it's just about wanting to have a body shaped like a woman's body. — Pfhorrest

That clears it up to me. It's about how it feels to be in a body, and the desire to be in a body shaped like another's. What utility does the concept have? Are you trying to highlight body feelings in a discourse where performativity and social construction reigns?

Are you trying to highlight body feelings in a discourse where performativity and social construction reigns? — fdrake

Pretty much, yes. I've just come across situations where those don't line up, and think it's useful to be able to distinguish between them in those circumstances, just as it's useful to be able to talk about how either of them don't like up with sex, for the circumstances where that's the case.

Also, as I mentioned when discussing TERFs in the OP, I think a lot of the argument between them and transwomen can be boiled down to conflation of sociological gender and psychological bearing. It's possible to be gender-abolitionist like TERFs are but also accepting of the reality of trans people's inner mental states, but it's really hard to say you're against one and accepting of the other if we use the same word for both.

I no longer use the term "gender" in any other context than grammar. How many genders are there now? I've lost count. But it seems that the use of this word has only confused the debate around identity.

Bearing seems distingishing identity isn't about conforming to a standard or not, but a feature of one existing being. The trans women isn't a women because they have to meet a social standard of belonging to womanhood, but rather because they are a woman who happens to have dysphoria about their body.

To make the distinction clear, we might consider the person who has dysphoria about their body-- feels belonging with a body of breasts, a vagina, etc. -- but doesn't have any problem with an identity of male. (i.e. they are a MALE who feels/ought have a different body, rather than having an identity of woman. )

I wouldn't take bearing to be talking about the opposition to social construction. Social construction, in the modern usage, isn't a specific kind of cause (All social constructions involving a body have a biological cause involved! ), but a reference to a fact of existence which is a social practice. In this respect, all our identities and categories are social constructions because they are a contingent practice of our social existence.

I wouldn't take bearing to be talking about the opposition to social construction. Social construction, in the modern usage, isn't a specific kind of cause (All social constructions involving a body have a biological cause involved! ), but a reference to a fact of existence which is a social practice. In this respect, all our identities and categories are social constructions because they are a contingent practice of our social existence. — TheWillowOfDarkness

:100:

And maybe let's all just ignore Swan from now on. — pfhorrest

Lil' bitchy, huh? Sounds like ... must've shrunk a nerve. :yikes:

I'm having a hard time understanding you, but to clarify myself in case there's a misunderstanding there: I'm not at all saying that bearing is about "the opposition to social construction" at all. It's just a distinction from gender the social construct, a different thing we might want to talk about independent of the other thing.

You might like to think of it as one of the factors underlying gender the social construct, one step less removed than sex itself, since as I've said a few times already, it looks like bearing is sort of the glue between sex and gender identity: sex strongly influences bearing but the two can come apart, and bearing strongly influences gender identity but the two can come apart; so usually someone's gender identity will follow their bearing which will follow their sex, but someone might identify differently than they bear, and might bear elsewhere than their birth sex.

And since gender itself can be broken down into more than just gender identity, but also gender presentation and role, we could further break down the chain within just "gender". And of course we could further break down sex as well. In the end we might have a picture something like:

Chromosomal sex strongly influences but does not completely determine
Gonadal sex which strongly influences but does not completely determine
Sex hormones which strongly influence but do not completely determine
External sexual characteristics which strongly influence but do not completely determine
Bearing which strongly influences but does not completely determine
Gender identity which strongly influences but does not completely determine
Gender presentation which strongly influences but does not completely determine
Gender role.

In other words, e.g. society will most probably treat as women people who present as women, who will probably be people who identify as women, who will probably be people who want to have female bodies, who will probably be people who were born with female bodies, who will probably be people with a low androgen ratio, who will probably be people without testes, who will probably people without Y chromosomes. But that's a lot of "probably"s, and there are exceptions every step of the way.

Sounds like ... must've shrunk a nerve. — 180 Proof

Sounds like you can't even use an idiom correctly.

Thank you for making it so clear who can be safely ignored around these parts.

What utility does the concept have? Are you trying to highlight body feelings in a discourse where performativity and social construction reigns? — fdrake

This is intricately tied in with "being able to pass". The less you look like the gender you feel like, the more often you will have to justify your feelings. Even well meaning people might treat you like a rare specimen. So you might have an operation, or you might only go for hormone treatment, but you can do little about bone structure. Now, that might not be a thing that bothers you, but the incongruity between how your looks are intuitively parsed and how you feel inside leads to an increased need to justify yourself, especially when there's thing you could do but don't want to (I've heard about peer pressure to take voice lessons, for example). That is, during the transition phase there might be a conflict between being at peace with yourself, and being at peace with the community you live in (and that can include the trans community, who are trying to help).

