The reason I won't call you "king" is that you don't think yourself a king. Transsexuals are not confused as to what their biology is or in what distinguishes them from other people. There is no delusionary thinking and there is no confusion. They are simply using a word to designate themselves with a full understanding of who they actually are. — Hanover
So, when a biologically born male who is now presenting as a female uses the pronoun "she," she is not then saying she was born a female. She is using the term for one thing and you for another and then you attempt to use your term on her, thus the equivocation fallacy I've pointed out. Her pronoun use doesn't have ontological impact. — Hanover
That is, if you called yourself "king" because you used that term to describe being the first born in your family, I could not declare you a liar because you aren't a monarch. You never intended the term to be used that way and didn't try to trick anyone into thinking you were actually a king. — Hanover
Logic schmlogic though. You have a bone to pick with the transsexuals, so go forth and ridicule them and tell them you must be a sheepdog because you feel it in your heart and soul and so you demand to be called Fido. — Hanover
Well no, the violation of reason begins with the violation of the law of identity. A male is a male forever, as determined by the male's genetic composition. "She" will always maintain the final authority over her own usage of words and the manner in which they are employed. However, I will maintain the exact same authority in the opposite direction. And her pronoun does begin to have an ontological valence at the very moment that the individual in question places an expectation of a particular kind of usage of language on the part of others. Especially a usage that violates a persons individual paradigm and coherent understanding of a concept, or word. If that isn't a factor, there is no issue. — Garrett Travers
Then you should let these people know that such a manner of usage is expected on their part to not only be employed by them consistently, and not ambiguously, but inquired of others as to whether or not they are also voluntarily willing to participate. Otherwise, it is authoritarianism lite. Keep in mind such a standard is, in fact, a fallacy of ambiguity, so the responsibility for keeping the peace as regards usage is that of the person using language differently than established usage on the part of majority of the population. — Garrett Travers
Language is not mandated by ontology. Language is determined by use. There is no male "essence" that can be reduced to anything, including chromosomes. If a person walked about and looked in every way like a man, you would call him a man, even should you later learn of some strange chromosomal variation. This is to say that you don't use the word "man" to reference an XY constitution, but you use it to reference a host of factors, many of which are not entirely consistent from case to case. The usage of the word "man" finds itself evolving. — Hanover
When I was growing up, we learned the pronoun "he" was to be used to designate the third person objective because there is no neutral personal pronoun in English. You would say, "One should always eat his green beans." Why this reasonable person had to be a man was a matter of convention, but it's since been changed. If you want to maintain it, have at it, but you'll sound antiquated by some, sexist by others. The words you use or like the clothes you wear. They communicate how you wish to present yourself. — Hanover
I'm not arguing for prescriptive word usage from either side, but I am pointing out that be aware of what you wish to convey when you choose your words. If you are aware that a person wishes to identify as female and you insist upon using a male pronoun to refer to her, you will not simply be communicating your desire to adhere to traditional standards, but you will communicating your lack of respect for the person you're speaking to. You can tell her to take no offense and that you're simply a traditionalist, but I don't see that really working. — Hanover
As far as XY, that's half correct. I am referencing XY, but only in relation to consistent, and reliably observed emergence of XY phenotypical characteristics. Thus, to expect me to do something different isn't just absurd, it is outrageous, and it is particular the perception of that expectation that has ignited furor. — Garrett Travers
Men were called "men" long before we knew anything of chromosomes. My guess is that you wouldn't know a male chromosome if you saw it, and if tomorrow you learned that half the men had XZ chromosomes and not XY ones, you'd consider yourself educated. What this means is that you likely call men "men" because they look like men and act like men. You don't call MtF transexuals "women" because they don't look that way to you. If medical science could do a better job, you might change. That is, if the person had a functioning uterus and all other sexual organs and looked indistinct from any other woman, maybe you wouldn't have any objection. — Hanover
What ignited furor was the supposed immorality of men acting as women and the societal expectation that it be accepted as normal. — Hanover
The passion did not arise over esoteric word usage and the furor that emerges when one is asked to use a new word. I don't remember such outrage when people were asked to stop calling Pluto a planet. — Hanover
You seem to be saying that ignorance of gender identity theory is part of the problem and Bitter Crank seems to be saying that “delusion” is problematic, or rather that sex/gender cannot be changed. It’s not clear if BC believes sex and gender can be more or less independent of each other. — praxis
interesting and perhaps revealing that your description of gender mentions only who one is sexually attracted to, and nothing about what I would consider to be a more central aspect of gender for many in the gay community, which has to do with a global perceptual-affective style
— Joshs
I will have to plead guilty to your charge.
