... an ahistorical account of gender. — Bob Ross

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_history.

The very social norms, roles, identities, and expressions involved in gender that are studied in gender studies are historically the symbolic upshot of sex: they are not divorced from each other. — Bob Ross

But no one is divorcing them, just distinguishing. But still, we hippy males like to wear flowers in our long feminine hair too, and our women are martial and militant. What's the problem?

It yet again shows the poverty of neo-Aristotelian ideas of essence.

Hello again Bob! An interesting take on the gender/sex division issue. I'll analyze it the best I can.

Gender theory views 'sex' as 'the biological characteristics of a being that defines its procreative role in the species', whereas 'gender' is 'the socially constructed roles, identities, and expressions of people'. — Bob Ross

Correct. Just adding that the key difference is 'biological expectation' vs 'cultural expectation'. Meaning that if there is a biologically statistical likelihood that men are taller than women, its not a gender expectation that you see most men being taller than women, that's a biological expectation. Gender would be if someone always expected every man to be taller than women or they aren't 'a real man'. That's not based on biological fact of a man as an adult human male, but a cultural slang idea of what a man is.

The problems with this theory are as follows:

1. The divorcing of sex and gender renders gender as merely a personality type that someone could assume, which is an ahistorical account of gender. — Bob Ross

I think this can be a criticism against changing a word's meaning, but alone it lacks any bite. Words change meaning all the time. Lets look at the term 'marriage'. 'Marriage' used to imply, and still largely does, the unity between an adult human male and female. The gay community wanted to be able to marry, but same sex. I remember there being a bit of a backlash to re-using the term marriage.

So, what ended up happening? We added an adjective to marriage to clarify what type of marriage it is. "Gay" or "Same sex" marriage are how we use the term because the historical context implies its between a man and a woman by default. Considering the transgender movement took notes from the gay equality movement, I think this is important to identify.

In reusing the term marriage, the core underlying desire was recognition of a monogamous long-term sexual relationship and partnership that would be recognized as having the same legal and civil rights as opposite sex relationships. So, lets look at the repurposing of gender.

The repurposing of gender is to let people have the same legal and civil rights as those of the opposite sex. Of course people thought of 'gender as sex', so the adjective 'trans' was added. People thought, "Oh, these are trans sexuals who are using the term gender as sex." Well if gay marriage worked why wouldn't trans gender (sexual) work as well?

If that was all the trans community strategy was, perhaps they would not have run into too many issues. Or maybe they would, because people would just keep using the term trans sexual interchangeably. For certain reasons which I do not want to go into in this thread, the strategy was to hide the term trans sexual completely. But if 'gender' means 'sex', how can you do that?

Simple. Reinvent the term 'gender' to mean something different from sex. Of course, if it is different from sex, then why should someone who is trans gender get the same legal and civil rights as someone of a different sex? Honestly, there is no reason. But it was never intended to be an honest switch. It was intended to hide the use of trans sexual and expand the legal and civil rights of cross sex identity to those who could not afford it or were willing to go through the surgery. Not only would this allow simply having the desire to be in cross sex spaces be enough to get those legal and civil rights to be there, it would expand the amount of people who you could use to get these changes pushed in society.

2. The very social norms, roles, identities, and expressions involved in gender that are studied in gender studies are historically the symbolic upshot of sex...If they are truly divorced, then the study collapses into a study of the indefinite personality types of people could express and the roles associated with them. — Bob Ross

Correct. But the trans activist community actually doesn't want them truly divorced. They want to rely on that cultural context that leaves that unconscious neuron connection to 'gender is sex' while also redefining the term to allow 'not sex' into it as well. This creates cognitive dissonance which is a very persuasive tool if you can get a person to accept it.

There was a psychologist named Leon Festinger who came up with a theory of cognitive dissonance.

"Festinger’s interest in cognitive dissonance arose from his observations of a doomsday cult, which believed that the world would end on a specific date. When the prophecy failed to come true, the cult members did not abandon their beliefs. Instead, they reinterpreted the situation, claiming that their faith had saved the world. This phenomenon intrigued Festinger and led him to further develop the theory of cognitive dissonance, showing how individuals often reshape their beliefs or perceptions to reduce tension and maintain psychological comfort."

"Cognitive dissonance plays a significant role in shaping political beliefs and the way people engage with information. For instance, if a person holds a strong political stance and is confronted with information that contradicts their views, they may experience dissonance. Rather than change their beliefs, individuals may engage in selective exposure, avoiding contradictory information, or seek out sources that align with their views. This behavior, known as confirmation bias, helps reduce the discomfort caused by conflicting information."

