherwise my feelings would be hurt, I would have an infantile mind and be a pathetic individual. I do not encourage or endorse other people being infantile or pathetic. I encourage others to admit reality because that is the only way you really handle the arrows of life. I do not say this as some healthy normal individual safely behind a screen. I say this as an individual who has been through great physical and emotional difficulties. The truth is the only way to triumph. Lies and pretend only work temporarily, will always be shattered by uncaring reality and keep you weak. This is from personal experience.
You see, I have a great sympathy for fellow sufferers in life. And the last thing they need is pity, excuses, or lies to get over it. I believe in their strength of mind, constitution, and morals. I do not treat them like inferiors. I do not give them false sympathy or pretend their pain is not real and does not exist to make myself feel better. I do not treat you like an inferior because you went through the struggles of being gay. You're just a person like me. And I'll hold you to the same intellectual and moral standards I would hold anyone else despite those difficulties.
Quoting Philosophim
What DOES the possibility of a brain similarity between gay men and women mean to you? Do you think the region of the brain which differs between straight men and women is responsible for behavioral differences between the sexes? And if not, what do you suppose is the function of that sex-related brain region?
During the intrauterine period a testosterone surge masculinizes the fetal brain, whereas the absence of such a surge results in a feminine brain. As sexual differentiation of the brain takes place at a much later stage in development than sexual differentiation of the genitals, these two processes can be influenced independently of each other.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091302211000252?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Most of the anatomical, physiological and neurochemical gender-related differences in the brain occur prenatally. The sexual differences in the brain are affected by sex steroid hormones, which play important roles in the differentiation of neuroendocrine system and behavior.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24592097/
… our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed into our brain structures when we are still in the womb … There is no proof that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19403051/
On average, males and females showed greater volume in different areas of the cortex, the outer brain layer that controls thinking and voluntary movements. Females had greater volume in the prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal cortex, lateral parietal cortex, and insula. Males, on average, had greater volume in the ventral temporal and occipital regions. Each of these regions is responsible for processing different types of information.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/sex-differences-brain-anatomy
In all supratentorial regions, males had greater within-hemispheric connectivity, as well as enhanced modularity and transitivity, whereas between-hemispheric connectivity and cross-module participation predominated in females.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1316909110
In sum, these results demonstrate that stDNN together with IG procedures, which capture dynamic brain characteristics and their importance to sex differences classification, identifies sex-specific brain features that are differentially predictive of cognitive profiles in females and males.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2310012121
I don't know. What it does seem to imply is that sexual orientation is not a processing issue, its an innate brain function. The problem of course is that we don't yet quite have the brain issues for sexual orientation down in heterosexual brains. So at this point its a lot of guess work. The only thing we can say for certain is that gay men are not females in male bodies. They are males with a sexual orientation towards the same sex.
Quoting Joshs
Behavioral differences in regards to sexual orientation. There are certain methods of flirting that are repeatable across cultures, implying biological origin. I would say you would be able to assess much better than I do, but 'flightiness' for example can be seen as an attractive trait in women to men, while it it often not seen as an attractive trait in men for women. To be clear, flirting which is socially learned would be gender. We're talking about innate attraction and flirting which is natural and unlearned.
Still, its a topic mostly outside of my wheelhouse so I don't have too much educated to say about it. What I do know from my research so far (and again, brain science is still very early and not yet conclusive) is that when trans individuals are examined based on sexual orientation, there is no difference. So homosexuals who are trans have the same brains as homosexuals who are not trans. Same with heterosexuals. There is one minor barely statistical difference in the corpus collosum in both, and that may be important as we continue to learn more. But this largely indicates gender is a processing issue, not an innate brain function.
Quoting Joshs
Unsure. But it could explain behavior that is associated more with women. Of course it doesn't mean you have a female brain. It means you have a brain that has aspects of it that would normally be associated with females. You're still a maie.
Why are we trying to ignore the fact that the average ("straight") male brain simply has poorer self control over lust and primal impulse and tends to be more violent. Why are we trying to spin that as a positive thing? It's not. Sure, it's the unfortunate majority, it's "normal".
Males whose brains tend to have more in common with females than the average male sounds superior in just about every way. How does that have anything to do with sexual preference?
Understand the real and actual underlying dynamic. Society on average is a reflection of the minds of average people. Average people are not very smart. So, most women will end up not very smart since we are largely and in part products of the society in which we grow up in, compounded by the fact it's common knowledge women "don't have to be smart". If you're attractive, or you have something a man wants (you know what), you never really have to become educated or develop your character much beyond that of a child's. Men will literally open doors for you for no real reason other than the fact you exist. That's common sense.
Just because I don't like the way the average woman (or man) is, thus resulting in me not being sexually attracted to someone I feel isn't their best self (who failed to develop morally)—because I value the essence, character, or soul of a human being over their inanimate flesh—doesn't mean I'm homosexual. Sure, I'll probably be called that by the low IQ masses (who are the real ones who should be given a title to discourage reproduction). But that actually means nothing. This attempt to give it actual value is rather unfortunate and quite unbecoming of people who claim to be intellectual.
Here's another thing. Imagine a male with little to no muscle tone, completely shaved, and perhaps even from a genetic background that generally retains youthful (female) characteristics. Now imagine a female with much of the same. You can't tell much difference between, provided the characteristic "private parts" (bosom, genitalia) are obscured or otherwise not very prominent.
There's another argument about pheromones. Yet you can't tell me as a man you couldn't become sexually aroused by viewing a picture or video of a woman, or perhaps even a crude, primal cave painting? This means men are attracted to curves (perhaps soft, youthful ["feminine"] features and long, flowing hair). Women are attracted to straight lines (muscles, and perhaps body hair). But are these really ingrained inner biological or neurological workings or simply the result of our upbringing, the media i.e. social cues/programming (the buff action hero, and the busty damsel in distress)? Could it be a combination of the two?
Again, it's possible humanity is just evolving and men are becoming more intelligent and less violent, and the dull majority is simply doing what all animals do: ostracizing those who are different. The average man is a primal, low-brow being who cares primarily about one thing: His self. Which roughly works out to: pleasure, specifically sexual pleasure. This [s]defines[/s] enslaves him. The higher intellect cares about much more than these things for he actually has self control and can talk to or be around a woman without a derelict (so-called "straight") monkey brain making him want to basically impale her because "it feels good."
In short, I question the usefulness of the terms as far as people who society deems "straight" versus who it deems "gay", even if the individual momentarily or perhaps has embraced such social pressure as reality or their own identity.
Basically, as an adult, no matter who you are, or who you think you are, if you can't control yourself and look at another person, whoever they are, without having an overwhelming urge to fornicate, you have a mental disorder. Period. That or you didn't really grow up. Adults have self control, children and the unwell do not. It's just that simple. And no I don't mean it in the sense that seems to punish natural attraction as a disorder (i.e. a man looking at his wife).
Simply that out of the thousands of aspects one can associate with being human, if you choose to elevate primal lust (who you want to have sex with) as anything but a random quality, similar to a favorite color, and embrace that as some sort of "identity", that's robbing yourself of the true human experience. You're a person. Not a "straight" person or a "gay" person. But a person. It's just such a low brow quality that should only restrict/define a lesser being such as an animal. A human being, the human experience, is so much greater than simplistic physical pleasures. It should be at least. Don't you agree?
I'm not sure where you're from, but this is not true in my neck of the woods.
Quoting Outlander
No, sorry, that's 1950s
Quoting Outlander
I can't imagine what "genetic background" this is
Quoting Outlander
Or to a man's kindness
Quoting Outlander
This does not describe the many men I know.
Quoting Outlander
I just don't think this accurately describes the average person. (Maybe Trump)
Quoting Outlander
For sure!
Please do better than chatgpt again. You need to make sure to include sexual orientation in your findings. To my knowledge, most of your papers are describing homosexuality formation, not gender identity.
"Thus, accounting for individual differences in sexual orientation, the transgender groups showed lower,
sex-atypical FA specifically in the right IFOF and left ILF. In all other tracts, FA values of the transgender groups became sex-typical after accounting for sexual orientation (see for comparison Supplementary Results when Kinsey scores were not co-varied)."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8.pdf
Another general site with more studies demonstrating the brain science is still very much not settled. https://www.transgendertrend.com/brain-research/
HeM = Heterosexual Male
MtF-TR = Male to female transgender (post hormone therapy which is known to alter the brain)
"Like HeM, MtF-TR displayed larger GM volumes than HeW in the cerebellum and lingual gyrus and smaller GM and WM volumes in the precentral gyrus. Both male groups had smaller hippocampal volumes than HeW. As in HeM, but not HeW, the right cerebral hemisphere and thalamus volume was in MtF-TR lager than the left. None of these measures differed between HeM and MtF-TR. MtF-TR displayed also singular features and differed from both control groups by having reduced thalamus and putamen volumes and elevated GM volumes in the right insular and inferior frontal cortex and an area covering the right angular gyrus.The present data do not support the notion that brains of MtF-TR are feminized. The observed changes in MtF-TR bring attention to the networks inferred in processing of body perception."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21467211/
What is consistent between these papers is after sexual orientation is taken into account that at most the difference appears to be in the area in which a person process their own body. In other words, a misprocessing or misinterpretation of their body, not a case of a female or male brain in a person's body. This may not be innate either, but something developed. The jury is still very out on anything final at this time.
And Questioner, you still haven't indicated why gender itself isn't just prejudice, or why elevating it over sex isn't sexism. Go back to the OP again if you need to.
I cited papers, not Chatgpt
Quoting Philosophim
I went to this paper, and the first sentence literally read:
[i]Both transgenderism and homosexuality are facets of human biology, believed to derive from different
sexual differentiation of the brain.[/i]
Quoting Philosophim
This is not a scientific site, but a site with an agenda.