So, the regular pressures to behave according to your genders can be exacerabated when you're trans, because - other than cis-gendered people - there's a need to legitimise your gender. So a transwoman may need to show an effort to be more "feminine" to prove that she's not faking it. You can't prove feelings easily, so all that's left is behaviour.

If we were to accept that (a) trans people exist, and that (b) it's not all and not primarily about outward behaviour, we would adapt our expectation and lessen the burden of proof on daily life.

And now switch perspectives. You're a woman, you're not that interested in conventionally feminine things, but you live in an environment where people keep expecting this. The constant need to explain yourself would be tedious, too. Then you see a transwoman take voice lessons. Maybe she doesn't quite pull it off, yet? This behaviour has as a side-effect the re-inforcement of the annoying gender expectation you have to correct again and again and again.

So at that point, if we would accept that it's primarily about internal body-image (to be at peace with yourself), and we'd just get used to a trans status, then some of the behaviour might fall by the wayside, and behaviour would be more... instinctive?

A trans woman isn't a cis woman, and they know that or there'd be no point to use the word. But that's sort of the big default concept. If we were to accept that a trans woman is not a cis woman, it wouldn't be a surprise for a transwoman to retain some pre-transition elements, if we just took the category for what it is. Otherwise there's a constant need to prove yourself, and the only real option in daily life re-inforces gendered stereotypes. And in turn people think that's what it's about. There's a social push and pull here, that maybe could be lessened by simply accepting the category with all its variations.

(I'm talking mostly about trans women here because they're far more visible online than trans men.)

Well put.

Lil' bitchy, huh? Sounds like ... must've shrunk a nerve. :yikes: — 180 Proof

:death: :flower:

70 posts so far. I've read many and my head's awhirl. Is it possible to express in maybe three well-crafted sentences, no more, what this thread is about?

I'll provide my thought as example - but if anyone doesn't like it, please do not waste time on it. It's sourced in ignorance and I'm looking for clarity.

1) Male or female, the two options from time immemorial, have not been a comfortable fit for all persons. 2) Much injustice has been done to those for whom it's not a good fit. 3) The movement over the last maybe 70 years, most of it much more recent, is to more justice and less/no injustice, the development of new vocabularies to adequately name new sensitivities, and a radical licensing of new behaviours and entitlements, founded on and justified by, apparently, just how some folks feel about it.

Is it possible to express in maybe three well-crafted sentences, no more, what this thread is about? — tim wood

Current discourse differentiates between "sex" and "gender". But "gender" has several different meanings in different contexts, causing some confusion and conflict. I propose also disambiguating the sociological and psychological properties that are each sometimes called "gender", leaving "gender" meaning the sociological property, and calling the psychological property now distinguished from it "bearing" instead; keeping the physical property "sex" still a distinct thing from either of them.

Someone just sent me an amusing photo of a blue wheelie bin, with the traditional sharpie legend added: "I identify as a green bin." Unfortunately I cannot share the picture.

It is quite unambiguously a blue bin as to colour, and colour denotes function in the recycling world. Now some folks would claim that a blue bin remains a blue bin whatever is written on it, and whatever contents are put in it and even if it goes to the trouble of painting itself green, it remains a tragically vandalised blue bin.

Others would say that a blue bin can be repurposed as a green bin either by its own declaration or by donning the garb and content of a green bin.

Others find the whole thing confusing and unsettling.

If anyone is offended at my trivialising of this topic, I apologise, but it seems to me that depersonalising the issues allows one to see that the whole thing is a bureaucratic dispute and remains trivial even if it results in the extremity of extermination camps. The contents of my underpants and the contents of my bins are nobody's business but those that have have to deal with them.

Edit. If you would like to apply, please form an orderly queue.

Edit 2. Such is the bureaucracy of identity: the harsh "reality" of which side of an imaginary line you were born on, what colour your skin is, whether your parents frequented a mosque or a synagogue, and what you have in your underpants and how well it conforms to the hair on your face, and the width of your hips determine where you can live and with whom, what job you can do and whether or not you get paid, and every facet of your life and death.

It obviously depends upon how the bin feels.

