The arm is made out of smaller parts, without which it cannot exist. It can exist with some of those parts altered or missing, but there have to be enough of them present to constitute an arm. Therefore, "arm" very much describes the collection of smaller traits.

Sex does not. In this case, it is just our just-so story of who is supposed to nurse on account of the identity of sex. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Show me some proof rather than just assert it out of thin air. Show me how there is such a percentage of otherwise "male" persons who can nurse, without medical intervention, so as to make it more than just a random anomaly.

It doesn't uneven get those with breast right: some of them don't nurse, some of them cannot nurse — TheWillowOfDarkness

Biology is about can't and not about won't. And women who can't nurse are unable to do so for medical problems. (Or because the baby can't latch, but in that case the mother can nurse amd her biology is normal.)

"Useless" and "inaccurate" are also distinct complaints. Being useless does not makes something inaccurate.

Of course it does work. It tells us, for example, which person gives birth and nurses. And which person can't, simply cannot, do that. It tells us which two people together can make a child, and others that cannot.

"Arm" is a term to describe a constellation of smaller traits as well.

The failure is there is there is acually no descprtion. If you are dealing with the body, then the terms which describe it are that a body exists. To speak of this notion of sex does not. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Of course there is a standard description, including chromosomes and sex organs. Most people match that description. Unless you have some scientific proof they don't?

You do of course believe, even if only subliminally - in that quite naturally like most people you probably never consciously think about it - th — Robert Lockhart

Well, that ends the conversation right there when you claim you know what the other person is actually thinking without them being aware of it themselves.

Such hubris.

I don't know how you can feasible claim that. Most people match the standard description of biological sexes.

This account of sex does not work for anyone. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Did you mean anyone or everyone?

Deers don't need to be male to have antlers, humans don't need to be female to have breasts. — TheWillowOfDarkness

These are anomalies. Just like albino crows and six-toed cats.

Men and women with unmatched sex features are also anomalies called "intersex."

Transpeople are a totally different thing altogether. They are people with clearly defined sexes, i.e., not intersex, who are choosing a different gender.

Sexes are terms to describe actual physical attributes, the constellation of which is really not arbitrary at all. Certain attributes go together with x or y chromosomes because that's how reproduction works best. A woman's body is shaped and works a certain way because it's better for child-bearing and nursing. Humans have only recognized these biological differences and given them names. It's as benign and normal and accurate as recognizing the difference between a cat and a dog. It's just descriptive.

Gender is the only place where proscriptions come in.

I know this isn't a democracy or nuthin, but could we do a vote on it?

It's a measure of a kind of intelligence in animals with certain predispositions. Not all kinds for all animals.

Cats are hard to train, because in part, they just don't give a hoot about your reward system or following orders.

Frans DeWals wrote an excellent book showcasing some of the ways we have underestimated the intelligence of animals simply because we have a hard time thinking like them and creating tests that are tailored to the animals and not humans. For example, using a human-sized mirror to see how an elephant reacts to her own image. The book is called "Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are."

It's really gender secret way of maintaining itself in the face of its obvious contradiction. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Is gender now a supervillian with consciousness and everything?

I don't see how it makes sense to claim that differentiating female and male bodies is somehow establishing hierarchy. I can tell the difference between red and blue and not think one is superior over the other.

I also don't think it makes anymore sense to claim a female body is male just because that person would prefer it to be that way. Many people would like to change their bodies in a myriad of ways (be taller, lose weight, be younger, regrow limbs, defeat cancer, change skin color, etc) but I think it's pretty obvious that sans actual physical change, the physical doesn't change.

The origins of language may be musical, but now they are distinct categories. Very strictly speaking, lyrical music is a hybrid art form of poetry and music. (So, really, by preferring non-lyrical music, you're less "below-average" and actually more of a purist :wink: )

Of course, the human voice can still be used as an instrument, and even if it is simultaneously saying words, it's still creating notes and melodies. Jazz artists sometimes try to be more obvious about the human voice as an instrument when they scat for example.

One of the main differences between language and music is that music is entirely abstract and language purely representational (or "meaningful" in the sense that words are supposed to convey knowledge/information). They are, in that sense, the most opposite artforms we have, though they are aesthetically often similar.

Red is bold. Philosophy is bold. I think it suits the forum.

It's also often a bloodbath in here, so that's fair warning to the n00bs.

