Is she pregnant or not? What test was used? What was its accuracy? Will she carry to term? What was the purpose of the question about pregnancy and who was asking it, and who were they addressing? All these contextual things and many more go into any supposedly simple black and white yes or no question. — Joshs

I'm afraid I don't see how this would affect the statements "I am pregnant" or "I am not pregnant." What does it matter if woman said she was pregnant after using A test versus B test? What does it matter if she will carry it to term? These questions are all irrelevant. They have no affect on whether or not the answer to the question is violent or not. If you think otherwise, please define "violent" and explain your reasoning.

They are a part of what the answer means.

I don't understand how. Can you please explain to me how the meaning of the phrase "I am pregnant" differs when a woman uses an accurate versus inaccurate test or whether or not she will carry it to term.

Much more important than a yes or no to a question, is the significance of the distinction. What will happen as a consequence of the answer is a function of all the superordinate meanings and commitments, personal, social, cultural, that are tied up with it. Gay vs straight vs trams matters in a way that penis vs vagina do not, because they refer to deeper issues of meaning distinctions involving whole ways of behaving and societal reaction to them.

So, it's not the "irreducible distinctions" that make language violent, at least not by itself, but the contexts with which it is spoken? Is that what you're saying.

it would teach us all a great deal if we had to spend a week in another persons shoes. — charleton

A whole week! I thought walking in somebody's shoes for a mile was enough.

like the postmodernism generator. — czahar

So nice to see a mention of an old friend, after all these years.

If one examines Batailleist `powerful communication’, one is faced with a choice: either accept realism or conclude that sexual identity, perhaps ironically, has intrinsic meaning, given that consciousness is interchangeable with narrativity. Thus, la Fournier[2] states that we have to choose between the textual paradigm of context and prematerialist narrative. Sontag promotes the use of Marxist capitalism to attack hierarchy...

it would teach us all a great deal if we had to spend a week in another persons shoes.
— charleton

A whole week! I thought walking in somebody's shoes for a mile was enough. — Bitter Crank

For some it can take a week to cover a mile.

Are you saying transgender people walk slower than cisgender people?! That kind of bigotry will not be tolerated here.

Sometimes one hears about a "post-racial society" and then something happens which pretty much obliterates the idea that we are anywhere close to being a post-racial society.

If we were a post-racial society, then we would think about race as much as people today think about phrenology - measuring the bumps and indentations in your skull to learn about one's personality. We don't think about phrenology. We are a post-phrenology society. Post racial? Not even close. — Bitter Crank

I can see society without race.

But gender seems to be too much a part of culture to be discarded. Among other things, there are not racial roles, but there definitely are gender roles.

Among other things, there are not racial roles, but there definitely are gender roles. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Do you think stereotypes or expectations about the way people of different races should act would fall under the category of "roles"?

You are right, the argument is nonsense. The whole foofaraw about trans stuff is beneath contempt, it's just another attempt by the PC cult to silence ideas it doesn't like and gain institutional power. It's a mind-virus.

There's an old story somewhere (can't remember the source) about the difference between carpeting the world with leather to make it comfortable to walk on, and wearing shoes. There is no right not to be offended, there is no right to expect the world to bend to your preferences for how you'd like people to speak.

The notion that speech is violence is a metaphor gone haywire.

No, obviously not. How is this thread four pages long....

", I really don't think these things have anything to do with sexual orientation. Some straight men are very feminine, some gay men are very masculine."
I think prenatal hormonal effects on brain organization that produced the male - female cognitive and affective differences that come up again and again in research studies have a great deal to do with sexual orientartion. Of course there will always be outliers; feminine acting males who are only attracted to women, etc, but I think there is a causative relation between sexual attraction and gender related brain physiology.
Sex is a dance, and it involves a complementary of behavioral traits. A ' typical' heterosexual male with male brain physiology will have a certain erotic 'dance' style, aggressive, impulsive, dominating, emotionally unself-aware. In short, the constellation of behaviors that appear in gendered brain studies. A typical female will have opposing affective relational tendencies, and the contrast between the two forms the erotic dance and the attraction.
Among many gay men, it's less of a complementarity than it is a ' twinning'. Both men in the dance have an equal share of male and female behavioral traits, and so the mirror each other more than complement each other.
For many gay men, the idea of being in command, being the decisive one i he way that many women expect from men, is erotically repulsive because they perceive their behavioral and erotic style as more yielding and finns the dynamism and commanding nature of another man to be erotically exciting, the very traits that would repulse many heterosexual men. The look and feel of a male body is erotic in what it represents about the way that body is designed to behave. Large, muscular , hairy, forceful is what a male body implies in comparison to a female body.
You'll see interesting mixes of bodies in the gay community. Musclemen who combine elements of domination and strength with softness and femininity in themselves, and this would be expected if the gendered brain is halfway between a masculinized and a feminized organization.
Yes, you'll find all kinds of exceptions to the dynamic I've described.
But if you agree that gendered brain organization is real and is a consistent factor in male-female behavioral differences that form the kind of pattern of traits that researchers see, it would seem odd to deny that such differences would not affect sexual attraction, even if there are many other factors involved.