"One of the most powerful uses of cognitive dissonance is in persuasion. When people are presented with information that creates dissonance between their current beliefs and the new information, they may adjust their attitudes to reduce the discomfort. For example, public health campaigns often use dissonance-inducing techniques to encourage people to quit smoking, adopt healthier eating habits, or wear seat belts.
https://psychology.town/general/cognitive-dissonance-attitudes-behaviors/

One of the tools that a person can use to generate cognitive dissonance is morality. From both my personal and historical experience, few things generate passion and rationalization more than a question or 'attack' on one's virtue and moral outlook and reputation. Its they key to any religion's success. "God is good". A tautology that equates God as being good, so one should not doubt or question God. "Trans gender rights are human rights". Another tautology that equates the desires of trans activists to innately being good, so do not dare question or doubt what they ask.

When conjoined with liberal agendas, it becomes incredibly problematic because it is used to forward the view that we should scrap treating people based off of their nature and instead swap it for treating them based off of their personality type — Bob Ross

Correct, although I would personally avoid the term 'iiberal' because I most people will equate that as a political issue instead of the philosophical classification you are using. This is an underlying attempt by a small faction to persuade society to accept them through deceptive and conflationary language.

Because if we are to use this definition of gender is written, the obvious conclusion is: "If gender is purely cultural, then you do not have a viable reason to be in cross sex spaces. Gender and sex are different." But trans activists do not want this. What they want is access to cross sex spaces and to be seen as the opposite sex by the public. Obviously this is impossible without the use of cognitive dissonance that 'gender as social construct' can generate in the population.

A gravitational expression of gender is any expression that a healthy member of that gender would gravitate towards (e.g., males gravitating towards being providers and protectors); and a symbolic expression of gender is any expression which represents some idea legitimately connected to the gender-at-hand (e.g., the mars symbol representing maleness). — Bob Ross

I would caution that this still serves as a means to continue the conflationary use of the term gender for equivalence fallacies between biology and culture. When we say "healthy" this should only mean biological. And unless there is biological evidence of males statistically being providers and protectors cross culture, this would be a purely cultural construct. We do not need the terms gravitational or symbolic, we simply need the division of 'sex' expectation vs 'gender' expectation. Men statistically likely to be taller than women vs "If a man is not taller than a woman, he's not a real man". The cat is out of the bag in using the term gender as 'cultural construct', so its best to be laser like in the definition of gender to avoid any attempts at conflation with sex.

Both types of gender expression are grounded ontologically in the sex (gender) inscribed in the nature (essence) of the given substance; and, consequently, express something objective (stance-independent). — Bob Ross

Gender as a cultural construct can never be objective. We can objectively note, "This is the cultural's gender expecation for a man," but it is not determined by some innate biological reality. It is instead purely a construct of subjective opinion which can vary from person, to group, to the entire culture.

The objective reality is sex, and our personal subjective opinions in how a sex should act in relation to the fact of their sex is gender. In no way shape or form, should the term gender as defined be taken as anything more than a personal and cultural opinion, prejudice, or sexism.

it is a social and/or psychological expression akin to a personality type. — Bob Ross

Correct, gender is a personality type of an individual that a person subjectively expects a member of that particular sex to have. That's all it is.

Of course, this means that we have to bring back a clear and inoffensive word that trans activists have tried to hide to ensure their conflation and cognitive dissonance would be successful. "Trans sexual". Trans gender is a subjective action of someone's personality. Trans sexual is someone who actively attempts to change their biology to match the opposite sex as closely as possible. Trans sexuals are the only one's who have any possible argument of asking for access to cross sex spaces.

Of course, using the term trans sexual destroys the dissonance and lays bare what is truly being asked. This eliminates a lot of people from the ability to access those cross sex spaces who desire to do so for their own pleasure. They don't really like that, so I would expect resistance. But once someone has had their eyes cleared and has a way out of cognitive dissonance that does put their moral viewpoint at risk, the clear and definitive language gives them the off ramp that they need.

gender is a personality type of an individual that a person subjectively expects a member of that particular sex to have — Philosophim

A nice, succinct take on the subject.

But once someone has had their eyes cleared and has a way out of cognitive dissonance that does put their moral viewpoint at risk, the clear and definitive language gives them the off ramp that they need. — Philosophim

Do you think the Doomsday cult scenario in which cultists simply 'double down' on a reinterpretation of their initial beliefs is avoidable simply with greater clarity of thought and language? how does one reach a point at which they perceive their moral viewpoint to be 'at risk'?

Have you or anyone read "Mistakes Were Made, but Not by Me"? Truly a book that lived up to the hype.

I am more familiar with progressive rather than conservative thought, given that I live in downtown Toronto and taught high school, but reading "Mistakes" helped me understand why progressive people continue to insist on arguments that appear to be suffering from credibility issues.

I am sure there are equivalent conservative examples, I am just less familiar with them. I feel like I observe, or discuss, 'cognitive dissonance' more in person than I do in consuming media.

I fully agree with the notion that you can't totally separate gender from sex. However, since we are looking for clarity instead of fear/confusion, i recommend avoiding certain popular scare terms:

When conjoined with liberal agendas, it becomes incredibly problematic — Bob Ross

Can you come up with examples of liberal agendas? There are liberals, there are agendas, but "liberal agenda" paints a unified conspiracy when political agendas always have to do with money and power.

