Richard Dawkins "stripped of humanist of the year" award.

[UValley]

Sure it may be common in one sense. That doesn't mean there aren't people that really identify that way and medical professionals would be convinced that they are genuine. They aren't claiming to be disabled in the same sense as someone committing benefit fraud.

Shell shock was real.

The people who had it had no change to their brain.

But it was real.

OK, but I don't know how that connects to anything here.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient.

That is absurd. He did not claim that there is any fraud - fraud requires intent to deceive, and Dawkins at no point suggested that.

And the other claim is absurd too: where do I begin? There was no attack whatsoever against Black people, and certainly not a suggestion that people who identify as Black are generally mistaken or anything like that. The claim of an attack on "Black identity" is absurd, and then "as one that can be assumed when convenient" is the sort of accusation that only a Woke believer would even entertain. There is no reason not to use facts about how some people publicly identify (Dolezal, in this case) to make one's points.

ETA: "not" above.

 

[TomC]

His latest statement implies that the identities of transgender individuals are fraudulent, while also simultaneously attacking Black identity as one that can be assumed when convenient.

That is absurd. He did not claim that there is any fraud - fraud requires intent to deceive, and Dawkins at no point suggested that.

And the other claim is absurd too: where do I begin? There was no attack whatsoever against Black people, and certainly not a suggestion that people who identify as Black are generally mistaken or anything like that. The claim of an attack on "Black identity" is absurd, and then "as one that can be assumed when convenient" is the sort of accusation that only a Woke believer would even entertain. There is no reason to use facts about how some people publicly identify (Dolezal, in this case) to make one's points.

The AHA did use that weasel word "implies".

That's often used to impute meaning to a statement that just isn't in there. But its really a way to justify an unevidenced opinion. Dawkins did not say it, but the AHA needs to justify their pearl clutching so they pretend he did.
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

1. Cis women experience having a vagina. Trans women do not experience having a vagina. Many experience having a penis.

2. Cis women have preferences involving their vaginas. Trans women do not. Many have preferences involving their penises.

3. Cis women have had the experiences of having a vagina for decades. Trans women have not, and instead have experienced having a penis for decades (usually).

In fiction, people sometimes swap bodies, so 1. and 3. do not go together, and one might wonder what happens about the semantics of the term when they do not. Are they women, or men? Or neither?

Yeah, I know it gets a bad rap, but I actually liked I Will Fear No Evil.

But in reality that has never happen on our planet, and - in what seems to be a very rare case of disagreement unless I misunderstood some of your posts - as I see it, trans women are probably men, and trans men are probably women (with some potential exceptions for abnormal sexual organs, etc.).

Well, the devil is as usual in the details. Dawkins is of course right about semantics and courtesy and they're men by some definitions and women by other definitions; but the thing is, people normally don't actually use any of the definitions they appeal to to justify their categorizations. Words like "man", "woman", "male" and "female" get their meaning from their reference rather than vice versa; what a normal person means is "One of those". So when the semantic decision of what definition to go with selects common usage, (which I take it you're aiming for since you treat it as a matter of probability rather than certainty), the question becomes whether a transwoman is "one of those", and "those" refers to the kinds of people users of the words had in mind when the language evolved and proto-English speakers took up using those names for those subsets of the population.

So is a transwoman "one of those"? Well, the devil is in the details -- it depends on an individual's characteristics. For example, there were undoubtedly some gender-dysphoric XY-people in the "those" that proto-English speakers had in mind when they called "those" people "men". And there were undoubtedly some androgen-insensitive XY-people in the "those" that proto-English speakers had in mind when they called "those" other people "women". But neither group of "those"s contained any XY-people who'd had a sex-change operation or puberty-blockers or estrogen treatments. Consequently, going by common usage, "transwomen are women" and "transwomen are men" are both overgeneralizations. Gender dysphoria is not enough to make you a woman; androgen-insensitivity is enough; and whether reassignment surgery is enough currently does not have an objective answer in common usage. So it remains a semantic question of what stipulative definitions people choose to apply; and they will choose not on any rationally defensible basis, but on the basis of gut feeling or political ideology or conformity to their peer group. Common usage's take on the question will be worked out gradually, as various cultures adjust their dialects to their new experience of having such people available to be included in the "those"s they find themselves talking about.