When it comes to "being gay" which as you say involves a global perceptual-affective style, I find myself with a deficient vocabulary to adequately express what I experience. I meet men in ordinary social settings and we may immediately recognize each other as gay, but I find it difficult to pin down exactly what the signals are. This may be one reason I have always preferred to look for sexual partners in places where "pre-sorting" had taken place--bath houses, gay bars, night-time cruising areas in parks. Some people seem to be able to walk through a figurative Grand Central Station and reliably find prospective partners.
These is something abut deportment, grooming, details of dress, speech patterns, interests, and so forth that together add up to a strong signal. It's like art -- I know it when I see it. Some people are better at this than others, and some people with sharp gaydar are actually pretty straight. An some very gay guys (part of the 2.5%) don't signal their gayness very strongly. And some straight people see gay, but are not. But, gay signals and gaydar work well enough most of the time. — Bitter Crank
When it comes to "being gay" which as you say involves a global perceptual-affective style, I find myself with a deficient vocabulary to adequately express what I experience. I meet men in ordinary social settings and we may immediately recognize each other as gay, but I find it difficult to pin down exactly what the signals are….
There is something abut deportment, grooming, details of dress, speech patterns, interests, and so forth that together add up to a strong signal. It's like art -- I know it when I see it. Some people are better at this than others, and some people with sharp gaydar are actually pretty straight. An some very gay guys (part of the 2.5%) don't signal their gayness very strongly. And some straight people see gay, but are not. But, gay signals and gaydar work well enough most of the time. — Bitter Crank
Is sexual attraction more biological sex or more a part of psychological gender? The fact that some transsexuals are not gay seems to indicate that it’s more biological sex, and also that may gay people’s gender matches their biological sex. — praxis
This is specifically because the only thing we had to go off of, again, were consitently observable, emergent characteristics of the male phenotype. All species have this detection ability, and employ them functionally, by and large. — Garrett Travers
So, no it isn't. And if you keep accusing people of this kind of ill-will, I'm going to show you what I think of people who would seek to use shame to overpower and dismiss reason and established science. — Garrett Travers
And yes, it did ignite furor in the physics community, but the physics community is known for employing reason and adversarial co-operation in the pursuit of truth and homeostasis within paradigms of science. See what I'm saying? — Garrett Travers
The reason we call people male or female in the vernacular has nothing to do with their genes. It has to do with how they look and act. — Hanover
Of course it is. Gender roles have played and continue to play significant roles in our society and a blurring of who is male and who is female has caused the outrage. — Hanover
Maybe your outrage comes from the technical word changes and you'd be just as mad if we started calling bowls "cups," but I think more is at play in this battle over gender identity than just words. — Hanover
It ignited interest and debate. There is no moral consequence to how planets are named or designated. — Hanover
There is when it comes genders. — Hanover
Scientists didn't lobby government to write a code in law claiming that Pluto must be accepted as a planetoid, or one would face rammifications administered by a monopoly on force. You know, like how Bill C-16 did? Like how the attempt to instantiate hate-speech laws has engulfed the social-reconstructionsist platform? That's specifically the difference: force. — Garrett Travers
I believe that , as Freud said, in the most general sense we are all bisexual in that we all have the capability to learn to enjoy sexual relations with both biological males and females. — Joshs
There is no law dictating that you are required to call transsexuals anything. You can be as offensive or inoffensive as you like. The US has no hate speech laws. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/07/no-theres-no-hate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/ — Hanover
If your beef if over a specific Canadian bill, then maybe you have point there. — Hanover
I really don't follow what Canada does or know how over-reaching their free speech limitations are. — Hanover
I'd be opposed to limiting all sorts of bigotry and stupidity because I do think the right to free speech includes that. — Hanover
What C-16 represents to me is a threat of similar compulsions being placed on me by my states, and the popularity of this growing to a point where fiat sentiment overcomes human reason. I have no beef, per se, with C-16, it is the responsibility of Canadians to dispose of their little fascist mommy's boy and be free again. The same will be our responsibility with such tyranny comes to America, which again, is a genuine threat at this point in history, without question. — Garrett Travers
gaydar — Joshs
It’s interesting how it’s common for members of the gay community to refer to each other as ‘she’ or ‘queen’ or ‘girl’. I don’t think this is just social conventions that we learn from each other. This use of language comes directly from the way we feel inside, this equal dose( and in those men who are strongly effeminate a much higher dose) of feminine style and masculine style. — Joshs
A male is a male forever, as determined by the male's genetic composition. — Garrett Travers
