I think the way we think about sex is inherently gendered; male/female are both sex categories and gender categories, but they are sex categories in part because they were gender categories first. — Dawnstorm
This seems quite clearly wrong, unless what you mean by gender is "immature and potentially misinformed prior concepts of sex" which is what I think actually is the case. If so, then yeah. But I can't see that complicating hte current picture.
Sex is sex.
Gender is gender.
They rarely vary independently, but they do in an incredible minority of cases (exception for rule, i suggest).
I agree with Malcolm that this is not in any way complicated. The only complicating factor is people not liking things about themselves, so refusing to wear empirically accurate labels (which is fair, to some degree - but the activism behind it is pernicious, violent and often terroristic).
Abandoning the male-female binary while researching the trans-issue may be useful; that doesn't imply also abandonding the male-female binary while researching reproduction. — Dawnstorm
I can't quite disagree, but I cannot see an avenue to assent to this. Male and female are categories that are not violated. They are useful inherently. I cannot understand a discussion about "trans" that doesn't include the grounding what you're on the "other side" of. That would be sex, no? Genders aren't inherent so you can't actually be "on the other side" of anything. You're just the gender you are.
But then, that's a direct contradiction as to the theory behind being trans: it is a subversive transition from "your gender" to "your chosen gender" or some similarly opaque and unhelpful line. So here's an example of "weirdo" thinking. People can't bear being scrutinized when they run this argument - and you're a bigot for even asking about it. Irrational crap.
But the trans-issue is not primarily related to reproduction (as a gender issue). — Dawnstorm
Now, that's correct - and socially speaking, the comments i've made above this don't apply. Just be good to people. But when we have males claiming they're going to be getting pregnant, have better vaginas then women, are better women than women and all the rest - you can fuck off, quite frankly. That's delusional, dangerous and insanely misogynistic.
and inconclusive — Dawnstorm
It may be the case that you're reading bollocks (i.e your distrust is well-founded. Almost all philosophical writing on the topic, for instance, is utterly incomprehensible babble, and the science writing is out-right dishonest in most cases). Sex determination is insanely simple - sex differentiation is more complicated, and does not affect which sex an organism is. It relates to only presentational aspects of the organisms body.
middle-of-the-road researches — Dawnstorm
Hard to know - it's not possible to publish this type of thing without some ridiculous fanfare and pushback (Tuvel rears her head). There is no middle of the road, as I see it. Either you think people change sex, or you don't. The thing is that it isn't
possible for humans to do so. I think you'd be better placed to read basic biology about sex determination, unrelated to this issue. It answers everything, and everyone ignores it.
without much of an gender identity — Dawnstorm
I would probably agree with this (I have a bit stronger of a gender identity, i'd say). My current lecturer would eat this up. His position is that if we were to abolish gender (insane) cis people (i hate that term, btw. Just people) would lose so much of what they are
unaware constitutes their identity with the loss of words like 'man' and 'woman'. Just a side note, realy.
There are also times I got in trouble for being gender insensitive - that is not being able to see myself as a man and thus making (mostly) women uncomfortable with my presence, or something I said — Dawnstorm
My take: this is their problem. It is not for you to police yourself, unless you can ascertain a wrong. It doesn't sound like there was a wrong here, and instead, you have woman around you prone to misreading things along gender lines. Not unreasonable, but not your problem. I deal with this is largely-female spaces too, but not in mixed spaces. I do not alter my behaviour between those contexts. It seems to be informed by some misguided solidarity and empowerment concept. Can of worms.. feel free to ignore, i guess as its not on-point to the thread.
So I do think there are people who are wrong about being women — Dawnstorm
This implies there is an objective standard to being a woman/man. If "adult human female" isn't it, the entire conversation collapses in on itself. Another weirdo type line, imo. Fwiw, "adult human X" is perfectly sufficient, conceptually. I have a hard time siding with an extreme minority which can totally reasonably be characterized as mentally aberrant, on issues that, for the majority, amount to safety issues (i have provided ample evidence for this throughout the thread). Even if this breaks down into half of females being fine with transwomen among them, and half not - the half who
aren't take priority imo. Inviting males into female spaces is not something that would be standard, and so requires assent of
at least 50% of females on a level that covers the specific area in which is a policy is to be implemented (i.e within a specific sport club, within a specific lets say night life precinct, within a specific campus etc.. etc.. etc..). I do not think large-scale policy can address this issue unless woman means something objectively determinable(I think the UK have done the 'right' thing, regardless of a moral valence there. It is what works for policy-writing).
secondary to them being wrong about being trans. — Dawnstorm
Is it posssible you could elaborate here? I get the intuition i would agree, if I understood.
I'm unsure there's such thing as being 'wrong' about being trans, unless there's an objective metric by which a third party could make that call.
people whose minds are not even fully developed have a tendency to mis-diagnose themselves if ever given the opportunity to do so as opposed to a thorough multi-session exam by a licensed medical professional — Outlander
Medical professionals are incentivized to do this, via "moral righteousness" and potential kickbacks(which have been widely reported - Jack Turban being a ridiculously obvious shilling example).
But, yes, there is a social contagion aspect here. A psychologist friend of mine who is
intensely left wing had to come to me, somewhat hat-in-hand saying "no, you were right. They are collecting diagnoses". It is literally 'cool' to be disordered, and that's been the case since I was a teen.