What's being attacked if the metaphor of violence is to be used is a part of the self that is essential to self-understanding (not so for all assumptions), extremely socially vulnerable (unlike most religious beliefs) and not a simple delusion (hallucinations etc). — Baden

First of all, you need to school yourself in the difference between delusions and hallucinations. All knowledge is essential to self-understanding, and getting it right (true knowledge) is even more essential. What is being attacked is an assumption. What basis does anyone claim that they are a man or a woman, when they physically aren't?

People who are delusional are extremely vulnerable to their delusion being questioned. They become humorless, offended, etc. that their premise is being questioned. That is the symptom of a delusion.

Your post suggests that 1) transwomen are men and that 2) it isn't violence to tell the truth. We're probably never going to agree about 1), so let's address 2):

Is telling a fat and ugly person that they're fat and ugly a form of violence? If we accept that the term "violence" covers psychological violence, and not just physical violence, then I think it is a form of violence. It's certainly something people say to bully. — Michael

Correction. My post suggest that transwomen are men that think that they are women. What is the difference between a transwoman and a man who thinks he is a woman to you?

Come on, Michael. I know you're smarter than that. "Ugly" is a subjective term, first of all, so let's dispense with that, and focus on, "fat". We have measuring sticks for measuring obesity, but not for measuring ugliness.

Is it not violent to allow themselves to keep being fat? What about calling them, "obese"? Does that have a less offensive tone to it? Is it violent to tell a person starving themselves because they think they are fat that they aren't in order to save their life? You seem to think that every time someone uses these words they intend to be insulting, just like you seem to think that someone is trying to be insulting to a person who thinks they are a woman, by telling them that they are a man who thinks they are a woman, not actually a woman. One is trying to help another out by showing them the truth. It's something people CAN say to bully, but not necessarily. That's the problem. You all tend to think that because someone doesn't agree with you, they are being offensive.

This probably says something negative about me, but the violence to grammar bothers me more than the sexual identify issue. — T Clark

Yup, this is a pretty fucking idiotic attitude to have. Especially more to be conscious about. — Akanthinos

You can tell how old this is by the popular culture references - late 80s early 90s.

You seem to think that every time someone uses these words they intend to be insulting — Harry Hindu

I don't. Something can be unintentionally insulting.

When I said that "it's certainly something people say to bully" I was simply pointing out that "it's true" isn't a defence against the accusation of violence, which seemed to be the defence you were going for.

So, the case being made is that (some) trans people need me to validate their particular conception of gender identity. Depriving them of this validation is violence on my part.

But this is crazy. Identities don't exist in a private vacuum. They're functions of each other, socially negotiated and defined by contrast. If I treat my own identity as equally sacrosanct, an impasse immediately arises. I'm something different from a female to male transsexual. If the distinction is important to me and others refuse to acknowledge it, we'd have to consider that violence too.

I don't require others to validate my identity. It's a pathological endeavor and it would entail coercing others to privilege my identity over their own. Ironically, that's much closer to violence than the claim being examined in the OP.

“ When a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence.” — xoai pham

If we look at the definition of "violence" I think that, actually, it is correct.

Violence:
noun
1. swift and intense force:
the violence of a storm.
2. rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment:
to die by violence.
3. an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws:
to take over a government by violence.
4. a violent act or proceeding.
5. rough or immoderate vehemence, as of feeling or language:
the violence of his hatred.
6. damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration:
to do editorial violence to a text.

What may muddy the water (because the water is really effing muddy) is the phrasing "act of" which leads the reader to make the assumption that there is a physical act rather than a purely linguistic one. I also think, in the interest of charity, the author was speaking about an intentionally "vehement" or "immoderate" expression meant for psychological harm, hence the

culture that threatens trans women’s lives is reinforced. — xoai pham

When people support the conditions that create violence, they are also committing violence. They’re simply ensuring that someone else will be doing the work of murder. — xoai pham

And here is where the rhetoric comes in.

Hidden premises, in my view, come in at:
1. "people support the conditions" - since "conditions" is plural, only people who are aware of and support ALL conditions and ALL effects of those conditions contained within the set may be considered to be party to the negative outcomes associated with them. By the logic presented, if I support the Olympics, then by default I am guilty of Dr. Larry Nassar's sexual abuse of teenage Olympians? No.