A couple of the claims they make:
"scientists have found no separate innate ‘gender’ area of the brain which is fixed at birth." - No sh*t - that has never been claimed. Please re-read my cites.
"there is no 100% ‘male’ or ‘female’ brain" - again, no-one has ever claimed this
"In reality male and female brains do not look very different from each other." - the valid research does not look at "what brains look like" - but how they function
So, I would advice some critical reading on your part.
Quoting Philosophim
That study is from 2011 and used MRI. There is more recent research that uses fMRI and contradicts those findings.
Overall our neuroimaging results suggest that the basic visuospatial abilities are associated with different activations pattern of cortical visual areas depending on the sex assigned at birth and gender identity.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9010387/
Taken together, these four structural MRI studies provide preliminary evidence that regional cortical volumes can be modulated by gender attributes, especially in the frontal lobe.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922008539
Females had greater GMV in several areas including the thalamus, postcentral gyrus, triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus, orbital part of middle frontal gyrus and medial superior frontal gyrus in both hemispheres, middle occipital gyrus and middle cingulate gyrus in the left hemisphere, and the inferior parietal lobule and caudate in the right hemisphere, and bilateral cerebellum. Males had greater GMV than females only in the right inferior occipital gyrus.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00244/full
Our stDNN model accurately differentiated male and female brains, demonstrating consistently high cross-validation accuracy (>90%), replicability, and generalizability across multisession data from the same individuals and three independent cohorts (N ~ 1,500 young adults aged 20 to 35).
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2310012121
So - the question that remains is - why are you so fixed against the notion that gender might be determined in utero?
Your source has https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091302211000252?utm_source=chatgpt.com <-
You need to be reading your own papers please, not typing into chatGPT and citing things. Do your own research, ChatGPT is not yet a good source of research.
Quoting Questioner
Yes, and read my quote from the paper and findings.
Quoting Questioner
Then should I ignore any site which would compile studies for trans in the brain? Should I just tell you, "You have an agenda, therefore I will ignore everything you say?" The site has citations to several articles, its one of many things to read. The real enemy is "I will not read or listen to you because you have an agenda". We need to talk to each other and listen. That's the real triumph of humanity and how we help people.
The point of the site is to let you know that currently there is no settled science on the trans gender and the brain. There are some common findings at this moment, but many conflicting papers and scientific points of view. I have also mentioned this several times in this discussion. I've been claiming certain things that I've read, but also noted things are still in flux.
Quoting Questioner
Relax. I didn't cite that specific line so you can assumed I didn't mean to consider it. It was a broad area for more reading.
Quoting Questioner
The point being there is no real evidence of transgender individuals having a brain that is at odds with their sex.
Quoting Questioner
This study did not counter the 2011 study because it missed a vital point. It did not separate people by sexual orientation which was shown to be key for the brain differences.
Quoting Questioner
I do not have access to this article to read it. Again, I would need to see if they separate by sexual orientation, and if they had the same conclusion I noted above:
Quoting Philosophim
the prefrontal cortex is where this is located, so it may be the same conclusion. You'll have to check and let me know if you could please.
"There is a wide range of evidence for gender differences in behavioral profiles as well as in brain structure and function (Sacher et al., 2013; Ruigrok et al., 2014; Gur and Gur, 2017). Behaviorally, males are shown to perform superiorly in some domains including motor and visuospatial processing, whereas females have an advantage in terms of verbal skills and emotional memory. There is an increasing interest in studying the brain mechanisms underlying these behavioral differences between genders. For example, there is evidence showing that larger gray matter volume (GMV) in occipital lobe was correlated with better visual function in males and larger hippocampal gyrus was correlated with better memory performance in females (Giedd et al., 2012)."
Quoting Questioner
This is not a gender study, this is a sex differences study. We have to be careful to not accidently conflate the wrong meaning of gender in the discussion. We are using gender as the sociological concept, not a synonym for sex. Sex expectations are biological. Remember that gender is "Women should wear top hats." If we could find a brain section that correlated with this sociological belief, then we could demonstrate gender in the brain.
Quoting Questioner
Again, this is a sex differences evaluation, not a gender evaluation of the brain.
Quoting Questioner
And I could easily ask "Why are you so fixated on the notion that gender might be determined in utero?" That's not a discussion point, that's an accusation and attack. Lets not do that as this has been a pleasant conversation so far. :)
Its not a fixation, its so far the science that I see. The problem is that most of the evidence about in uteror changes are about sexual orientation, not gender. We have to be careful with the terms we're using. Sex - biology. Gender - sociology Sexual orientation - what sex you' want to sleep with
The science that I've seen that separates the brains of people by sexual orientation reveals that what you are noting is about sexual orientation, not trans gender. Trans gender brains of heterosexual people do not show any evidence of feminized brains, only homosexual men do. Do you understand how important that is if that's true? We're not trying to prove a point, we're trying to figure out what's most true. If it is the case that the only brain structure we find when taking into account sexual orientation, is a common area in the neo cortex that processes the ability for people to identify themselves, we can isolate trans genderism to that point. If its simply a misunderstanding of oneself, that can be helped. Just like a person with poor spatial awareness can improve by practice, training and new methods could be established. Do you understand the hell trans people go through when they first get gender dysphoria? The permanent drugs? Surgeries? What if we could isolate it to a misunderstanding and train the person to simply have a better understanding of their body? We cannot simply look at one aspect, we must look at multiple. I am very well aware of your side of the ideological isle, I'm hoping you'll see that there a lot of unanswered questions and issues if you take that side only, and there's much more than that out there.
And of course, that may not be it either. The science is still very much in flux and there's much more to study and learn. What you may not understand is that I don't have an agenda. I'm exploring every angle on this, and if there were certain hard truths found, I would embrace those.
And again, to not get off topic on the OP, you still have not demonstrated why gender is not prejudice, and sexism when taken as being more important in law and culture than sex. While all that you are posting is interesting and a fantastic explore, if you're not addressing that point of the OP, it still stands.
Okay, gotcha.
Quoting Philosophim
Even for prepubescent children?
I'm not sure I agree even for adults. What are the specific "markers" you are thinking of?
Quoting Philosophim
Okay.
Quoting Philosophim
But what happens if people say that an institution should consider gender rather than sex? What if they say, "I am not saying gender should shape something that is sex-related. I am saying that gender should shape something that is gender-related. I think this institution should turn on gender, not sex."
That just means that he asked ChatGPT to do his homework for him, and it gave him that paper. The paper itself is not generated by ChatGPT.
there's no difference between using Chatgpt as a search engine and using Google as a search engine
I quoted the papers, not Chatgpt
Quoting Philosophim
But if the source begins with misrepresentations, I am unlikely to consider them unbiased, and therefore likely to call into question anything else they say
Quoting Philosophim
But I am not using gender as a sociological concept, but an aspect of identity at least in part determined by brain function.
No, it is not the type of hat one should wear, but patterns of thinking that emerge from neurological function.
Quoting Philosophim
How do you think the differences in male and female brains are manifested?
Quoting Philosophim
Because that is what all the evidence points to.
Quoting Philosophim
This sounds dangerously like advocating for "conversion therapy" which has been been roundly denounced by all major medical associations. Conversion therapy is unsuccessful and in fact leads to psychological distress. If you are looking for a science-backed approach, this is not it.
You can find a long list of medical associations at this link that have made a statement in favour of gender affirming care. Here is one typical statement, from the American Psychological Association:
[i]This policy statement affirms APA’s support for unobstructed access to healthcare and evidence-based clinical care for transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary children, adolescents, and adults.
Furthermore, this policy statement addresses the spread of misleading and unfounded narratives that mischaracterize gender dysphoria and affirming care, likely resulting in further stigmatization, marginalization, and lack of access to psychological and medical supports for transgender, gender-diverse, and nonbinary individuals.”
"The American Psychological Association has adopted a resolution opposing efforts to change people’s gender identity, citing scientific research showing that such actions may be harmful.
The resolution, adopted by APA’s governing Council of Representatives on Feb. 26, aligns with the association’s stance against similar efforts aimed at changing people’s sexual orientation.
“There is a growing body of research that shows that transgender or nonbinary gender identities are normal variations in human expression of gender,” said APA President Jennifer F. Kelly, PhD. “Attempts to force people to conform with rigid gender identities can be harmful to their mental health and well-being.”[/i]
I hope you will pay particular attention to the last paragraph of the copied statement.
Quoting Philosophim
I think I have. Gender-affirming care is about affirming identity, not enforcing whatever cultural mores may exist. Besides, your position assumes that all of the male gender, or all of the female gender, hold the same cultural mores, and this is of course a false premise.
using a search engine as a tool is not having anyone "do your homework for you"
For kids it can be a little more difficult if someone specifically dressed up a boy or a girl to disguise them, but even at that age its not very difficult to tell the difference. Personal anecdote, I had a few jobs where I had to deal with 20-30+ kids in different age categories. I have never mistaken a kid for the wrong sex.
Markers are usually face, voice, gait, and non-verbal gestures.
Adults are usually very easy to tell. There are so many markers.