Well what the bin says is what is written on it, but how the bin feels 'inside' is the nature of the rubbish it contains. So although it may have the external characteristics of a blue bin, it could contain the rubbish appropriate to a green bin. But if the binmen are too rigid in their identifications, they will disregard the bin's claims and contents both and refuse to empty is as if it were green. "It has blue junk, it is a blue bin." It all depends if they are more concerned with the recycling of rubbish or the maintenance of a strict colour code.

Thank you.

@TheWillowOfDarkness

I think the thrust of the idea is to place the onus on sensations or senses of accord with one's body as it regards gender, like 'how does my immersion in social constructions impact my relationship with my body?'. Whether that relationship is socially mediated or cashed out/expressed in gendered social archetypes/gendered signifiers is ephemeral.

I don't think it being 'cashed out in social archetypes or gendered signifiers' is quite the same thing as reinforcing gendered stereotypes? Structurally maybe quite similar? Guess it depends on how norms and expectation entangle.

Too much 'reasoning from feelings' around here (pace Hume) and not enough feeling from (our) reasons going on. So triviality it is. Some precious idioms, y'know, just can't grok idiots for f*ck's sake. :zip:

Someone just sent me an amusing photo of a blue wheelie bin, with the traditional sharpie legend added: "I identify as a green bin." Unfortunately I cannot share the picture.

It is quite unambiguously a blue bin as to colour, and colour denotes function in the recycling world. Now some folks would claim that a blue bin remains a blue bin whatever is written on it, and whatever contents are put in it and even if it goes to the trouble of painting itself green, it remains a tragically vandalised blue bin.

Others would say that a blue bin can be repurposed as a green bin either by its own declaration or by donning the garb and content of a green bin.

Others find the whole thing confusing and unsettling.

If anyone is offended at my trivialising of this topic, I apologise, but it seems to me that depersonalising the issues allows one to see that the whole thing is a bureaucratic dispute and remains trivial even if it results in the extremity of extermination camps. — unenlightened

:naughty:

Just now my morning blues went green with [insert] envy, dude. :vomit: Brilliant!

I think the thrust of the idea is to place the onus on sensations or senses of accord with one's body as it regards gender, like 'how does my immersion in social constructions impact my relationship with my body?' — fdrake

As the originator of the idea (of bearing): no, not really. It's meant to be about "sensations or senses of accord with one's body as it regards" sex, the physical stuff, not gender the social stuff. If you're stranded alone on a deserted island with no clothes and no other people and no job but to eat from the plentiful tropical fruits as desired, how do you feel when you look down your body and see your chest and crotch and so on? Nothing in particular because it's fine and normal? Revulsion and discomfort because it's wrong wrong wrong? "Okay I guess" but you'd rather some things be different? That's the thing I'm calling "bearing", and it is definitionally independent of social factors. (But, as elaborated before, social factors may be partially dependent on it).

"Identifying" is a social matter, already covered by the usual term "gender identity". I'm not proposing anything new with regards to that, but rather distinguishing something else as different from that. I guess to use your bins analogy, the closest thing to it would be the contents of the bin, which are different from its color or the label on it; but there's a bit of a problem with that analogy because the contents of a bin depend on how people use the bin, which makes this still an analogy for social things.

Unpacking the analogy: if green bins are for composting and blue bins are for recycling, but there's some green bin that people put bottles and cans in for some reason, then it makes sense to call that a recycle bin, not a compost bin, because that's what it's used for, even though it's green like a compost bin. That's "gender" the social construct: a recycle bin is a bin used for recycling, regardless of color; a woman is someone treated as a woman, regardless of sex. Putting a label on a bin / identifying as a gender is a signal to treat the bin / person in that way.

But bins don't have feelings. A blue bin can't want to be green. But a male person can want to be female. So the analogy breaks when you try to use it to talk about the actual topic of this thread, this new concept "bearing" I'm coining: the analogous thing would be "what color the bin wants to be", not what label it has, not what's inside of it, not what color it is. But bins don't want things, so there is no analogue there.

But bins don't have feelings. — Pfhorrest

Damn, I knew there was a flaw in the analogy. :razz: But what I am suggesting is that you don't need to find ever more criteria by which to classify yourself. You are just pandering to the bureaucrats and their box ticking mentality. I am the epitome of my own self, complete with whatever exact combination of behaviours, desires, clothes, physique, ambivalent feelings about myself or someone else I might happen to have from time to time. And other peoples' labels can fuck off. There is a special gender for for folk with this attitude - 'Ornery bugger'.