We have a group of people who generally are ostracized and ridiculed and thought of as sexual deviants. Their behavior is considered sinful and immoral by large segments of the population as it violates specific rules about gender roles and sexuality in our society. — Hanover
Against that backdrop, objections are raised not as to the immorality of the behavior or as to how it simply violates societal norms, but as to the outrageous burden they place on average folks living day to day. — Hanover
Where we used to have very clear grammar rules, we now have to worry about "him," "her," and "their," when we didn't have to before. — Hanover
So I drill down on this question about language burdens, and I'm told it's not the specific words that really cause the problem, but it's in the abstract, where I shouldn't have a governmental body telling me what to do as it relates to speech. The transsexual pronoun issue is just one example from that abstract concern. — Hanover
I then drill down further on that question, and I'm told it's really not an issue in the abstract because it's conceded that your jurisdiction doesn't impose such prohibitions. — Hanover
You then explain the issue is actually in the hypothetical because you fear the cancer of Canada might spread southward and you'll then be burdened by having a government tell you how to speak. — Hanover
That is, today we find ourselves on the precipice, teetering back and forth, and unless we snuff out this pronoun mind control, we might as well hand over our First Amendment free speech rights to the KGB banging at the door. — Hanover
My response to this is that I agree that free speech rights are worth protecting and I would object to burdens being imposed by the government with respect to it. — Hanover
I am however extremely suspicious when someone claims that it is the transsexual that poses our greatest risks to free speech. — Hanover
It makes me wonder whether this group is being singled out as the greatest threat to our free speech because they actually are, or whether it's all a pretextual effort to attack this historically attacked group. — Hanover
Why do some men use, or not use campy speech? One guess is that it depends on whether or not they have immersed themselves in campy gay bars from the get go. It takes practice to do well. Men who don't drink and smoke (and go to bars) are less likely to be campy [theoretical postulate... no evidence on hand]. Men from rural hick backwaters [me], however profoundly gay they might be, tend not to be campy — Bitter Crank
No, we found ourselves inching closer, objectively, as has been done in other parts of the world, to something that violates human reason. And, just for clarity's sake, any proposal that includes the compelled expression, or silence of expression the Human Consciousness that isn't itself a violation of the Human Consciousness, is evil and must be battled to the hilt. The historical record is clear as to what states do with that specific intrusion into human life. — Garrett Travers
Remember the scene where the champagne was uncorked and everyone did a girlish scream? Do you think that was pre-mediated theater or a deeply pre_conscious , reflexive perceptual reaction that gets to the heart of what I’m talking about? — Joshs
Do Midwesterners learn to be tightly wrapped and screwed together, or is it just the way we are? Geographical Determinism? Extreme weather? A disease spread by wood ticks? — Bitter Crank
You need not fight the American Revolution again. Your side won. We wrote a Constitution that has enshrined every principle you speak of into the very fabric of our country, so much so that we intepret our Constitution much like the Bible, it's each inerrant word leading our every move. — Hanover
I know what horrors lie beyond our border. That's always been something worth fighting to protect ourselves against. — Hanover
Leave the transsexuals out of this battle for the soul of our country is all I'm saying. They aren't the enemy. They are the scapegoat. It can be hard to decipher one from the other. — Hanover
You have probably seen Kinsey's and other people's stats on bisexual behavior. — Bitter Crank
the most commonly searched topics on the site is penis size. — praxis
Do you believe there is such a thing as psychological gender, apart from biological chromosomal sex? — Joshs
Paychological gender would refer to a brain-wiring that produces what I call a perceptual-affective masculine or feminine style. — Joshs
This difference in behavior is what allows dog experts and breeders to tell male dogs from
female dogs based on their behavior. Do you think the same brain-wiring difference separates human males and females? — Joshs
in short, no, I do not believe anyone is "born this way," beyond what is genetically established. Nobody is born anyway out side of consistently observable biomarkers and genotypical phenomena, except in cases of problems in gestation. I think something far more complex is at work in all things human brain related. But, we don't know enough yet, which just intensifies the ambiguity issue. — Garrett Travers
The article you linked to mentioned male and female
chromosomal differences as a potential source of the gender-based behavioral differences they discuss. But it has not been proven that genes are the only source of such brain differences. — Joshs
There has been as much attention directed toward the hormonal environment in the womb, and this has been suggested as an explanation of homosexuality. — Joshs
If this is true, then perhaps many transsexuals can be seen as gay men and women who want their bodies to ‘match’ their brain wiring. — Joshs
If this is true, then perhaps many transsexuals can be seen as gay men and women who want their bodies to ‘match’ their brain wiring.
— Joshs
Yes, if that is the most rationally consistent way to go about it. — Garrett Travers
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