A 96% accuracy in telling sex when smelling someone's palm sweat.
https://www.sciencealert.com/its-possible-to-identify-someones-sex-with-96-accuracy-with-just-a-sniff-of-their-hand
In a study where people listened to voices:
"Listeners were extremely accurate in recognizing the sex of male and female vocalisers, achieving 99% accuracy from a full paragraph to 95% accuracy from a single vowel."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-49596-y
Studies about facial recognition without adornments:
"Our results indicate that facial structures with full information on the texture and color of the skin are correctly classified as to their sex by most of the participants (98.4 % for Exp. 1 and 94.6 % for Exp. 2). If we do not consider versions 3 and 5 (close to the androgyne version 4), which contain a certain degree of sex ambiguity and only consider the less ambiguous versions (1 and 2 for male faces, and 6 and 7 for female faces), the accuracy approaches the ceiling (99.9 % for Exp.1, and 99.1 % for Exp.2). This is in line with previous research which observed that natural faces, devoid of any cultural signs of sex, are generally correctly categorized into their sex (Bruce et al., 1987, Bruce et al., 1993, Sæther et al., 2009)."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004269892200133X
How many times have you mistaken a person's sex in your own life out of the thousands of people you've met? Sex is such an important social and physical component in life, and mistakes can be costly. I also have rarely ever seen a person who cannot correctly identify a person's sex in public.
The one difficulty I think that I and many others have is identifying trans men in public. Testosterone is a hormone that imo, is the primary catalyst for sexual dimorphism and alters the face. For me at least, the face is usually an instant indicator to a person's sex. In my many observations of trans women in a live setting, its usually extremely easy to tell they are men, not so with trans men.
Quoting Leontiskos
First, "Who is going to determine the exact definition of the female and male gender?" Its a subjective opinion, and basing objective law on subjective opinion is discrimination. If I believe women should be able to wear top hats, and an organization declares, "Women cannot wear top hats. If you wear a top hate, you are not a woman in this organization," that's discriminatory sexism. But this is from my side. Can you craft a situation in which gender of sex would A. Not be sexism, or B, if its still sexism, its a fair and good sexism that avoids discrimination?
My apologies, using it as a search engine is fine. I do not use ChatGPT very often so I was unaware what that referenced.
Quoting Questioner
Fair, but you didn't say they were misrepresenting anything, only that what they cited wasn't against what you were saying.
Quoting Questioner
These two things are not incompatible. Remember how I've said, "Everything is the brain"? So are our sociological concepts. The difference is these are learned and reasoned through, and not innate. What you need to demonstrate is that if someone says, "Women should wear top hats," and someone else says, "Women should not wear top hats," that there is some region of the brain that innately is going to believe this.
Remember that there are two definitions for gender, and that we are discussing the sociological aspect, not the synonym for sex. If there is a sex reference, then we note that to avoid conflation logical fallacies, and keep clear communication. My description of gender as sociological beliefs about how a sex should act is confirmed in gender theory, as well as in science. If you are going to use gender in some other way, you are not using gender as agreed upon within these institutions. If you do think there should be another definition, then you need to explain how this definition is separate from sex. Further, all of your papers at that point are suspect, as they use established definitions of gender and not your personal one. Even if you have a personal definition for gender, if a paper is clearly using gender as a synonym for sex, you do not get to change their definition to suit what you want.
Quoting Questioner
No, what type of hat a sex should wear is 100% what gender is. That's the social construct. Sex expectations, like a deeper voice for men, is not gender but a biological expression of an expected sex characteristic objectively determined over scientific studies. That is not sociological, and not gender.
It may very well be that our sociological constructs of gender are determined by the brain. But you need to be pointing to the sociological aspect. It doesn't have to be "top hats" per say, but you need to show a study between people's different opinions about how a sex should behave in public and be able to point to a brain region that is likely to determine that opinion. As of today, I do not believe any paper is able to show this.
As noted, I agreed with you that someone who is likely to identity as trans gender does have an area in the prefrontal cortex that lights up differently which involves the processing of body perception. And I'm also very open to the fact that brain science on gender is very early and not set in stone yet. But so far there is not an indicator of some inaliaable identity like a female brain in a male body, but a misprocessing of one's body perception. Remember, I've never said people don't feel like they're in the wrong body or have a gender identity. What I've noted is that gender is a prejudice against the sexes, and elevating it over sex is sexism. That does not mean its a good thing to hold or that one should base their life around such identities.
Quoting Questioner
As noted, science is still out on it. A couple of things which are clear is that female brains on average have more white matter, male brains on average have more grey matter. Again, I'm not disputing male and female differences in brains, and have referenced a few myself. But sex differences are not sociological gender differences. That is incontrovertible.
Quoting Questioner
Conversation therapy regarding sexual orientation, yes. Yes, I'm aware the trans community tried to grab and re-use the word for themselves regarding gender identity so they could accuse people of being bigots, but that in no way is settled science. The words and phrases are irrelevant to the concepts. And as I am referring to the treatment of gender dysphoria, that concept in no way applies. Gender dysphoria can be treated in multiple ways. Transition is considered the last treatment when no other forms of treatment like therapy suffice. But offering therapy to a person to treat gender dysphoria is in no way conversation therapy.
Quoting Questioner
Yes, I'm aware of all of this. I'm talking about treating gender dysphoria. And to my mind I have not misrepresented any of the treatment methodologies. I'm also not noting that people don't have gender identities. I'm merely noting they are prejudiced subjective opinions about the sexes. Which again, I have not see any counter evidence that they are not.
Quoting Questioner
I agree 100%. One should not live their life by prejudice or sexism.
Quoting Questioner
Do not think you have, show you have. That's philosophy. First, remember that while the words, 'gender affirming care' are used, why is it used? Its used to treat gender dysphoria, not people who do not have it. For example, if I'm a male who lives in a culture that says, "Men should never cry," yet I cry without caring about what society thinks, I do not have gender dysphoria. If as a woman, I liked to wear top hats in a culture that was against women wearing them, and I did without worry, I would not have gender dysphoria.
Gender Dysphoria- Clinically significant distress and sense of unease that may lead to increased levels of depression and anxiety that have a harmful impact on daily life. This distress is caused by a person’s gender identity not matching how they feel within. This often occurs when a trans person is forced to match their gender identity and expression to their assigned sex at birth. Cisgender people can also experience gender dysphoria when dressing as the opposite sex.
https://aghope.org/en/blog/sogie-terms-and-definitions-understanding-the-lgbtqia2s-community-2022-6?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=11348411711&gbraid=0AAAAAD7UOl-E4otwZ5aEHO12spjLEEXj6&gclid=CjwKCAiAu67KBhAkEiwAY0jAlR1hi4rPCt1twfZXFYCSWDNVLMH1nwNrYiyoTVFvTBvRKFwZ8X2vwhoCnGEQAvD_BwE
And to add to the above from the same site:
Gender- refers to the socially constructed characteristics of people, including gender norms and the roles we play.
Typically therapy helps a person come to terms with their own view of themselves. If you're a boy who likes dolls, you learn its ok to like dolls. Most people can come to terms with that. Gender dysphoria that is treated is specifically about a person's sex not being in line with their gender identity. So a boy who likes dolls is told, "Its ok to like dolls," but despite this they cannot accept this fact and desire to have the body of the opposite sex.
From my observations, transgender treatment is to learn to accept your own personality differences and eliminate the prejudice and sexism a person has about the sexism. I don't have a full picture, but I suspect most people who transition are trans sexuals, or people who simply desire the body of the opposite sex. The language of 'gender' is often used to hide this, as trans sexualism had a poor connotation for many years prior. To be clear, when I talk about trans genderism, I am not talking about trans sexualism. That is not gender. I am talking about the definition cited above which in no way is the same or necessarily leads to trans sexualism or even transition.
Finally, of course I don't hold that males and females hold the same cultural mores. I've been saying all along gender is a subjective prejudice that can differ from person to person and culture to culture.
Quoting Outlander
Philosophim allows for the possibility that sexual preference may be connected with a brain region which differs between males and females, but he doesn’t believe there are any other behaviors associated with biological sex and their associated brain structures. This is why he believes that the concept of gender is completely socially constructed. I am countering his approach with a model which connects the brain region he is talking about with functional properties uniting a wide range of behaviors, including sexual preference, aggression, perceptual of color, sound and touch, aspects of vocalization , posture and gait. I believe that sexual preference and aggressiveness are linked, and originate in the affect-perceptual organizing function of this brain region. I call this constellation of affective-perceptual-behavioral tendencies gender. Sexual preference cannot be understood without seeing how it derives from the holistic organizational capabilities of this brain region. In making this claim I am not denying the contribution of socio-cultural factors. The biological and the social are inextricably intertwined with regard to gender behavior.
The possibility I am suggesting is that innate brain functions include the organization of processing. You indicated that innate brain functions may dictate who we are sexually attracted to. In other words, an important aspect of psychological behavior is somehow organized biologically. You don’t know how the brain does this, but you believe the ways in which the such inborn functions affect sexual behavior is limited to sexual attraction. Are you open to the possibility that more than just this one facet of sexual behavior is traceable to brain wiring? That perhaps a whole host of behaviors originate this way, and are connected on the basis of a single mechanism? And that the reason many see only sexual attraction as associated with innate brain wiring is that it is the most tangible and identifiable sexual
behavior? Others point to aggression, perceptual processing, voice modulation, gait, posture and many other subtle aspects of behavior as being shaped and organized by the same innate brain structure that dictates who we are attracted to.
No, that is incorrect. Innate and unlearned behaviors are obviously from the brain. The question of course is how much is associated with the brain vs learned behavior. Things that strongly correlate with the purpose of sex like flirting behavior are likely inborn.
Quoting Joshs
No. First, gender by definition is NOT a synonym sex here, but the sociological belief about how a sex should behave in front of other people. There is simply no evidence as of yet that this sociological belief is anything more than a subjective opinion that is formed through experience. In other words, there is no place in the brain where a person is born and innately believes that only women should wear a dress.
Quoting Joshs
No, gender is just a prejudice in how a sex should act. That's it. Its just an opinion.