This is fitting, as I am a merely a feeble peasant...

I appreciate your response!

I think, and correct me if I am misunderstanding, you are viewing gender and sex as distinct; whereas my model here admits of no such distinction. Granted, I think semantically someone could cut it up differently where gender and sex are virtually (conceptually) but not really distinct and I may have no major quibbles with it. I am purposefully retaining an equality between sex and gender to avoid ideological and political confusions and agendas.

 its not a gender expectation that you see most men being taller than women, that's a biological expectation

Under my view, since gender and sex are the same, it is a gender expectation that men tend to be taller than women. This view is making a metaphysical distinction between the form (act) and the matter (potency) of a human being; where the form is the actualizing principle, the simple unity, the soul, which informs the body of what it is supposed to be (relative to the essence or quiddity of a human being). The soul, this form of the body, is innately gendered: there are two types of human souls—male and female.

I think under your view, and correct me if I am wrong, human beings are just a collection of organic parts; and so sex is purely the collection of organs and organic parts functioning together to provide some specific procreative role (e.g., maleness or femaleness). At this point, if we stipulate gender is equal to sex then you end up with essentially my view with respect to everything that truly matters for the political side of things; but under your view I would imagine gender is not identical to sex. Gender, as far as I cant tell in your view, is the social expectations of a person with a particular sex—is that right? If so, then this is the meat of our disagreement; because I would say that, if I were to conceptually distinguish gender and sex, gender is the social expression of sex. This is important because an expectation is not necessarily the upshot of biology. I think true gender, if they be conceptually separable, is always properly connected back to biology; otherwise, like I noted before, it explodes into triviality, prejudice, and irrationality.

 if someone always expected every man to be taller than women or they aren't 'a real man'.

This is a real problem for the kind of metaphysical account of the body that I expounded for your view (which I do not profess is accurate of your position of course per se); but not a problem for mine. Why? Because in your view ‘sex’ is just a collection of parts operating towards some procreative role and, consequently, there is no embodied essence of being a male or female; as each person is male or female only insofar as they sufficiently have enough of those parts and organic functions to count as one or the other. Technically, under this view, if you swap out enough sex-related parts of a human then you could achieve a sex change.

Under my view, on the contrary, human beings have a real essence embodied in themselves. This ‘code of what it is to be a human male or female’ is not identical to DNA: it is really there in their soul, which is the form, the simple ‘I’, the unity, which guides their biological development. This means that each human has the full essence of being a human male or female since conception but developmental factors can thwart their essence being realized properly in time. A woman would is infertile, e.g., is still a woman because she has a human female soul: the essence is there—not merely an abstraction of a collection of body parts making her sufficiently female (e.g,. DNA, fertility, sex organs, etc.). Even if a woman were inhumanly materially changed to lack the vast majority of stereotypical organic traits of femaleness she would still be a female under this view because her soul is female and to truly transition sexes would require killing her and creating a new human of the opposite sex (because her soul is what in virtue of which she is alive).

A real man, then, is not one that is necessarily taller than a woman—because the biological process can be inhibited or altered in ways where a woman could be tall for a woman or vice-versa—but a human substance that has a male soul.

Words change meaning all the time

Your statement here and thereafter are very true; however, semantics do matter in colloquial and political settings. I am merely noting a political stand that we need to conserve the meanings of the words to avoid liberal ideology where men go into women’s bathrooms or participate in female sports. Of course, I recognize that one could make an apolitical (virtual) distinction between sex and gender and note that sex is what really matters: I don’t have major issues with that.

So, what ended up happening? We added an adjective to marriage to clarify what type of marriage it is.

This is exactly my point. Semantics in colloquial speech are tools, nay weapons, for pushing agendas. You control what the average person believes by controlling the linguistics they have at their disposal. For people like me who want to conserve the meaning of marriage and do not support gay marriage, it naturally seems like a rhetorical attack to try to morph the term ‘marriage’ to include other types. Of course, if someone agrees with the political agenda of giving people a wide range of marriage types, then by all means they should morph the terms.

 But it was never intended to be an honest switch. It was intended to hide the use of trans sexual and expand the legal and civil rights of cross sex identity to those who could not afford it or were willing to go through the surgery

Agreed. This is why I have chosen to explain the gender vs. sex distinction differently than conceptually separating them to avoid the liberal agenda of making them really distinct (viz., purely a social construct). If they are purely a social construct, then we need to completely restructure our society to be hyper-libertarian.

There was a psychologist named Leon Festinger who came up with a theory of cognitive dissonance.

This is very interesting, and I could see this happening with all sides of debates. Thanks for sharing!

although I would personally avoid the term 'iiberal' because I most people will equate that as a political issue instead of the philosophical classification you are using. This is an underlying attempt by a small faction to persuade society to accept them through deceptive and conflationary language.