Please don't assume the square plastic blue containers' type. We don't know if it's a bin or not. It could be a large tupperwear container or a water bottle. Depends on it's feelings.

You don't know, but I have seen the picture and I know my own analogy. It's a blue bin with writing on and wheels. And I say if the writing says it's green, then should be treated as green because the writer and owner of the bin is treating it as green. You, I suspect, want it to be treated as a blue bin because the colour of the bin is blue. And that is a pedantic bureaucratic idiotically literalist position, that fails to do the job.

What I've never understood is the fact that all of this "gender fluidity" stuff seems to be buying into stereotypes about biological sex hook, line and sinker, and in that, it seems to be identifying gender and sex after all.

If one is NOT buying into those stereotypes, then being a female or male biologically would have ZERO connotations about who you're attracted to, what you want to look like, what you want your body to be like, how you behave. If you're a biological male, then the answers to all of those questions for you would be something that a biological male is like. Likewise if you're a biological female.

The only reason there would be any need to create a separate concept of gender would be that one is going to kowtow to stereotypes, so that if you're a biological female, but you feel certain ways about your body, etc., you're "no longer a biological female in terms of gender." But that seems nonsensical to me.

it's just about wanting to have a body shaped like a woman's body. — Pfhorrest

This, for example: If you're a biological male, then any conceivable way your body is shaped, or any possible way that you shape it via modifications, is a way that biological males can be. If you're a biological male, then you can't be some way that's not a biological male. However you are is a way that biological males can be. Otherwise one is just kowtowing to some bs stereotypes.

Otherwise one is just kowtowing to some bs stereotypes. — Terrapin Station

Bs stereotypes are irresistible. If the SS says you are a Jew, you're a Jew.

2×

"Jock-a-mo fee-no ai na-né,
jock-a-mo fee na-né"

:clap: :party:

If you're a biological male, then any conceivable way your body is shaped, or any possible way that you shape it via modifications, is a way that biological males can be. If you're a biological male, then you can't be some way that's not a biological male. — Terrapin Station

No. Matter. How. you Feel. grrl ...

You’re talking about something unrelated to the topic of this thread. This isn’t about “identifying” or any other social thing, this is about having the language to talk about how people feel about their bodies without referencing all that social stuff. Not about pronouns, not about clothes, not about who you want to fuck. And if we’re not referencing social things at all, we can’t be referencing stereotypes.

Everyone seems to want to use this thread as an excuse to rehash the same tired old opinions about social gender, when the entire point of it is to create a way that we don’t have to talk about that stuff.

this is about having the language to talk about how people feel about their bodies without referencing all that social stuff. — Pfhorrest

Meanwhile the title of the thread is "Disambiguating the concept of gender"??

Yes, because the concept of "gender" is used both to refer to the social stuff and to the feelings about your physical sex, and I want to disambiguate that, so that we can talk about one without having to talk about the other.

The problem is "blue bin" and "green bin" both have the same necessary attributes to be the "same bins, in different clothing".

That is not true for humans. That gist of my very first post here. A male human lacks the necessary biological attributes to be female (as I said in my first post), a 'male' cannot be considered a 'female' without transitioning said attributes, 'augmentation' and changing superficial opposite sex attributes is not a 'transition' of necessary attributes to the other, it is a cosmetic procedure, not different from a 'female' having a double mastectomy from breast cancer.

OP is attempting to divorce the "females/males" from society. He cannot do that. Even in Germany, say, if all the "women genders" wore suits and ties, and in American they all wear "skirts and dresses," the trans individual would follow any 'social construct' present to mimick the female sex embedded in society, not the 'woman'. The female sex is not a stereotype. There is no possible way to divorce humans embedded so deeply into social existence as someone already said the way OP posits. You cannot "split" up the whole into parts at an attempt to be less ambiguous.

Removing the social construct from it contradicts transgenderism. OP does not work. Gender neutral and trans cannot co-exist. One is incoherent or both. I say both.

Repeating the same incoherent nonsense isn't going to make it any more correct.

People can have feelings about the shape of their bodies independent of social factors, and vice versa. I have first and second hand experience of this (recall the transwomen tomboys I mentioned earlier), and it such an obvious thing I cannot believe it generates any controversy. All I'm proposing is that we use different words for the different things so that we can talk about that without confusion.

But you're an obvious bigot who just said both gender neutral societies and trans people are "incoherent", so I don't know why I'm violating my policy of ignoring you to say this.

Bs stereotypes are irresistible. If the SS says you are a Jew, you're a Jew. — unenlightened

Exactly.