Quoting Joshs
Its not a suggestion, its a fact. If the brain does not have the ability to process something, it can't.
Quoting Joshs
Absolutely I am open to this. Let go deep into this.
What the OP has deviated into due to Questioner is whether there is an innate 'gender identity' that is in the brain. So for example, if you were born and thought, "Women should not wear top hats", and this is not learned nor can it be changed at any point, then it would be a biological reality of oneself. Sexual orientation fits this bill. You cannot choose who or what you are attracted to. You can only decide what you do about it. I fully support gays marrying and having sexual relations as sexual orientation is unchangable and ridiculously strong. So someone not fulfilling their sexual desires is forced into denying a very strong part of their brain. Also, at the end of the day, what does it matter? It causes no harm to anyone else in society, and can cause all the nice sexual and romantic feelings with another partner.
Gender however is a learned trait. I can learn, "Top hats shouldn't be worn by women," but also learn, "Top hats should be worn by women," Now my brain might have a proclivity to attach things to sex that don't belong. I might have a brain that has a higher proclivity towards prejudice, and is more inflexible and tends to sexism is unchecked. That does not mean I as a person do not have the ability to unlearn prejudice or sexism.
There can also be innate brain states that compel one to act in a way that other people might think should be exclusive to the other sex. This won't change either. But you can decide, "This is who I am, their prejudice is irrelevant," or "This is who I am. I can't act in that way if I'm not the other sex." The former is what you should conclude, the later should be banished from your thoughts.
The point is there is no innate brain state that establishes a particular gender. Or, no area of the brain that biologically determines how a sex should act in social situations, like wearing a dress. That is learned sociological behavior. And it can change. One can learn prejudice, but they can also unlearn prejudice. Maybe the person really wants to wear a dress. That's fine, that in itself is not prejudice. It is only when a person states, "Only women can wear a dress, I wear a dress, therefore I must be a woman," that one has elevated their prejudice over sex and descended into sexism.
Actually, I did. They refuted supposed claims that were never actually made, like locating a specific “gender area” of the brain, or that any one brain is “100% male or female” and that male and female brains “do not look different.” No- one has ever claimed these things, so their approach was less than honest. Please re-read my post above.
Quoting Philosophim
Yes, social mores are learned. Gender identity is not.
We don't expect that there would be one specific region that determines gender. No-one has claimed that. That is not how the brain works. But in previous posts I have mentioned some particular regions that might be involved. And another important aspect is the connectivity between these regions and how they function.
Quoting Philosophim
You can't make up your own definition of gender that invalidates all the current scientific research and expect people to accept it without question. No, there are not two definitions of gender. Gender is the sex that you identify with. Identity is a mental construct of the brain.
Quoting Philosophim
No. Your gender is the bent towards either male or female in the way you perceive, process, interpret and make meaning in this world, of which an important aspect is how you fit into the world.
Quoting Philosophim
Here's the problem - gender is not about how a particular sex should behave in public. It's about a particular state of mind. (And now I have fallen to repeating myself).
Quoting Philosophim
Only if you use your erroneous definition of gender.
Quoting Philosophim
This is an unfounded accusation (and rather wild) and tends to call into question your insistence that you do not have an agenda
Quoting Philosophim
The medically accepted treatment is gender-affirming care.
Quoting Philosophim
This would be inaccurate.
Quoting Philosophim
i strongly encourage you to read some transgender memoirs to gain a better understanding of the transgender experience.
Quoting Philosophim
I'm not sure why you chose to cite some random volunteer (nonscientific) organization - but in any case, their definition is wrong, and appears to have been written by someone who didn't understand gender dysphoria. According to the American Psychiatric Association, here is the correct definition:
“gender dysphoria,” - refers to the psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.
Quoting Philosophim
No. According to the APA (on the same page linked above):
gender identity - one’s psychological sense of their gender
Quoting Philosophim
I urge you to read up more about the transgender experience.
I think much of the confusion arises because you haven't got a clear picture of what gender identity is. It is not about what people tell you to do. It is instead something innate, something formed in the brain by the way thoughts are processed, and in the vast majority of cases these thoughts are processed with either a male or a female influence.
Very well said.
Excellent. Thank you.
I don't want to get stuck on this as these points they were making to other people were never intended as directed at you. The main post of this was to demonstrate that there is still debate in science as to how different male and female brains are. Yes, people have claimed these things. I've discussed with quite a few people, you'll find people who hold these views. So they aren't being dishonest by answering comments that other people make. I'm not even claiming that any science they've cited is indisputable, I've claimed many times it is even from my own viewpoints. The point is that you understand that brain science on sex and gender is still evolving and there is still a lot of scientific debate out there. Can we agree on that?
Quoting Questioner
I am not making these up. I've posted sources backing my definitions. Gender identity is the gender you identify with. Gender in itself does not include personal identity. And where am I saying its invalidating scientific research? All I noted above is the way they were using gender in the paper was to refer to biological sex differences, not sociological ones. For the purposes of this conversation, sex and gender are clearly separated to avoid conflation and allow clear and unambiguous communication.
Let try a different approach. Do you believe that there are biological sex differences? Do you also believe that there can be different social expectations for sexes across people and cultures? If so, are these different enough to need unique terms for clarity of discussion? For example, men biologically are more statistically likely to have lower octive voices. Socially, there are some people who think women should wear dresses, and men should not. Is this a distinct enough difference to consider? And if it is, what would words you use to identify these different concepts? And if it is not, why is it not a distinct enough difference to consider?
Quoting Questioner
I'm talking about gender. Gender is learned as a social construct. If we don't have an agreement on the definition of gender, then we're not going to be able to agree on gender identity.
Quoting Questioner
My counter was to this very statement you made again. This does not indicate why I am wrong and you are right. This is just a repeat of your point after I provided a full explanation of what gender-affirming care treats.
Quoting Questioner
Right. Now please point out how it is different from my own definition that I gave you. What between mine and yours is the fundamental distinction?
Quoting Questioner
Did you see that I defined gender, not gender identity? Proving a definition for gender identity as a counter for gender isn't addressing the correct point. Gender is a belief about how a sex acts, and a gender identity is saying, "I identify as that gender."
Quoting Questioner
I urge you to drop this false idea that I haven't. I have a close friend who's in the middle of transition right now. I've researched the issue for years. You need to get rid of the idea that only your view point is innately correct and that if someone disagrees with it, it means there is a moral failure or ignorance. That's cult behavior, or behavior from someone who has nothing else to rely on for their arguments. Everything I've said in this topic is agreed with by at least one trans person.
Let me explain: I always consider that I could be wrong. If you hold your position as true without question, then its almost certainly not. I've arrived at where I am through doubts and questioning carefully over time. I once was an avid supporter of trans gender rights and gender ideology. Over time with thinking and questioning, I have found plain flaws that have invalidated many of their points. It doesn't mean that I don't like trans gender people, it just means that some of the things they want and some of the ideas around them are flawed. And I'm still open to the idea that I could be wrong. That's what a good discussion is for. If you want to convince me, post good papers, arguments, and definitions. Stuff like the sentence above will only cause good people to hand wave you away as full of yourself. Don't do that, you've been much better than the average poster. So far this discussion has made me learn about trans gender self-identity processing in the neo-cortex from our conversation. Continue with your points please, not suggestions that I need to do more reading.
The cries of those who cannot counter a very simple point. Questioner is an example of what people on this board should be like. We disagree on some fundamental issues, but they keep bringing facts, citations, and different arguments. Also respectful in disagreement. They have my respect back.
"Sex assigned at birth" is an inaccurate expression. It should be "Sex inferred at birth".
''Assigned' implies we observed external genitalia and imposed a sex on the newborn, whereas 'inferred' implies we observed external genitalia and correctly identified their sex (which is what we do).
To qualify that, sex depends solely on the gametes an organism is geared to produce. This can easily be inferred from a newborn's external genitalia (apart from rare exceptions).
The reason they started saying sex is 'assigned' is to make it seem arbitrary such that assigning the opposite sex seems to be equally valid (It's not).
Gender is not a valid concept because it is an identity feature. Identity seems to be a perfect, simple identity (which in itself has no features), that possesses features such as a 'gender'. I seriously doubt that is a true story. I have a sex, an age, a height, a certain ancestry etc. - that's a true story - but if I say 'I'm a man'... I have no idea what that means.
Of course.
Quoting Throng
Gender is an identity based on prejudices. A 'man' by gender has nothing to do with their actual body or sex, but how a person thinks a person of that body and sex should act in public. A scalpel is given to remove that sociological expectation from that sex, and place it onto another. Thus I could be an adult human female but have the gender of a man, or "Act in ways in society in ways that I think only adult human men should act.' And of course, if you elevate gender over your sex, you've fallen into sexism.
My point in this post is that I think the idea that sexual traits (like homosexuality or unusual gender identity) are innate is politically irrelevant, and it was a mistake for the gay community to insist that they are. Why should it matter? We are responsible for our behaviors, not our desires. We should accept people's desired gender identification whether of or not it is innate. It's simply good manners -- like accepting people changing their names. We should accept homosexuality whether or not it is innate.
If other sexual desires or identities are innate (pedophilia, for example) should that make any difference in their moral acceptability? If a tendency to violence is innate does that make assault and battery more morally acceptable?
The OP is not a question of accepting or not accepting trans individuals, and being gay has nothing to do with being trans. Its pointing out that the phrase used to communicate a certain concept is linguistically ambiguous at best, and is most logically read as something they do not want to claim. "Trans men are men" is not meant to imply that a trans man is an adult human male. But linguistically, that is the most rational way to read the phrase. As such they need to stop using it, or amend it to fully communicate as one example "Trans men are adult human females who act in male gendered ways."