2. "conditions that create violence" - "conditions" here seem to mean "culture" since I can love the conditions of a thunderstorm but still not be guilty of doing violence to a transgender that is hit by lightning. So it should be restated that if by supporting a "culture" that intentionally suppresses the rights of transgender expression, then we could be inadvertantly encouraging violence of others against transgenders.

The equivocation is with the word 'violence' - switching from linguistic/conceptual violence to actual physical violence (murder). Calling a transgender woman a man is violence to their self expressed trans-identity under the definition of violence, but it is NOT the same as the physical violence (self inflicted or otherwise) that would lead to the death of that transgender.

Many trans women of color barely make it past their 30s; their average age of death mirrors the life expectancy of a baby born more than 5000 years ago. — xoai pham

So are these "conditions" being condemned only for trans women of color? The argument doesn't seem to make the case for all transgender then, only transgender of color. (it could be said that the word "color" here is supporting the "conditions of racism" by acknowledging a false distinction between humans not based in biology/genetics and therefore the author is guilty of lynching...if we use the same sort of rhetoric).

I get the anger, I get the fight to survive, to be acknowledged, to be accepted as human, and to have the same rights afforded to others. I totally agree with and support the author in those fights...but leave the PoMo rhetoric and guilt trip out of it please (imo).

Do you think stereotypes or expectations about the way people of different races should act would fall under the category of "roles"? — czahar

No.

I know if I am or am not being a man--I am or am not opening doors for women; I am or am not being a protector and provider; I am or am not sexually active.

I know if I am or am not being a civilian; citizen; worker; elite; etc.

There is no such thing with respect to race.

If you disagree, then tell me how I know if I am being " white". If I am failing at being "white", who would be a good role model for me? Do you not hear how ridiculous that sounds?

I know if I am or am not being a man--I am or am not opening doors for women; I am or am not being a protector and provider; I am or am not sexually active. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

But these things are also stereotypes, so you're sort of shooting yourself in the foot.

The truth is that these "roles" you're talking about are all based on stereotypes, whether they're gender roles or race roles or whatever the case may be. So, you can either say that these roles are legitimate or that they're not, but you can't cherry pick.

But these things are also stereotypes, so you're sort of shooting yourself in the foot.

The truth is that these "roles" you're talking about are all based on stereotypes, whether they're gender roles or race roles or whatever the case may be. So, you can either say that these roles are legitimate or that they're not, but you can't cherry pick. — JustSomeGuy

None of this tells me how I know if I am or am not playing this "white" role well or who would be a good role model for me.

I do not believe that the social role of "white" exists. A white person might be more likely to have a role like master and less likely to have a role like servant, but that doesn't make "white" a role.

how I know if I am or am not playing this "white" role well... — WISDOMfromPO-MO

If you don't know, then you're not.

None of this tells me how I know if I am or am not playing this "white" role well or who would be a good role model for me.

I do not believe that the social role of "white" exists. A white person might be more likely to have a role like master and less likely to have a role like servant, but that doesn't make "white" a role. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

So you want me to tell you what white stereotypes are? I recommend Chappelle's Show, Key and Peele, or any standup special of any black comedian ever. There are plenty of comedians of other races, as well, who have spoken about things that are "white" or that white people do. It's most often discussed in comedy because talking about racial stereotypes in a serious manner makes people so uncomfortable, but I think you're being dishonest if you claim they don't exist, or that they're somehow different from gender stereotypes. They clearly aren't, and I don't understand how you can't see that.

Here's a skit from Chappelle's Show that illustrates it quite well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5MHNvjw7o

So you want me to tell you what white stereotypes are? — JustSomeGuy

No.

If "white" is a social role, tell us how one knows if he/she is or is not successfully acting in that role.

Living up to stereotypes is not acting in a role.

Living up to stereotypes is not acting in a role. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I never said it was, you did--that's been my point this whole time.

I know if I am or am not being a man--I am or am not opening doors for women; I am or am not being a protector and provider; I am or am not sexually active. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

You listed some stereotypes, claiming that doing them would mean you are "acting in the role of man".

These "roles" you speak of are just stereotypes. I don't open doors for women, I am not a protector or a provider, I am not sexually active. According to you, I am not a man because I don't do these stereotypical "male" things. And yet despite not doing any of them, I am a man. It's almost as if being a man means nothing more than having a Y chromosome, just as being white means nothing more than having a certain skin tone....anything beyond that is a stereotype.