Define "dignity" for a mentally capable cancer victim versus a child with mental difficulties?

I mean, dignity isn't even the same for a healthy child and a healthy adult. Children have parents blow their noses, give them baths, change diapers, feed them with airplane noises, etc. Treatment most adults would find mortifying.

Now, if you want to talk about quality of life that balances suffering versus pleasure, we might get somewhere.

I wonder if it really matters if it's a choice or not. Like, the LGB community used to insist on their rights because they said it wasn't. But now more people I think realize that it doesn't matter. Like who cares if someone chooses that? It's a legitimate path to pursue either way and nobody else's business really.

But you can adopt a new family....

Yes. There's two kinds of family. Biological and social.

That's the same difference between sex and gender. Sex is biological and cannot currently be changed. Gender is social, and thus can probably be altered.

In fact, gender has been altered over the centuries already. What a woman is supposed to act and dress and live like has changed.

I think the problems really only arise when SOME transgenders want to say biology is not real or that they are female or participate in female sports or say that they are and always were women instead of choosing to become a woman.

Sure, I'll grant that, but what does that have to do with what frdake said, or this topic? — Harry Hindu

The whole point was, if you don't recall, that family is based on actions and social roles rather than just genetics.

If we can assert that I can become part of a family without being genetically related to them, and if I can stop being part of a family I am genetically related to, then it's an action and choice-based social role.

Same could be said of gender then. I might genetically be male, but if I act and live like a woman, it seems one could argue that a person could thus become a woman.

Btw, a better rebuke to fdrake's example of family would have been that familial relations are, well, relational. As in, not only does another person have to exist for me to be related to them, they have to either implicitly or explicitly agree to be my son, father, brother, etc.

Say you're born into a family where your parents used ivf with donor sperm and eggs. They also had already adopted two other kids. They raise you and love you your whole life.

According to you, these would not be your family?


And, btw, you can very much legally disown children and parents.

This isn't a correction because you didn't read ↪fdrake's question, which asks how can one be part of a family one is born into. — Harry Hindu

Hence the disowning bit.

I think logic suggests that you should stop lending him money. Two reasons:

1. Giving him money has not seemed to help him in the past and seems unlikely to help him in the future.

2. It's starting to negatively affect you.

Of course, decisions with family are hard to make based on logic alone. How willing you are to hurt yourself to maintain a cordial relationship with him is up to you.

But then you also have to ask yourself, will you sour toward him if he keeps it up? Will he sour toward you if you don't comply? Do you want to be in a relationship that depends on money?

part of a family" entails a physical, biological relationship with others — Harry Hindu

Correction: entails a biological and/or social bond. People are generally not biologically related to their spouses, in-laws count as families, as do adopted relations. On the flip side, we can and do disown people biologically related to us based on their treatment of us.

Not only is the theory not referrimg to "fittest" but "fit," it's "fit for a certain environment."

Scorpions are fit for certain places and climates, polar bears for others. Climate change is of course changing things, and so species will have to adapt to be fit enough for these changes, or go extinct.

Humans have the unique capacity to significantly alter their environment to suite human needs, even special needs, so the theory doesn't apply to us as much anymore.

It's survival of the fit, not the fittest. Often misquoted.

I'm confused about your ant example. The worker ant seems perfectly fit, although her circumstances may have changed.

(Fyi, depending on the type of colony, there may be more than one queen, and in single queen colonies depending on the time of year, there may be queen larvae.)

Your self-description reminds me of part 51 of "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman (especially the famous part, highlighted in bold):

51
The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version

It's a bit more complicated than just a blanket "14 is the age of consent" in Germany. It can still be considered rape if the other person is over 21 and if the 14 year old felt exploited, for example. There are also laws giving special sexual protections for children up to 18.

Basically, like with their ages for alcohol (16 for beer and wine, 18 for hard liquor), Germany gradually gives children responsibilities and freedoms as they age. Which, at least with the alcohol, has been shown to be more effective in preventing tragedies than some total, overnight shift in one's rights.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe

already explained the epistemic conundrum surrounding this type of questions. It is obvious that, in classical epistemic terms, everybody is merely conjecturing on the matter — alcontali

There's actually a quite simple solution: take a woman's word for it.

It's clear you haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about.