Oh no! Out of politeness, we practice some minor ambiguity! Horrors!
To return to the OP, assigning gendered roles is not "sexist" in the normal use of the word. Sexism suggests that some gender-based roles are more valuable than others, those assigned them are thus more valuable than others. Division of labor based on sex (gender?) is traditional in all human societies. Women gathered; men hunted. Women nursed the children (I admit that trans women may not be able to) and gathering plant-based food allowed them to carry the babies with them. This division became "sexist" when hunting and warfare were seen as more honorable and valuable than gathering.
If "sexism" is a form of discrimination that harms or devalues some people, wouldn't having unique terms for trans men or trans women be MORE likely to lead to such prejudice and discrimination? I don't see the point.
I'm glad you agree with the OP. My point was not a judgement about whether it was polite or not. Only pointing out its flaw as a phrase.
Quoting Ecurb
That is definitely sexism also, but that does not invalidate that sexism is also when you elevate a gendered role over the person. For example, if a little boy came to me and said, "I was called a girl because I like dolls," I would explain to him that how you act, do, and like has nothing to do with the fact you're a boy. Same as if a boy didn't like football, being aggressive, or any other prejudices associated with being male.
Quoting Ecurb
If it was based on the most efficient use of physical capability, it would not be sexist. If a woman who was best capable to hunt was forced into housework, that's sexist.
Quoting Ecurb
No. The recognition of difference does not imply that people's prejudices about those differences should be elevated above the reality of them.
Of course people's prejudices shouldn't be elevated -- but they probably would be.
That's irrelevant. People are going to elevate prejudices whether you intone a separate identity or not. You can't use language to stop people from seeing differences. You can only teach people to not be prejudiced or sexist.
It's not irrelevant to trans people. Perhaps they'd prefer not to be discriminated against, and if "passing" for a gender different from their birth sex helps them do this, I don't see the problem.
Yes, it is irrelevant to any person of any type. If a person is short, they're going to be seen as short. Does it mean you don't point it out as a fact when its pertinent? No. Does it mean they should receive abuse because they're short? No. A transitioned person is not special or should have any exceptions in how they are treated as a person.
If a short person goes around walking on stilts in their spare time its fine. If they start demanding they be called a tall person, they're wrong. If they start demanding to be put on the basketball team because they're tall, they're also mistaken. Saying, "I need to be on the basketball team to avoid discrimination" doesn't make any sense. Am I wrong? I don't think so, but see if you can point out where you see a flaw.
The flaw is obvious. Suppose a black person (maybe one of Thonmas Jefferson's children) -- back in the days of slavery -- wanted to pass as white. If he were seen as black he could have been sold into slavery, he could have been convicted of miscegenation (if he had a white wife), and he could have been the victim of more general prejudice. If prejudice and discrimination of trans people didn't exist, you might have a point. As it is, "passing" might be the more comfortable alternative.
Why do you care? What harm does it do if some trans people pass? Why shouldn't it be up to them?
There is discrimination and prejudice against almost everyone. Its part of life. The goal should be to make sure other people aren't discriminatory right and sexist right? You avoided the argument and straw manned into something else which I will address momentarily. But first the short person. The short person is in the wrong because they are lying. Instead of growing past their insecurities, they put their insecurities on everyone else to adapt to. That's wrong.
Second, wearing stilts doesn't actually make them tall. I shouldn't have to explain why a man running around in stilts in the NBA isn't allowed. Same with men in women's spaces and vice versa.
Ok, now to your other point.
Quoting Ecurb
Isn't the more important thing to get rid of slavery and prejudice? "Lets fix a wrong with a wrong" is not a solution in an advanced culture. This is also a gross exaggeration of what transitioned people have to do through in the West. You can show up transitioned at work, everyone knows you're a trans person, and harassment and mistreatment isn't tolerated. So, lets assume that a transitioned person can go to work, has to use their natal sex bathroom, does not get called pronouns by gender, but their natal sex, and people treat them just like anyone else otherwise. You now have zero cause. Meaning your cause was never the right cause, only a poor compensation to handle a bigger cause.
Who cares what bathroom people use? OK -- ideally, we would get rid of prejudice. Even if we did, though, some trans people would prefer others using their new pronouns. Out of kindness and good manners, we should all comply. If someone changes his or her name, do you insist on calling him or her by their birth name (many names are gendered)? Why insist on their birth gender? "Gender" is used to modify nouns in many languages, and it is often arbitrary. At work, and among close acquaintances most people would presumably know that the trans person was trans. It's still good manners to use their preferred pronouns, just as it would be to use their new name (if they have one).
Which is more important socially? Biology, or kindness, respect for identity, and honoring the wishes of others? In a social situation, shouldn't social reality trump biological reality?
In addition, it is incorrect to say the "people treat them (people of different genders) just like anyone else". WE all have been enculturated to treat women different from men. OF course, it may be true that this involves prejudice. The chivalry of "women and children first to the lifeboats" is great for women, except that it compares them to helpless children. It remains the case that gender influence social interactions, possibly due to prejudice, possibly due to differing training and upbringings. Perhaps trans people want to be treated (and act) in accordance with their new gender.
Generally the people of a particular sex for the bathrooms. There are clearly signs marked men and women right? So obviously a lot of people care. But that's not an argument or the point of the discussion.
Quoting Ecurb
No objection at all, they are free to do so.
Quoting Ecurb
Why? How have you reasoned this is good? This seems to me that you've been told this is good. Have you questioned it? Feel free to explain it to me.
Quoting Ecurb
If its a legal name change, no. If its not a legal name change, I'm under no obligation to call them a name they've made up for themselves. Can I call them that? Yes. Do I have to or is it considered good manners? Not at all. That's up to the each individual to decide. Its called consent. When you ask someone to lie or do something that isn't a legal qualifier, that person needs to give consent. You don't get to guilt, shame, or mark a person who does not give consent as immoral. If a woman turned down a man's sexual advances, should the woman be shamed? The man who wanted the advances returned might, but we've learned that's the real shameful behavior.
Back to your earlier point, asking someone to call you the sex that you aren't, is an act of asking consent. Not politeness, obligation, moral certainty, or anything equaling good. Its a social request, and one everyone is free to turn down. That is what is moral, good, and polite. Asking consent, and accepting the answer given no matter if its affirmative or negative.
Quoting Ecurb
There is no birth gender. Gender is a prejudice about a person's sex. There is only birth sex. Everyone's prejudices about the sexes is different, and prejudice should never be held as something we should uphold in any capacity.
Quoting Ecurb
No, because most people use pronouns for sex, not gender. You're asking a person to use pronouns in a prejudicial way instead of a biological way. Politeness is asking for consent and accepting when a person says no. I for one do not like to participate in sexism. I don't think the way a man or woman looks or dresses changes who they are by sex, and I think 'gender' is just prejudice that I don't want to partake in. Wouldn't I be the person with the higher moral standards here? If not, why not?
Quoting Ecurb
Instead of asking me, I want to hear your viewpoint. What do you think? This isn't a trap or anything, I genuinely want to know where your thought process is so I can better speak with you.
Quoting Ecurb
The important part that we agree on here is that gender is prejudice. To be clear, we need to separate gender from sex expectation which involves biological reality. For example, most women bleed once a month. Should we allow facilities in the bathroom for this particular issue? Yes. But that's not gender, that's objective biological reality. There may be a confusion that conflates gender with sex. They are not the same at all. Gender is "I think women shouldn't wear top hats." That's it. Its a subjective opinion that can be shared among a culture in how a man or woman should act in society that has nothing to do with their objective biological reality.
If we know that men are taller on average than women, and we are making a shelf height in a place that primarily caters to women, making the shelf height to the average of female heights is not gender or prejudice, its simply adjusting to expected sex differences. All of this is fine.
Quoting Ecurb
Yes, and isn't the real issue that we need to get rid of this prejudice? Not avoid the issue with equally poor behavior? If you lie to listen to it, you're tacitly agreeing with it. That doesn't change things or make a better world.
Quoting Ecurb
And do you think that's good or that we should accept that? I don't. Is that a problem?
Quoting Ecurb
I would tell anyone that wants to double down on prejudice or sexism not to. I would also tell a person that they shouldn't live their life by how they want people to look at them, as that's also a fool's errand. People are going to have their own judgements about you no matter what you do. Its best to just live your life for you, and live despite other people's expectations of you.
Not true. Of course it's a mere vernal sin to call people by one name when they've asked to be called by another. Nonetheless, kind, well-mannered people won't do it. You don't "have to" -- but it's rude not to.
The same is true for titles. If someone asks to be called Ms. Jones instead of Mrs. Jones, it's rude not to comply. Why should pronouns be so different? Is it so important to recognize a genetic or biological truth in a pronoun? Doesn't finding that important indicate prejudice? And if it isn't important, why not act in the interest of kindness and comply with the person's wishes?
Your seeming obsession with the topic is bizarre. Let's just try to get along, and when people ask us the favor of referring to them by a particular name or pronoun (which may be different from their birth assignment) why get all hoity-toity about it? Wouldn't it be kinder and easier just to do them that small favor?
No, you need to clarify why its rude, not merely declare it. It is not rude to not give consent to lying, duplicity, or pretend games because it makes another person feel good. This is the same line selfish men and women use when they hit on someone and there's rejection. Yes, rejection can make another person feel bad, but when that rejection is about consent, the person who is rejected needs to behave like a proper adult, not take it personally, and respect that the other person had no obligation to agree to the request.