I do not believe that the social role of "white" exists. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Of course the social role of "white" exists; and "black" and "gay" and all others. Stereotypes and social roles exist because we are not all one big cultural frappe, the same everywhere. Cultural groups are just unique enough to be noticeable. So, what is the "white" social role? Among other things, it's a distinctive kind of language (depending on geography); it's certain kinds of food and clothing preferences; it's a way of relating to institutions (like the police or government officials) that is a bit different than other people's; it's a generally practiced style of self-presentation. Han Chinese, Nigerians, Argentinians, Ugandans, Indonesians, Zimbabweans, Russians, Peruvians, French, Italians, Swedish, Canadians... pick a group, any group, and there will be a certain style of "XYZ" culture which will be unique to a particular time and place.

At the risk of sticking my neck out into dangerously un-PC territory, I think maybe what WfPOMO might be saying is that there is arguably a male role that is derived from some set of rationally justifiable beliefs about being male, whereas the 'white' role is only stereotypes, nothing more than the pursuit of power evident in all humanity which, means that, by virtue of historical power plays alone, whites have largely adopted expressions of power where they can. Nothing about being 'white' directly caused them to do this.

A 'male' role is arguably, not a role a woman would adopt even if they could. According to the logic behind it, its largely to do with greater average physical strength and the inability to suckle children. So, the theory goes, women would not adopt the typical male roles because they are not, on average, stronger, and they can suckle children. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this argument (although I have a great deal of sympathy for it), I'm just saying there is one.

With race, however, whilst a few extreme racists exist who have ideas about racial differences leading to behavioural differences, most people who exhibit 'white' stereotypes do so by virtue of the historical context alone, meaning that had history taken a different route, blacks would have adopted this role instead.

So the argument is, nothing about their 'whiteness' causes them directly to adopt this role, whereas something about a man's 'male-ness' causes him to adopt the roles he does.

I don't. Something can be unintentionally insulting. — Michael

And that is a problem with the listener, not the speaker. You can be unintentionally insulting to a schizophrenic as well. Being offended by questioning some baseless premise is the symptom of a delusion.

When I said that "it's certainly something people say to bully" I was simply pointing out that "it's true" isn't a defence against the accusation of violence, which seemed to be the defence you were going for. — Michael

Exactly. It's not violent to use words. It is violent to allow people with a sickness to keep thinking they aren't sick. You didn't address the rest of my post where I made that point. Instead, you chose to cherry-pick my post, while ignoring other pertinent questions, like "What is the difference between a transwoman and a man who thinks he is a woman to you?"

Is thinking you are a member of the opposite sex EVER a mental illness? If not, then why are other instances of thinking that you are something other than what you are (a vampire, God, Elvis's long lost son or daughter, a different race, a different size, etc,.) a mental illness?

Whole societies are capable of mass delusion when they are inconsistent in their application of logic as the result of allowing the feelings of a few people who have trouble facing reality dominate the rest of us. The application of logic and reason can hurt feelings, ESPECIALLY when you have a severe emotional investment to what it is that logic/reason and empirical evidence show aren't true.

Sometimes when I debate a theists, I feel like I'm taking ice cream away from a child. Their beliefs are needed in order to stay sane and to function in society. Not knowing is a terrible feeling for them. Questioning their belief has an emotional impact on them. Religion is just another mass delusion, fed by a society who regurgitates theses ideas and reinforcing them in society. There is no logic or reason imposed - just an appeal to the majority and the character assassination of those who question these baseless ideas. The same is the case for the transgender movement.

Do we want to get at the truth of why these people have these feelings, or are we only concerned about their feelings? Truth or feelings? Which is it?

Exactly. It's not violent to use words. — Harry Hindu

If they harm someone, then it is.

It is violent to allow people with a sickness to keep thinking they aren't sick. You didn't address the rest of my post where I made that point. Instead, you chose to cherry-pick my post, while ignoring other pertinent questions, like "What is the difference between a transwoman and a man who thinks he is a woman to you?"

The rest of your post wasn't relevant to my criticism, which is that "it's true" isn't a satisfactory defense against accusations of violence/abuse/insult. I've already said that we're never going to agree on whether or not transwomen are women, so there's no point rehashing those old arguments.

And that is a problem with the listener, not the speaker.

That depends entirely on context.

If they harm someone, then it is. — Michael

You harm a delusional person by telling them their delusion is false. That is a moral dilemma we often face: Should I tell the person the truth and hurt their feelings, or lie to them to save their feelings?

Socrates says that the greatest good is knowledge and the greatest evil is ignorance. So which is actually more harmful - the truth or remaining ignorant?

The rest of your post wasn't relevant to my criticism, which is that "it's true" isn't a satisfactory defense against accusations of violence/abuse/insult. I've already said that we're never going to agree on whether or not transwomen are women, so there's no point rehashing those old arguments. — Michael

It's not an old argument. You haven't even asked that question of yourself. I know, because you're performing these wacked mental gymnastics in order to avoid answering the question. Answer the question, as it will help us both understand where it is you are coming from because as it stands right now, you are being inconsistent.