My philosophy here is politically motivated, just to clarify. I am collapsing the two conceptually to avoid people confusing them as really (as opposed to virtually) distinct; while retaining the obvious differences between the expressions of sex (what they would call gender) and sex itself (what they would call sex).

I don’t think the idea that gender is purely a social construct is niche in liberalism: they tend to push agendas that affirm that gender expectations are irrational, immoral, and hateful because they are not anchored in sex. After all, if women wearing dresses is purely a social construct, then how could someone be justified in viewing a man wearing a dress as wrong? Gender theory is an attempt at ad hoc rationalizing radical freedom to push people into feeling bad for having expectations of gender roles and identities.

Because if we are to use this definition of gender is written, the obvious conclusion is: "If gender is purely cultural, then you do not have a viable reason to be in cross sex spaces. Gender and sex are different."

True, but liberals tend to view gender as what matters for public spaces—not sex. They see sex as this irrelevant nature between someone legs that should not dictate how their life should go.

Cardinal Sarah put it the best: “gender ideology is a luciferian refusal to receive a sexual nature from God”.

When we say "healthy" this should only mean biological

I was referring to biology there insofar as the human develops properly in accord with their nature ingrained in their soul.

Gender as a cultural construct can never be objective

Gender is the procreative type ingrained in the nature of a substance: it is not a cultural construct. What we know of and can expect out of the tendencies and expressions of different genders is culturally and individually determined, like all knowledge, but should be the upshot or expression of something objective—it should be grounded in facts about gender (sex).

Do you think the Doomsday cult scenario in which cultists simply 'double down' on a reinterpretation of their initial beliefs is avoidable simply with greater clarity of thought and language? — Jeremy Murray

You cannot persuade a single person to come to a conclusion they do not want to. What you can provide them is an opportunity to come to a conclusion that has clear definitions, ideas, and conclusions. This provides a reasonable and socially acceptable off ramp from where they are now. But, if one does not value this over other benefits that being where they are provides them, they will choose not to leave.

Religions are a great example of group think because most people are not in the religion for clear and rational language. They are there for moral guidance, group and cultural cohesion, and internal desires of how they want the world to be. Rational language alone will not persuade most people out of a religion because they lose so much more than they think they would gain. Usually if you want someone to leave an ideology, its a multi-pronged approach. You not only need clear rational arguments why such an ideology is wrong, but you need clear emotional and social benefits provided to the individual that are more than what the ideological group provides.

This of course does not mean we don't provide rational arguments. Some people may be on the fence emotionally and culturally, and rational clarity provides the last impetus to leave. Especially in terms of moral issues which are often used to control people effectively. A clear and rational argument that demonstrates one is not immoral for leaving is very powerful. If I pointed out to you that leaving your friend behind was for the best, but you ultimately thought it was immoral to do so, you likely wouldn't leave your friend. If it can be clearly shown that leaving your friend is for the best, and its not immoral and possibly morally superior to choose so, you're much more likely to act on it.

Trans ideology has been so effective because it has set itself as a moral one without truly justifying that it is actually moral. It scooped up society with its first to market insistence, backed by a top down push from businesses and government that 'it was so'. But of course to enforce any ideology that does not wish to be questioned, you must silence speech over it. For a while you could not say, "Trans gender women are not women" without being banned, cancelled, or fired. Anyone who has studied rights realizes that this is abjectly immoral. And yet because of the top down push, people were pressured into excusing this abuse of free speech by claiming "Its moral to do so". Legislated and forced moral assertations are the tools of people who want to fight against actual moral outcomes and assert control.

That is not to say that some aspects of transgender ideology are not actually moral. Any good measure of control and manipulation understands that there should be some truth to what one is pushing. Should an adult have the bodily autonomy and right to transition? Absolutely. Just like there are usually good things taken in isolation in any ideology. But what is important is to analyze what an ideology is saying rationally as much as possible without appeal to emotions to be free from the manipulative and prosthelytizing pressures that ideologies put forth.

Have you or anyone read "Mistakes Were Made, but Not by Me"? — Jeremy Murray

Pride in not being wrong is a fantastic motivator that rational argumentation will often fail against. Only if such a person can be convinced that switching is truly the superior intellectual solution, and they can be excused by believing they came to their original conclusion to outside circumstances that 'anyone' would fall to, will they be likely to switch.

I am more familiar with progressive rather than conservative thought, given that I live in downtown Toronto and taught high school, but reading "Mistakes" helped me understand why progressive people continue to insist on arguments that appear to be suffering from credibility issues. — Jeremy Murray

I do not believe this is a liberal vs conservative issue. This is a people issue. Politics on either side effectively use what they can to manipulate and convince people that 'their' side is the correct one. The question really is whether it also happens to be that it is more rational to pick one side or the other.

Can you come up with examples of liberal agendas? There are liberals, there are agendas, but "liberal agenda" paints a unified conspiracy when political agendas always have to do with money and power.