Quoting Ecurb
Fair question. Titles are indicators of both sex and marriage status. Ms. is marriage status neutral, while Mrs. is not. If someone is not married and tells me to call them Mrs. anyway because they hate feeling like they aren't married, they're asking me to lie for their emotional benefit. That's a consent request. I am not obligated to, it is not polite to, or moral to say yes. That is my personal choice.
Pronouns for most people represent sex indicators, not gender. Meaning if I see that you're a female acting like a male, I'm still accurate and truthful in labeling you 'her'. That's not rude. That's not impolite. If someone is personally bothered by a normal interaction, that is for them to deal with, not anyone else. If they ask me to lie to them, or use pronouns in a way I wouldn't normally, that's fine. But its a consent request again, not an obligation, a moral certitude, or even polite. I have full choice to accept or reject without any wrongdoing on my part either way.
Quoting Ecurb
All good questions again.
1. Many of us like to use language to convey what we believe and see about the world. It is important for many of us not to lie where possible. Some people don't mind. Others do. That's why its a consent request.
2. A prejudice is a 'pre-judgement' about some thing. So if I looked at a woman and thought, "Women should wear dresses all the time," that's a prejudice. My noting that a woman is a woman, and me being right about that (woman meaning 'adult human female') is the exact denial of prejudice. There is no pre-judgement anymore, there is simply the fact of the matter.
3. Because you have not demonstrated why it is kind to lie. Or why it is kind to request that another person lie for your personal benefit. I do not find it kind it most situations. If someone is walking around saying they're a man when they're clearly not, its not kind to lie to them for their feelings. I respect people's intellect and maturity. If I think you can't handle being told basic facts or truths, its because I think you're an inferior person to me. Should I treat trans gender people like they're inferior to me, mentally incapable of handling the fact that I see their natal sex? Or should I treat them like they're an adult and can handle it? I think the later is kindness and respect, the former is pity and patronizing.
Quoting Ecurb
Why is it an obsession? I've written many different philosophical discussions, and only two on trans gender issues over two months. I would hardly call that an obsession. Obviously its a current event topic that lots of people feel the need to talk about. Isn't talking about things good? We're both communicating our side and treating each other like adults who can handle each other's differences.
Quoting Ecurb
Because I am allowed the respect of my consent. And you don't get to disparage me for deciding what I do, and do not consent to in my life. Trans gender people do not have anything special about them over myself. Just as I would not expect that its moral to violate their consent either.
Quoting Ecurb
No as I've mentioned above. Philosophically, instead of asserting that this is moral, make a case that it is. Why are their feelings more important than my consent? Why is it kind to tell them something we both know isn't true?
Quoting Philosophim
What planet do you live on? These days, for most people pronouns represent gender indicators.
Quoting Philosophim
We have freedom of speech. That includes your right to misgender people, and my right to disparage you for it. I'm not threatening to throw you in prison, or fine you.
With regard to lies: I'm a fan of Mark Twain, who said, "Show me a man who don't lie and I'll show you a man who ain't got much to say." Generous, good-natured lies harm no one, facilitate happiness and lubricate social interaction. Lies in and of themselves are not wicked; they are wicked only if harmful or malicious.
Your "consent" is trivial. Charity and a lack of egoism suggests their feeling are more important.
Incorrect. Most people do not even understand gender as used in gender theory. And you did not invalidate my point that there are people who do use pronouns to refer to sex. The "What planet do you live on?" is an indicator of your frustration in realizing you can't counter that point. I have not been disrespectful towards you. Initial disrespect is always an indicator that you are losing the discussion.
Quoting Ecurb
And where did I say I would be thrown into prison or fined? That's irrelevant. If you want to disparage my consent, that's fine. But then I hold the moral high ground, and you don't. There's one common thing among all criminals: The disparagement of consent.
Quoting Ecurb
So you are agreeing with me that its a lie, and that people are being asked to lie for someone else's feelings.
Quoting Ecurb
And yet you disregarded my entire point above that these are not good natured or harmless lies. You are claiming they are good natured, you have not given any points indicating they actually are. I find your request quite evil at this point. This is coming from an atheist as well.
Quoting Ecurb
If your 'good natured lies' make my consent trivial, then you share the same mentality as a thief. Your argument essentially says my consent is irrelevant, and I should just lie for social cohesion. You have not yet given a good reason why my consent is irrelevant, or why the request for another person to lie isn't itself a violation of social cohesion. I would say a much better social situation is to be among people who can be honest with each other and trust each other to speak honestly.
I'm not seeing a very good moral justification from you, and your disregard of consent puts you at being morally suspect at this point. Please take your next post seriously and put some effort in giving some substantive reasoning and even a little willingness to consider the importance of consent. If you don't do that, I don't think there's a single person who could reasonably confirm that what you're saying is good.
Oh, bunk. "What planet do you live on" was shorthand for saying language evolves and most educated people are now aware that pronouns refer to gender, these days.
Quoting Philosophim
No. As should be obvious from my posts.
I am saying, "Even if, as is not the case, you are correct that using new pronouns for someone's gender is a lie, it is still not wicked."
Quoting Philosophim
Oh, no! Horrors! Well, I perhaps lack some respect for property rights. You misrepresent my position
(despite my clear posts). Your consent is irrelevant because it would be a trivial favor on your part to use the gender pronouns people desire. Trans people (about whom I know very little) are probably obsessive about their gender (why else would they bother becoming trans). So I assume it's more important to them than it would be to you (if you have normal sensibilities).
Ok, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I've come across the wrong way before as writing lacks non-verbal. To your point, its unknown how many educated people use pronouns to refer to sex. I'm educated for example, and I've always used pronouns to reference sex, not gender.
Quoting Ecurb
Quoting Ecurb
Then why did you mention the above if there are no lies involved?
Quoting Ecurb
Yes. Every single criminal act, every single violation of another human being involves violating their consent. Its not something to be taken lightly. Notice how I'm not mocking a trans person's request for pronouns. I'm listening, I'm considering it, and stating its up to every individual to concede whether they wish to do something against their nature for the other person. I just ask the same consideration and respect back.
Quoting Ecurb
"Its ok to steal five dollars because he has a lot of money and won't miss it." "Its ok if I copped a feel quickly, she'll get over it." These are the excuses of people who do wrong to others. They discount other's personal boundaries, their viewpoints for personal benefit at another's expense. That's what being a terrible person is.
I do not mind if a trans person asks me to partake in the implication that transition has made them the other sex. I clearly do not see any moral justification for me to partake in this besides its what they want. And my decision not to should be just as respected as their decision to be on hormones and dress in a manner associated with the opposite sex.
You yourself have discounted and not listened to my clear points in the last posts as to why its important to me that I refuse to go along with their view of themselves. If I went and told a trans gender person, "I don't care if you feel like a woman, just suck it up for social cohesion," you would have an issue wouldn't you? Then why do you not have an issue telling me to suck it up for social cohesion? Morality seeks equal rational treatment between parties. You have not proposed that.
Do you see your moral certitude lacks consistency? Instead of an ask for a group, this seems more like a power play. That's not anything good or moral. My viewpoint is morally consistent. I simply ask that my consent or lack thereof to not lie to someone else be respected and understood as my moral right. From my view point still, I hold the moral view point while you seem to want to violate consent for the emotions of a particular group of people.
Quoting Ecurb
What an inane assumption. I just told you why its important to me. And consent is not about whether someone thinks its more important. If a man raped a woman because he thought his desire was more important than her desire not to sleep with him, that makes it right? And you don't even know any trans people. I do. And I know a few who agree with everything I've posted here. Trans gender people are not a monolithic hive mind.
So instead, of making naive moral assumptions and assertions, take a step back and go step by step. Why is consent not important? Why is a trans person's request more important than the consent of someone who does not want to give it? How is this something moral, and not just the complaining of a child like mind that wants control over others?
Indeed gender is necessarily detached from sex, but appearance as the opposite sex is requisite for trans affirmation. Indeed, that is the objective of medical 'gender affirming care'. As such, although we fabricate genders without reference to sex these days, one needs to reference the natural world for validation. We ignore the reality of sex for 'affirmation' but require it for validation. Of course 'gender affirmation' is different to 'gender validation'. I could say "I am a woman" as if that's an entirely arbitrary category, but as pretty as I am, I am, in fact, male.
In short, we must detach from reality to construct gender ideology, but if a real-living-body doesn't occupy the discursively constructed 'Social Body', the Social Body cannot engage in power dynamics. Hence, we return to sex 'appearances' to convince everyone of what I claim to be.
"And, doggone it, I'm not about to change with the times." Any of us who have seen emails where people list their pronouns and identification forms where people list their pronouns must be aware that the pronouns are meant to relate to gender, not sex. Therefore, it is not a "lie" to use someone's preferred pronouns. Of course you are free to do so, but your excuse that complying would be a "lie" is mere silliness. Therefore, there is no moral excuse for your rudeness -- your excuse is simply that you don't want to change the way you speak as the language changes. That's not a matter of morality -- it's a matter of stubbornness.
Quoting Philosophim
First of all, that's not true (or only trivially true), and secondly, many legal acts violate people's consent. The murderer who is hauled off to prison doesn't consent to being incarcerated. Whose "consent" is violated when I run a stop sign on my bicycle when there's no traffic? So violating someone's "consent" occurs constantly. Sometimes it's legal, sometimes it isn't. I guess, then, it IS something to be taken lightly, unless there are mitigating factors.
Quoting Philosophim
Well, Robin Hood is a revered hero. I suppose you side with Guy of Gisborne, though. "Stealing" is a legal matter, since all property rights are legally determined. Sometimes it is morally justified, sometimes it isn't. Robin Hood thought the rich Normans were over-taxing the poor Saxons, and that their property rights were therefore unjust, and by "stealing" from them he was enhancing justice (despite the lack of "consent" from his victims). All property rights "violate consent". Does the homeless person "consent" to sleep on the street instead of in your house? Or is he violently constrained from doing so by the police (and gun-toting home-owners)?