You made a universal claim about men. It is universal because all men qualify for the criterion you used. — creativesoul

I did not. You just wish I was the strawperson you're trying to make me out to be.

Not all men are they way you've described some. Not all females are like you either — creativesoul

I didn't say they were. So what's your point?

The 'intersectional' aspect of the thread would be unnecessary if everyone were given some equal modicum of respect/value/equality/etc simply because they are human. — creativesoul

Feminism would be unnecessary too. So would any social justice movement. Alas, that's not the world we live in, and so they are, in fact, necessary.

What I will say is that I'm usually extremely suspicious that non-acceptance of something resembling this account in its major respects is rooted in a desire for metaphysical accuracy rather than ignorance or prejudice. — fdrake

I don't think it makes any sense to claim that a person looking for metaphysical accuracy is being prejudiced. Some might be, as you suggest, using it as a cover for their prejudice, but you cannot assume that a) all such questions are covers, and b) all true supporters won't question the metaphysics.

In fact, as I have pointed out before, I believe NOT wanting an accurate account of the phenomenon is potentially much more harmful and less supportive than a risk-taking rush to accommodate everything people think they want.

So the definition you present here basically comes down to the latter of my two suggestions earlier: gender is self-id and a social role. In which case, part of the reason trans-people would so desperately want to transition early would be to "pass" more easily and not be the subject of harrassment.

Again, I don't think there's a good case to be made that we should allow teens to modify their bodies because other people are jerks. That runs counter to everything else we try to instill in our children. It gives credence to the suggestion that it is okay to judge someone on their appearance, and that it is the harrassee and not the harrasser who must change.

The way some men have acted towards women is unacceptable. Others are perfectly acceptable. There are different standards for what counts as "protecting women". Some of those you'd probably agree with. Sometimes, those standards are held by men who do not appreciate being placed into the same bag of rotten apples(your target). Such men would be your friend, one would think, an ally of sorts, unless your notion of "feminism" equals man hater. — creativesoul

While I acknowledge that there have likely always been good men, I would caution you against assuming the majority in past centuries were female allies. I think as the culture has changed, so too have men and women.

There was a time when it was "common knowledge" (as is, people, men and women alike, assumed to be true) that women were inferior in many ways. It was also commonly accepted that, while a husband should not beat his wife to a bloody pulp, he had the perfect right to hit her if she got "hysterical" (code for, having her own opinion).

If the majority of men did not go along with that, as well as with many other injustices against women, these injustices would never have been part of the framework of society.

We would not, for example, still bear the vestiges of such a history in such phrases as "rule of thumb."

The history of the world--the suffering has been abundant for both sexes — Bitter Crank

Sure, there's been suffering on both sides, particularly when you bring in class.

But women of all classes have historically been considered property of their husbands. Men of all classes have historically perhaps been beaten down by the next higher up man, but could in turn beat down on their women.

Feminists hate the idea that biology is destiny. In some ways it is, like it or not: pregnancy and lactation are just not fairly distributed between men and women. At least some of what is biologically sensible for men isn't biologically sensible for women. — Bitter Crank

Feminists do not deny biology. In fact, most feminists argue for women's rights based on biology, like when they push for lactation rooms in workplaces and abortion rights for women.

It's not like the metaphysical questions' a priori nature dictates treatment strategy or social experience; though the metaphysics that accompanies peoples' perceptions of trans (including self perception) is important. — fdrake

Of course details like "what exactly is transgenderism" determine treatment. It's like the difference between how you'd treat someone with paranoia versus a victim of stalking. Or how you'd treat an obese person trying to lose weight versus an anorexic one. Or treating an ulcer versus Crohn's disease. All these things share symptoms, but are hugely different cases and therefore need different treatments.

If we say transgenderism is being "trapped in the wrong body" we can make a case for physical alterations. If we say transgenderism is just self-id and a social role, then the case for risky medical procedures seems less clear.

Sounds like you agree that what is generally understood to be the definition of patriarchy exists, you just don't like the label.

let us first decide if they actually exist! — fdrake

Red herring.

condition; and those are influenced by but are not reducible to questions of what is a trans person. The — fdrake

Actually, that's a really important, fundamental question before medicine should be practiced. I mean, unless you know what it is, you can't know all that much about how to treat it, and you risk making things worse.

Let me check. Well, yes it was actually. — NOS4A2

Nope.