Liberalism in America tends to want the social and legal acceptance of:

1. Sexually deviant, homosexual, and transgender behaviors and practices;
2. The treatment of people relative to what they want to be as opposed to what they are (e.g., gender affirmation, putting the preferred gender on driver’s licenses, allowing men to enter female bathrooms, allowing men to play in female sports, etc.);
3. No enforceable immigration policies;
4. Murdering of children in the womb;
Etc.

But no one is divorcing them, just distinguishing. But still, we hippy males like to wear flowers in our long feminine hair too

The fact that you called it feminine concedes that you do think gender is tied to biology….

The fact that you called it feminine concedes that you do think gender is tied to biology…. — Bob Ross

It is tied, loosely. I concede the fashions are the fashions, no more. Just as lesbians and gays come in different flavours, butch and fem, so straits can likewise be more or less conformal to stereotype.
But since I am a male, and a man, and have procreated as proof, I declare that long hair and flowers are male traits and symbols, and whatever behaviour I demonstrate is by definition masculine behaviour, and therefore your symbols of femininity must be wrong.

If they are truly divorced, then the study collapses into a study of the indefinite personality types of people could express and the roles associated with them. — Bob Ross

A good point. If "masculine" and "feminine" are just socially constructed roles, then one must dispense with the idea that such things represent two halves of a whole, or that they are somehow binary. As far as I can tell, this is not the way that the terms are used now nor have ever been used.

The very social norms, roles, identities, and expressions involved in gender that are studied in gender studies are historically the symbolic upshot of sex: they are not divorced from each other. — Bob Ross

That's right. If an alien wanted to objectively understand humankind and human language, they would quickly recognize that the notions of sex and gender are deeply interrelated, and he would come to the conclusion that activists who are trying out linguistic theories which favor their agenda are not providing a factual account of human language. It's not even clear that the activists would disagree with me on this point, given that they are attempting to change human language and human life at a very deep level.

The etymology of gender bears this out in very obvious manner.

What are your guys' thoughts? — Bob Ross

I would guess that a lot of the confusion derives from "the linguistic turn" in philosophy. Presumably the activists are basing their account at least in part on the idea that language is often gendered yet with subjective criteria (e.g. the Spanish word for giraffe (jirafa) is feminine, but this strikes English speakers as arbitrary). So an argument could be <Gender is being attached to language in arbitrary ways; [insert other inferences here]; ...Therefore gendered language as applied to humans and human activities is also arbitrary>. Much of this seems to be related to feminism, which covets the spheres of life that were traditionally male-dominated. Now bits and pieces of the premises being used are true, particularly when it comes to those places where arbitrariness crept in to human life, but the ultimate conclusions being drawn are invalid. It does not follow, for example, that sex and "gender" are not deeply interrelated. In a more general sense, language itself is not socially constructed in the way that linguistic philosophers claim.

Edit: A young theologian who has done a few explanatory pieces in this area is Jordan B. Cooper. For example, "Judith Butler on Gender Performativity."

Liberalism in America tends to want the social and legal acceptance of:

1. Sexually deviant, homosexual, and transgender behaviors and practices;
2. The treatment of people relative to what they want to be as opposed to what they are (e.g., gender affirmation, putting the preferred gender on driver’s licenses, allowing men to enter female bathrooms, allowing men to play in female sports, etc.);
3. No enforceable immigration policies;
4. Murdering of children in the womb;
Etc. — Bob Ross

1. i personally think it has to do with differences in terms of what rights people think they should have have...for example, lots of completely heterosexual liberals want people to freely practice "those deviant behaviors", but are indifferent as to whether or not they do it, it's a matter of what they should be allowed to do, rather than enforcing homosexuality...etc.

2. transgenderism in a legal framework, no unified agreement...not something i hear a lot of liberals advocating besides transexuals and their supporters

3. the "no enforcible immigration policies" is an extreme left-wing or anarchist point of view, it's not the kind of thing advocated by your typical liberal. Biden and Obama both intensely enforced immigration policy, the severe drop in mexican immigration we see now started at the end of the Biden administration...

I personally am against any kind of immigration enforcement, as i think people should be free to move where they need to, but "liberal" tends to mean accepting immigration enforcement but with a softer framing.

4. That's a fairly loaded way to discuss abortion, it's a purely moral framing as opposed to a consequentialist or ecnomic/social way of looking at the problem.

These are all differences in how people think policies should be shaped, none of them are really "agendas" unless you apply the same logic in reverse (i.e., opposition to gay marriage is a "conservative agenda"), it's a basic part of representative democracies for differences in opinion to exist.

The problem is more that your exposure has not been to more recent developments.

Liberalism in America tends to want the social and legal acceptance of:

1. Sexually deviant, homosexual, and transgender behaviors and practices;
2. The treatment of people relative to what they want to be as opposed to what they are (e.g., gender affirmation, putting the preferred gender on driver’s licenses, allowing men to enter female bathrooms, allowing men to play in female sports, etc.);
3. No enforceable immigration policies;
4. Murdering of children in the womb; — Bob Ross

From my perspective your language seems bigoted and cruel. But I do understand that people think this way.

