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. — T Clark

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?

For example, I can have a personal identity that I am a doctor. — Philosophim

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.

Gender is specifically an expected set of behaviors — 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.

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." — Philosophim

Not quite. it is not only about what you do, but what you are.

Gender is a part of you "being."

"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." — 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.

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. — 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.

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. — Philosophim

You know I can read this, right?

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. — Questioner

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.

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.
— Philosophim

You know I can read this, right? — 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.

Its if there is a subjective opinion that doing or not doing these things should be encouraged or limited by your sex.

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.

"I'm aggressive, and only men are supposed to be aggressive. Maybe I'm a man?" — Philosophim

"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 — 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).

Was thinking of entering the topic, but then I realized there’s a rise in these topics seemingly increasing on this forum.

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.

↪Philosophim So if a flat chested woman gets breast augmentation to look "feminine", that's succumbing to social norms that women should have large breasts. — LuckyR

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.

The identical surgery in a transwoman should also be social, right? — 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.

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. — Mijin

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.

And it’s just part of the culture war nonsense that tries to subliminally attack trans, gays and every other LGBTQ person in society. — Christoffer

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?

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. — 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.

If we’re talking about the science around transsexualism, — Christoffer

The topic is about trans gender, not transsexualism. I view them as two different discussions.

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. — 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.

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. — 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.

First, you speak about identity. What is identity to you? — Philosophim

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"

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 — Questioner

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?

You know I can read this, right? — Questioner

I think he likes you better than he likes me.

Fwiw, no, and I think this response is just in line with what i've described.

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?

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 — 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).

This is your interpretation of my motivations for posting what I did, and it is wrong. — 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.

Well, I wouldn't use the words "right" and "wrong" - just different. — 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...

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? — 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.

... 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). ...This is a reflection of the dynamic and co-optive nature of identity. — 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.

and then how they are analyzed, processed, and responded to are determined by our brains. — 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. """

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. — 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).

but you seem genuinely pleasant to converse with. If you find this an intrusion into other's discussions, please feel free to tell me and I will not do it again. — 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

You can be white and like rap. — 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.

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. — AmadeusD

Awesome! You've lived a neat life.

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.

@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.

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.

To be clear, you are insinuating that good-faith discussions about LGBTQ+ that are central to politics are ‘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.

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?

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

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

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?

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.

Check your male privilege mate. It's just not welcome.

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?

I thought about this very thing when I was first mulling this over, but it turns out 'genderism' has a different meaning.

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:

then it follows logically that a person who voluntarily identifies with a gender (such as 'femaleness') is being sexist against themselves.— Bob Ross

Correct.

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.