Quoting Philosophim
As I've clearly pointed out, using preferred pronouns does not constitute a "lie". You have a "moral right" to misuse the language, to behave rudely, and to ignore the preferences of others. Who said you didn't? And I have the moral (and correct, and logical) right to say such behavior is rude. I suppose morals are manners writ large -- so rudeness is a trivial form of immorality (assuming it is morally correct to "do unto others"). Would you object if people misgendered you? If you would, why would you want to misgender
others (now that it's clear that this involves no "lying")?
And as I've noted in this thread, I consider gender prejudice. So no, I'm not going to start using prejudicial language. You have not indicated why the OP is wrong on this. This is not a 'times' issue. This is a linguistic and ethical issue.
Quoting Ecurb
Is it more moral to use language without prejudice and sexism, or more moral not to? Its more moral not to. Since I use pronouns to refer to sex, its not a matter of stubbornness but ethics and integrity. Since I use pronouns to refer to sex, by fact, it would be a lie to call them a sex they are not.
Quoting Ecurb
How is it not true? You don't just get to hand wave that away. Again, your dismissal of consent is highly questionable.
Quoting Ecurb
In society and government, to live within that government you consent to following its laws. If you don't like it, leave or change the laws. A government like a democracy allows more voices involved in what laws society crafts. So no, it is not a violation of consent if you choose to live within a civilization.
Quoting Ecurb
You're excusing petty theft by referring to a fictional character? Present an actual moral argument please.
Quoting Ecurb
Thank you, this is more honest. Of course I am not comparing petty crime to revolution, which is the overthrow of a government that has gone beyond the normal rights and uses laws to violate its citizens instead of protecting them and keeping order. What I'm not seeing is any justification for violating a person's interpersonal consent, which is what the topic is about.
Quoting Ecurb
You have not pointed out that if I'm using pronouns to reference sex, that it would not be a lie. You have tried to insist that everyone should use pronouns to refer to gender. But you have not given a moral reason why. I have indicated gender is simply prejudice, and I think its immoral to support it in any official capacity. Meaning I have a moral right to not use pronouns to refer to gender. So far, I have the moral right to call you unethical for pushing prejudicial language. You should work on that next.
Quoting Ecurb
You are misusing language by attempting to turn a sex descriptor into a tool of prejudice. To me, that is rude. You ignore my preference to use pronouns as mere descriptors of a person's sex, and without providing any serious moral reason why I should not.
Quoting Ecurb
I have seen only assertions, no logical argument why you can say your behavior isn't prejudicial. History is full of people who assert moral certainty without rationality as a means of control. That's you. You are logically in the wrong so far here. That may change if you present a better argument, but as of now, you have nothing but statements and beliefs, not accurate facts or logic.
Quoting Ecurb
No, I don't object to misgendering because I don't believe in using 'correct' gendering either. Gender is a prejudicial way to talk to one another. You see, in some actions I could easily be observed as having the gender of the opposite sex. In their eyes, because gender is simply a subjective prejudice, they would see me as the gender of the opposite sex, and would not be misgendering. And yet if I decided to think gender was important, I can very likely have a different idea of how my sex should act, and thus it would be a difference of opinion and not fact.
I see my behaviors as irrelevant to my sex. Subjective communication asserted as objective reality does not lead to clear communication. That is why I use sex references and not gender to other people. Act and live as you want. It doesn't change the sex that you are. And in no way does anyone have a moral right to assert someone is rude if they aren't using prejudicial language.
You're really losing this one Ecurb. Try less mocking attacks. Try addressing my points more clearly. And give a serious look at consent. You're coming across as a kid, not a serious debater. That can change, but you need to shape up a bit.
Lots of words involve "prejudice" (as you define it). "Kindness" suggests a prejudice for certain varieties of action. "Morals" suggest a prejudice in favor of ethical rules. ""Prejudice" is a form of "judgement" -- sometimes an inaccurate one based on incomplete data, sometimes an accurate one based on incomplete data.
Gender-based norms have been prevalent in every human society. However, they differ from culture to culture. This suggests they are not based on sex, but on "gender", which is culturally constituted.
Using titles is also prejudiced. We think (with insufficient evidence) that someone calling herself "doctor" is well-educated about treating disease. Should we refrain from using "doctor".
Debating with you is like shooting an unarmed man. Victory is easy, but there's not much glory in it.
If you read the OP, prejudice is literally a 'pre-judgement'. Determining kindness and morals are not pre-judgements, they are judgements.
Quoting Ecurb
Prejudice and sexism have been prevalent in every human society. However, they differ from culture to culture. This suggests that prejudice and sexism are very easy to fall into if we aren't diligent about it.
Quoting Ecurb
That again is not a pre-judgement. Its an earned title based on education and life accomplishments to indicate a person who has gone above and beyond to master skills beyond most people's capabilities and efforts.
Quoting Ecurb
You can only talk like that if you leave the debate on strong footing Ecurb. I hope you learned another viewpoint. That the trans gender language and approach is not kind, it is demanding of another person's consent. And no one is obligated to speak to another in a prejudiced manner.
No one is "obligated" to use preferred pronouns, new names, old names, or to say anything at all (unless subpoenaed). Perhaps, however, some of us consider the good manners associated with complying with an addressee's wishes as to what name or pronoun he or she prefers a form of politeness and good manners.
AS I've pointed out, your "consent" baloney is mere nonsense. We needn't "consent" to practicing good manners; we can chew with our mouths open, refuse to say "please" or "thank you", and try to cut to the front of the queue. Or we can misgender people. Nobody is forcing us to do otherwise (except in the case of the queue, where "cutting" might be dangerous, depending on the size of those already in line.)
Basic good manners suggest we should call people by the name they request us to use (even if it is not their birth name). The "prejudice" and "consent" arguments for treating pronouns differently are unpersuasive. They seem more like insufficient justifications than reasons.
Let me be clear. In no uncertain terms is anyone's consent 'baloney'. Violating another person's consent is the definition of being a scummy person. It is the one commonality to every single immoral and evil act in this world. Your attempt to invalidate a person's consent is coersive and manipulative. its evil. It is one of the highest immoral positions a person can hold.
Quoting Ecurb
Right, obligation means, "It is not up to the person to consent or not." If you personally consider it good manners, that is your opinion and choice. Not once have I shamed you or said your choice was incorrect for you. Do you see the difference? What you have not claimed is rationally why it is good manners for everyone else besides yourself. Why is it objectively good manners? You have not addressed the fact that to many others, you are asking them to lie. You cannot merely dismiss that with a hand wave. You don't get to tell others that preserving non-sexist language is immoral, when the opposite is more rationally considered immoral.
Quoting Ecurb
Pre-judgements are of course normal things everyone has. If a person thought, "That black person looks dangerous", its not in itself racist. If the person speaks to the black person and finds they are charming, kind, and great, but still insists, "They are dangerous because they are black," that's racist.
If a person wants to have a pre-judgement that "Only women wear dresses," that's fine. If a man puts on a dress then tells people, "I'm a woman because I wear a dress," that's sexist. Gender can only be prejudiced and sexist if acted upon. As such, asking someone to use pronouns to refer to gender is asking them to use sexist language. Its the entire focus of the OP, and I have not seen you present a single argument against its logic. Appeals to unproven politeness and dismissal of consent are not rational arguments, they are appeals to ignore rational arguments and just bend to a person's whims because you want them to.
I've already lived years of my life following a book that told me what was good because it said so. Give me good reasons, not simply assertions.
Do you even read my posts? Your position is not viable. Here are some (of many) examples in which violating another person's consent is perfectly acceptable:
1) "I don't want to go to school today, daddy," said Billy.
"You have to go to school," said his father. "It's a law and a family rule."
2) "You were going 55mph in a 30 mph zone," said the police officer.
"I wanted to go that fast," said Philosophim.
"Tough," said the officer. "You will pay your fine, and if you don't consent you will be dragged off to prison."
3) "I want to sleep in your house," said the homeless person. "I don't consent to leave."
"Leave right now or I will call the police and they will handcuff you and take you to prison whether you consent or not," said the home owner.
I already explained this to you. Maybe now you will understand.
Quoting Philosophim
Good manners are determined by social contracts. They are designed to facilitate social interaction and to make others feel more comfortable. ON that basis, it is good manners to call people by the names they prefer, even if those are not their birth names. Similarly, it is good manners to use their preferred pronouns. Occasionally, it is reasonable to violate the code of manners. If someone calls you an asshole, it's impolite, but reasonable, to call him an asshole back. If someone has covid, it's reasonable to refuse to shake his hand. Dead-naming and misgendering people is not justified by any offence anyone has offered you.
According to you, every parent is "coercive and evil". I'm a parent. Although I rarely coerced my son to do anything he didn't want to do, I sympathize with parents who punish their children (without their consent) for crossing dangerous streets without permission. Good grief! This is all so obvious!
This is a parents responsibility to manage a child who is not mentally capable to not make effective decisions about their future. We are talking about consenting adults.
Quoting Ecurb
Already covered this earlier, but I'll state it again. If you choose to live in a state, you consent to its laws. That's the basic social contract of government.
Quoting Ecurb
Again, not only consent to laws, but the homeless person is violating the consent of the home owner. When I own something and you want it, morally you have to ask me and I have to consent to give it to you.
Quoting Ecurb
Good manners are not always about making others feel comfortable, but enforcing culture and power structures. I have noted it is correct to state a person's legal name if they've changed it. But pronouns? You have not given an objective reason indicating why they are beneficial to social interaction. Let me give you an example.