I think progressives around the world would probably want:

1) For individuals to live free of bigotry and for homosexuality and trans people to be able to live as they want.

2) A woman's right to have bodily autonomy and self-determination.

I would agree with these too. I do believe in immigration policies, so let’s set that one aside.

I’m not a theorist, nor do I much care for the curlicues of argumentation about essentialism, sex, or whatever else people bring into this debate.

At its core, the trans issue is a matter of pragmatism. Trans people exist, have always existed, and will continue to exist, denying them serves no one. Why not simply accept this reality?

No doubt there are ways of regulating and incorporating trans people into society that work for most. Minor issues, such as prisons, toilets, or sport, can be resolved and are distractions from the deeper question of identity. I'm not interested in how we choreograph prisons or sport to accommodate an evolving understanding of gender. Let's leave those to social policy processes.

What do you have against trans people? Is it ultimately that you believe they go against God?

The problem is more that your exposure has not been to more recent developments. — Banno

That's a thin dismissal, void of any real argument or engagement. Beyond that, not a few have pointed out that your own approach is very limited in its exposure. Aristotelianism and Neo-Aristotelianism is one of the most influential philosophical traditions in all of human history, and it continues to flourish today even outside of the English-speaking world.

...we should scrap treating people based off of their nature — Bob Ross

And who is the arbiter of this "nature"?

The presumption that the contents of one's underpants ought determine one's social role is morally bankrupt.

I think, and correct me if I am misunderstanding, you are viewing gender and sex as distinct — Bob Ross

This is what gender ideology believes. In any modern day conversation about gender and regarding 'trans gender', the definition of sex and gender as written are completely separated.

I am purposefully retaining an equality between sex and gender to avoid ideological and political confusions and agendas. — Bob Ross

And that is an argument you can make. I'm simply noting that even if it were rationally a better decision, the genie has been let out of the bottle at this point and gender has also split off in these contexts as a cultural expectation of non-biological behavior for a sex. To insist we do not use this term of gender is to argue against a tsunami that it shouldn't crash on the land. The only thing to be done at this point is to establish the definition and context clearly. Meaning that if a conversation about gender is implying it in a cultural sense, it must be immediately exposed and countered if the term is switched to be synonymous with sex to avoid an equivalency fallacy.

In other words, there is nothing wrong with having different definitions for terms as long as that underlying meaning is clearly defined and unambiguous in its context.

I think under your view, and correct me if I am wrong, human beings are just a collection of organic parts; and so sex is purely the collection of organs and organic parts functioning together to provide some specific procreative role (e.g., maleness or femaleness). At this point, if we stipulate gender is equal to sex then you end up with essentially my view with respect to everything that truly matters for the political side of things; but under your view I would imagine gender is not identical to sex. — Bob Ross

Correct. And I am not saying there is anything wrong with taking the historical view of gender as equal to sex. I still think it can be used that way as long as everyone agrees on that definition in context. I am simply noting that there is a definition of gender that is not the same as sex, nor can ever be conflated with sex.

Gender, as far as I cant tell in your view, is the social expectations of a person with a particular sex—is that right? If so, then this is the meat of our disagreement; because I would say that, if I were to conceptually distinguish gender and sex, gender is the social expression of sex. — Bob Ross

Lets look at the terms side by side. You have gender as equal to sex, which is fine in many contexts. In the context I'm noting gender is completely separate from sex. So how would I define social expression of sex in the context of the terms being divided?

Sex - Expected social behavior based on biology. It is statistically more likely for men to be aggressive.
Gender - Expecting a man to be aggressive and thinking, "You're not a man if you're not aggressive" even though it is a statistical reality that there will always be men who are less aggressive than women on average. The expectation is not based on biological likelihood, but cultural prejudice and expectations despite biological reality.

I think true gender, if they be conceptually separable, is always properly connected back to biology; otherwise, like I noted before, it explodes into triviality, prejudice, and irrationality. — Bob Ross

In the definition above, anything connected back to biology is simply a biological association that naturally occurs. Gender is merely a separate decision of culture. Is that trivial, prejudice and irrational? I wouldn't argue that it isn't. :) However, for some culture is important. There is no biological reason for a woman to wear a dress or ribbons in their hair for example. Some people might be bothered by the fact of a man taking on culturally associated feminine clothing. Is that trivial? I think so, but I would be interested to hear other's take on it.

in your view ‘sex’ is just a collection of parts operating towards some procreative role and, consequently, there is no embodied essence of being a male or female; as each person is male or female only insofar as they sufficiently have enough of those parts and organic functions to count as one or the other. Technically, under this view, if you swap out enough sex-related parts of a human then you could achieve a sex change. — Bob Ross

Correct. If you could switch the reproductive organs in two bodies, then according to the definition of sex in biology, this would be an actual sex change. There are some animals that change sex in nature, and the primary definition of that sex change is a change in functional reproductive purpose. Of course, there would still be the DNA difference, bone structure, etc., and this would not be a natural change, so I doubt society would equate it to a 'natural male or female'. Currently the technology isn't there yet to have a serious debate about a sex change 'actually changing a person's sex'.

As for the embodied essence of male or female, its literally based on bodies. Take a sample of 100,000 men and you can get a predictable statistical analysis of the human male body. Height, voice, weight, etc. will fall into statistical norms and outliers. These expectations are not gender as I'm noting, they are simply biological realities of being the bodied sex you are.

Under my view, on the contrary, human beings have a real essence embodied in themselves. This ‘code of what it is to be a human male or female’ is not identical to DNA: it is really there in their soul, which is the form, the simple ‘I’, the unity, which guides their biological development. — Bob Ross

I understand the idea and I cannot say you are right or wrong. Only that I do not believe in a soul, so cannot hold this view.

Of course, I recognize that one could make an apolitical (virtual) distinction between sex and gender and note that sex is what really matters: I don’t have major issues with that. — Bob Ross

If gender and sex are separate as defined, then there is absolutely zero rational connection between one's gender having any justification for being in cross sex spaces.

You control what the average person believes by controlling the linguistics they have at their disposal. For people like me who want to conserve the meaning of marriage and do not support gay marriage, it naturally seems like a rhetorical attack to try to morph the term ‘marriage’ to include other types. Of course, if someone agrees with the political agenda of giving people a wide range of marriage types, then by all means they should morph the terms. — Bob Ross

True, you do control what the average person is allowed to think about by controlling the linguistics that they have at their disposal. But does that justify control from a religious viewpoint to a secular declaration of marriage? I would argue linguistic limitations to control thoughts is wrong no matter who is in control. The purpose of language is to give clear definitive thoughts for the purposes of communication. Any use of words which deviates from that is definitely open to criticism, but I think the definition of words themselves as a means of control is wrong.

My philosophy here is politically motivated, just to clarify. — Bob Ross

That's perfectly fair and your right. I bow out of political discussions as I'm more interested in the philosophical understanding of words and terms, not means of control. Further, I enjoy discussing with people of all political persuasions, and am much more interested in their reasoning than their politics.

Fantastic discussion as always Bob! We may be taking different viewpoints on some of this, but I do understand where you are coming from. Your political views are your own and I am fine with whatever they are.

But since I am a male, and a man, and have procreated as proof, I declare that long hair and flowers are male traits and symbols, and whatever behaviour I demonstrate is by definition masculine behaviour

As a side note, I commend and congratulate you on having a kid (or kids): having kids is a wonderful and challenging thing.

Your argument is not valid, though ):

You are arguing that “if a father exhibits a trait, then it must be masculine”; but this divorces masculinity from the nature of man and swaps it for whatever subjectively any given father does. As a clear demonstration of this absurdity, it leads to obvious contradictions: if father A plays chess, then chess is masculine; and if father B is against playing chess, then chess is not masculine. Now in the event that A and B are fathers it follows that playing chess is both masculine and not masculine.

:up:

What are your guys' thoughts? — Bob Ross

Well, let's see...

When conjoined with liberal agendas, it becomes incredibly problematic because it is used to forward the view that we should scrap treating people based off of their nature and instead swap it for treating them based off of their personality type; which is an inversion of ethics into hyper-libertarianism. — Bob Ross

Liberalism in America tends to want the social and legal acceptance of:

1. Sexually deviant, homosexual, and transgender behaviors and practices;
2. The treatment of people relative to what they want to be as opposed to what they are (e.g., gender affirmation, putting the preferred gender on driver’s licenses, allowing men to enter female bathrooms, allowing men to play in female sports, etc.);
3. No enforceable immigration policies;
4. Murdering of children in the womb; — Bob Ross

My thoughts are that all you're doing is cloaking bigotry with philosophy to give it the appearance of intellectual depth, as part of a hateful and destructive reactionary political and religious movement.

Thanks to @Banno and @Tom Storm for alerting me to this.

That's a thin dismissal, void of any real argument or engagement. — Leontiskos

Yes. That's what the OP deserves. In essence, it says that "if I ignore the difference between sex and gender, I can continue in my bigotry".

1. i personally think it has to do with differences in terms of what rights people think they should have have...for example, lots of completely heterosexual liberals want people to freely practice "those deviant behaviors", but are indifferent as to whether or not they do it, it's a matter of what they should be allowed to do, rather than enforcing homosexuality...etc.

Yes: this fits their liberal agenda of providing people with maximal choices to choose from and autonomy: the selling point of liberalism is that ethics is supposed to be divorced from politics. My point was that there are liberal agendas: you are shifting the goal-post.

2. transgenderism in a legal framework, no unified agreement...not something i hear a lot of liberals advocating besides transexuals and their supporters

What do you mean by transgenderism being a legal framework? It’s a ideological view that one can convert to a different gender.