In the bible it states that if a man lay with another man, that is abomination. It is so, because the book says it is so. Its good for society, God, and all that. I however don't listen to what a book tells me without good reason. And I saw no good reason to view it as abomination. Back when many were in arms against gay marriage, I was for it. Because I reasoned that objectively, it hurt no one else, wasn't really anyone else's business, and two consenting adults can and should have legal recognition for long term monogamous relationships. I was persuaded by arguments, not assertions.
I'll try one more time, but unless something new is stated, we are going to have to agree to disagree and I will have held up the OP.
Gender is a prejudiced idea that a particular sex should act in a particular social way. I note that when you elevate prejudice past the person, it is sexism. If I told a little boy, "If you play with dolls, you're a girl," I would be sexist. When someone asks me, "Don't call me by the sex I am, call me by a sexist view of how people of the other sex should act," I see no reason why I should consent to using language in that way. I see the person's sex, I'm using pronouns for sex as I always have, why should I change to use sexist language?
You see, the real rudeness is asking another person to be sexist and/or use prejudicial language. "Yes, I see that you see my sex, but I'm a sexist individual who thinks that acting in a way I associate with the other sex, makes me the other sex. Would you be sexist with me?" I find that very rude. I don't care if a person transitions. But, I don't think it makes you the other sex because I'm not a sexist. You are. You have given me no reason to indicate you are not. It is not polite to be sexist, and I do not have to consent to be sexist because it makes you feel better about your sexism.
It would be the same if a black person asked me to call them the "n" word. I taught in inner city classes for a few years with minorities. That word was always forbidden from my class because I told kids we will not refer to racist language. Some kids hated me for it. "You're not cool. That's our culture." No, that's racist, and while in my class I will teach you to identify each other as human beings, not slurs and slangs involving race.
You have done nothing to indicate that you are not a sexist person asking me to participate in sexist language. Do you understand? You need to indicate why gender is not prejudice, and acting on it is not sexism. Or you need to persuade me that talking in prejudicial and sexist language is overall good for society. Kind of a "Old people curse, so you should too so they feel comfortable." I've had people try to make me curse or say things that I don't agree with many times in my life, and I've always stood my ground because I've felt its the right thing to do. Do you understand? You are not moral. I am. You are a selfish person who thinks some other stranger not even in this conversation's desire to use sexist language is more important than my rational explanations that I do not desire to use sexist language, and I have the right to not to consent to that. I rationally conclude my morality, you merely assert it with jeers and dismissals of my arguments.
So, it step up. Look at my points, and explain why the rationale is wrong. Not with jeers or appeals to social 'glue' as that's nonsense. You want my consent, you need to respect it, and respect my rational viewpoints by addressing them. If you don't, then just like the kids in my classroom, I will dismiss you as not having the intellectual capacity to know what you're doing, and will not take your words as having any validity behind them.
Huh? Why is the law always right? If (as I pointed out earlier) Robin Hood thinks the law is unjust. The tax collectors are violating the consent of the Saxons by collecting taxes, and Robin Hood is violating the consent of the Normans by taking the largesse back. Do the protesters in Iran "consent" to be abused by the government by dint of being born there? The notion that we all consent to obey the law is silly.
Consent is a factor in morality -- but not the most important factor. Suppose some pervert consents to have you torture and kill him? Is it perfectly OK for you to do it? As I have repeated: nobody is forcing you (or anyone else) to use someone's desired pronouns. Nobody is forcing you to say "please" or "thank you". But it's good natured and mannerly to say "please", "thank you" and the preferred "him" or "her". You needn't do so, and I needn't think you are a kind, well-mannered person when you refrain.
Gender is an idea (not more prejudiced than other ideas) about how people behave and how they are perceived. If someone wants to be perceived as a "he' or a "she", it's well-mannered to comply, just as it's well mannered not to dead-name people. it is not sexist. Sexism suggests that one gender (sex) and the behaviors associated with it are superior to another's. We all know that women like cats, and men lie dogs (sometimes). A generalization like that is not sexist, unless (as would be utterly reasonable) we say, "Only a moron would like cats better than dogs. That is denying the importance of relationships, which are far closer, more intense, and more reciprocal with a dog than with a cat." Although true, that would be sexist, if we used it to suggest that our girlfriends or wives are not interested in close relationships. Also, it might lead them to dump us.
If a trans woman likes dogs better than cats we might think, "Hmmm". But we should still use the preferred pronouns.
So it is not rude to ask a person to use preferred pronouns. If they don't consent to do so, it would not be rude to think they are crude jerks. Nor would it be rude to cut their acquaintance. Your idea that using preferred gender terms is "prejudiced" and "sexist" just doesn't hold water. So if you want to justify your rudeness, you should find some other reason.
You consent to obey the law, or petition for the law to be changed. But until the law is changed, you consent in the social contract between an individual and government.
Quoting Ecurb
Yet you are trying to convince me that its immoral not to in some manner. My point is that you have no grounds to assert this. You have provided nothing but an opinion that I should use sexist language with others.
Quoting Ecurb
No, it is not well mannered to follow how someone wishes to be perceived. Sometimes its actually rude to ask that a person be perceived a particular way. If a wage worker tells their boss that they should be treated as the most valuable employee despite being a lazy person who shows up late to work all the time and doesn't do their job properly, the employee is out of line and being the rude one.
Someone who asks another to participate in sexist or racist language is rude, period. I don't participate in slurs against races despite being pressured to in the past, and I'm not going to participate in sexist language despite now. Societies and cultures come and go with ideas of what is right and wrong. Sometimes society gets it right, sometimes it doesn't. This? Society is getting it wrong.
Quoting Ecurb
You only have a partial understanding of sexism. Sexism is also elevating the prejudices you have about their sex, over the actual person themself. The fact you said "Women like cats" is prejudiced at best, sexist at worse. Where did you get such a crazy idea? I've known lots of women that hate cats. That's why its sexist. It asserts things about a broad sex that are not true for every member of that sex. It takes individual personality differences and tries to say "Its because you're a woman."
Now, this is not to be confused with sex expectations. For example, its expected that women will bleed once a month. That's not a social expectations, that's a biological norm. Of course, if someone stated, "You don't have a period, therefore you can't be a woman," if the person is female this is of course sexist too. Prejudice and sex expectations in themselves are not wrong, they are only wrong if they assert their truth when it does not align with reality.
Quoting Ecurb
I don't understand why you think its utterly reasonable to claim "Only a moron would like cats better than dogs." That's just an unfounded prejudice against people who like cats. I'm not even going to comment on how you treat your girlfriends or wife.
Quoting Ecurb
To be specific, and in philosophy specificity in definitions is important: Gender: The non-biological expectations that one or more people have about how a sex should express themselves in public. For example, "Men are expected to wear top hats, women are not."
I put those definitions at the start of the OP so that you know exactly what I'm talking about. In this conversation, that is gender. This is backed by gender theory. Gender is a social belief that each sex should act a particular way in public because of their sex. It is socially agreed upon prejudice. And acting upon prejudice as if its more important than the person's reality of their sex is sexist. So again, if I tell a boy, "You like dolls, and the gender of girls is they like dolls. (Society has declared this without science, just group opinion). Therefore if you like dolls, you're a girl now." that's sexist. If you disagree, explain why this specific situation is not sexist please.
Quoting Ecurb
Asking someone to participate in racism, sexism, or any kind of ism is rude. You have not disagreed with this. Therefore you need to explain why the above situation I mentioned is not sexist. The situation I mentioned above is saying that because the boy acts in a way society prejudices that only girls should act, he's really a girl, we should treat him like a girl, and perhaps someone would also come along and say, "They should transition their body to align with their gender".
Tell that to the protesters in Iran who are being shot, arrested and tortured. Maybe (just maybe) they think that the government is acting without their "consent".
Your lack of humor about the dogs and cats is telling. Do you always take yourself so seriously?
Quoting Philosophim
Your point about top hats is merely silly, as the video of Judy Garland singing "Get Happy" demonstrates (OK, it's a fedora, not a top hat, but the point remains valid).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7d0NRewzW4&list=RDq7d0NRewzW4&start_radio=1
You seem to be stuck on misunderstood definitions, incorrect ideas about morality, and an inability to comprehend my arguments or examples. Therefore, I will emulate Elinor Dashwood, in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.
"Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition."
As I mentioned, they are trying to change the law. And as I've further mentioned, we are talking about individual consent.
Quoting Ecurb
When I'm addressing sexism and sexist people, usually.
Quoting Ecurb
"Silly" is not a rational criticism. Whether you find it silly or not is a subjective opinion and irrelevant. Its not uncommon for sexist people to want to retain sexist outlooks, and they use derision and try to invalidate the person calling them out on it instead of presenting a good argument.
Quoting Ecurb
This is a philosophy board. You can state an opinion and leave, but that leaves me with points and definitions that you did not rationally challenge. Therefore, you leave with me having the rational view point, you leaving with a mere opinion. There is a good reason only new people to these forums have challenged the OP on this topic. Its because its solid.
We should all examine ourselves carefully and not fall into 'moral' social pushes that have no actual rational backing behind them. I don't think you want to be a bad person, but if you're not aware that you're being manipulated by a sexist ideology when you have the chance to really think about it, you are. We cannot stick blindly to ignorance when we have an opportunity to really think about what we're doing. And all you're doing is defending a sexist viewpoint.
There are plenty of things I care about, and in fact, obsess about, which no one has any obligation whatseover to engage with me over.
People's self-image isn't everyone else's obligation.
I see the same slide down the hole of irrationality praxis fell into.