Liberals are advocating for “transgender rights”, drag shows, etc. in America rit large: this is not a niche position that liberals support people having affirming gender care and being able to transition.

3. the "no enforcible immigration policies" is an extreme left-wing or anarchist point of view, it's not the kind of thing advocated by your typical liberal. Biden and Obama both intensely enforced immigration policy, the severe drop in mexican immigration we see now started at the end of the Biden administration...

That’s true; but right now we see people actively supporting illegal immigrants, even to the point of helping them evade ICE, and condemning mass deportations. Liberals don’t really support deportations in practice.

4. That's a fairly loaded way to discuss abortion, it's a purely moral framing as opposed to a consequentialist or ecnomic/social way of looking at the problem.

Consequentialism is a family of normative ethical theories; and morality is the only way to properly evaluate abortion. Economic and social aspects of the discussion only supplement the position one holds relative to ethics.

These are all differences in how people think policies should be shaped, none of them are really "agendas" unless you apply the same logic in reverse (i.e., opposition to gay marriage is a "conservative agenda"), it's a basic part of representative democracies for differences in opinion to exist.

An agenda is “the underlying intentions or motives of a particular person or group”. Unless you think that liberalism doesn’t by-at-large forward those positions, then I don’t know why you think it isn’t an agenda. Likewise, I agree that conservatives have agendas: I have agendas. Everyone has an agenda.

Lmao. You always do this: you posture without actually engaging with me. If you think there is some metaphysical theory out there that is better than my own view, then I am all ears as usual. You never provide any.

To be clear, I am not interested you just name dropping a book: I want you to forward a position that you find plausible that I can discuss with you. If you aren't up for the challenge, then I don't get the point in you posturing.

My thoughts are that all you're doing is cloaking bigotry with philosophy to give it the appearance of intellectual depth, as part of a hateful and destructive reactionary political and religious movement. — Jamal

There's a bit of this around these days. Metaphysics is a good place to hide.

If you think there is some metaphysical theory out there that is better than my own view, then I am all ears as usual. — Bob Ross

No, you are not. I can lead you to the water, and so on. Read some modal logic. Or read my many many posts on the topic. Essences are stipulated, not discovered. You are stipulating that there are two genders, determined by sex, and then pretending that this is a discovery, that it could not be otherwise.

1) For individuals to live free of bigotry and for homosexuality and trans people to be able to live as they want.

True, but this is the underlying reason why they support some of the agendas I gave: you are just supporting my claims here. I understand some of my language they would not agree with because it begs the question (like calling abortion murder), but generally those claims do hold.

2) A woman's right to have bodily autonomy and self-determination.

Yes, at the expense of murdering a child. Having an abortion is like hiring a hit man to solve your problems. I’m tired of people acting like abortion is a niche and complicated issue: by historical standards of murder, it is murder. No one would argue that, e.g., I didn’t commit murder if I used someone against their will as a shield to jump out of a window of a burning building to successfully save myself from the excruciating suffering of burning alive...even if it was the only way for me to save myself...and yet if a woman’s life is on the line in pregnancy its fine to directly intentionally kill the innocent person in the women.

The only complex aspect of abortion is whether or not one believes personhood begins at conception—not if autonomy “trumps” the right to life.

. Trans people exist, have always existed, and will continue to exist, denying them serves no one. Why not simply accept this reality?

I am not, nor is any mainstream conservative, arguing that trans people don’t exist: that would be silly. Trans people exist as a person of the gender they have independently of which gender they want to be: they exist as mentally ill people who desperately need our help to cure them. They have really high anxiety, depression, and suicidality that is needs to be addressed. Now, a liberal might argue that pragmatically the best way to deal with those symptoms is to affirm their gender: to conform their body to their mind; for me it is to conform their mind to their body.

Minor issues, such as prisons, toilets, or sport, can be resolved and are distractions from the deeper question of identity. I'm not interested in how we choreograph prisons or sport to accommodate an evolving understanding of gender. Let's leave those to social policy processes.

For you, then, what are the ‘major issues’ related to transgenderism?

What do you have against trans people? Is it ultimately that you believe they go against God?

I have love for transgender people as all people. I want them to be able to live their best lives; but living a good life is relative to the realization of their essence in existence—not bending reality to what they desire. I think we should have government programs for studying transgenderism to cure it and they should have programs that help transgenders be cured. Admitting that affirming transgenderism is immoral does not mean that we should stigmatize it and make it completely illegal to talk about it. We need to make transgender people feel welcome and safe enough to get help; just like we do with schizophrenics.

Cheers.

I'll leave the thread to you for now.

In my view the substantial form of the body, the soul, is what accounts for the nature of a human....

Instead of making baseless accusations, I would challenge you to actually contend with the points I made. It is uncontroversially true in America that what I explicated is the liberal agenda (although, as I noted to @Tom Storm, some of the language they will disagree with [like calling abortion murder]).