Prediction is hard, especially about the future.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Yeah, I know it gets a bad rap, but I actually liked I Will Fear No Evil.

I admit I wasn't familiar with it , but it sounds like fun.

Well, the devil is as usual in the details. Dawkins is of course right about semantics and courtesy and they're men by some definitions and women by other definitions; but the thing is, people normally don't actually use any of the definitions they appeal to to justify their categorizations. Words like "man", "woman", "male" and "female" get their meaning from their reference rather than vice versa; what a normal person means is "One of those". So when the semantic decision of what definition to go with selects common usage, (which I take it you're aiming for since you treat it as a matter of probability rather than certainty), the question becomes whether a transwoman is "one of those", and "those" refers to the kinds of people users of the words had in mind when the language evolved and proto-English speakers took up using those names for those subsets of the population.

Yes, that is what I was aiming at: common usage. Dawkins mentioned two definitions, but neither of them matches common usage, either by meaning or even by referent - I'm not sure if by referent in our world, though I doubt it. It definitely doesn't match the referent necessarily, i.e., in all possible worlds.

Side issue: while "one of those" is in the case of the vast majority of words a culturally variable thing, in some cases it's a human thing. I mean, a word with a meaning of 'car' does not exist in all human cultures. But what about 'guilty', and so on? I do not know that basic moral terms like 'bad monkey', or 'wrongful behavior', or 'guilty' are the only ones, though. Other candidates would be terms that track properties human ancestors instinctively cared about for a long time, long before language. It seems probable to me that when sufficiently complex language develops (as a species evolves smarter), there will be words terms tracking those properties. Candidates in addition to 'bad monkey', etc., would be 'ill monkey'...and perhaps 'female monkey', or something along those lines (where 'female' and 'male' would also be something complex, and certainly would not mean either of the things Dawkins said).

Now, there are some arguments that in some societies words with the meaning of 'woman' or 'man' did not exist. I am not an expert in that, so at this point I put some non-negligible weight on either possibility (i.e., culturally variable thing vs. human thing). Of course, data from actual usage also would weigh in on whether its a variable thing or a human thing. But the thing is that even conditioned to its being a culturally variable thing, I find the overall linguistic evidence to go against trans claims.

So is a transwoman "one of those"? Well, the devil is in the details -- it depends on an individual's characteristics. For example, there were undoubtedly some gender-dysphoric XY-people in the "those" that proto-English speakers had in mind when they called "those" people "men". And there were undoubtedly some androgen-insensitive XY-people in the "those" that proto-English speakers had in mind when they called "those" other people "women". But neither group of "those"s contained any XY-people who'd had a sex-change operation or puberty-blockers or estrogen treatments. Consequently, going by common usage, "transwomen are women" and "transwomen are men" are both overgeneralizations.

I was trying to capture some of that - perhaps not very well - with my "with some potential exceptions for abnormal sexual organs, etc.", but if I understand your point and evidence correctly, I do not see that as supporting a change in the meaning of the words. Rather, that seems to support that some people are neither men nor women - which I believe is probably true, though I'm not sure whether those cases are examples of this -, and further, that the words are not precise enough in some cases so that there is no fact of the matter as to whether some people are men or women or neither - which I also think is probably the case (also I'm not sure about these cases).

Yet, the question for most trans claims - as I understand them - is not that they turn into men or women after receiving treatment. Rather, the usual claims are that trans men were already men, etc. That seems not to be in line with the usage I observe in the wild, even among the Woke when they're not thinking about their religion. But for example, what do you make of the following scenario? (I'm not sure whether your point that gender dysphoria is not enough applies for present-day usage, or only traditional usage).


Set yyyy-<word> for the word <word> by the meaning in yyyy, without making assumptions as to whether they have changed.

It's 2018. Alice and Maria are both 1980-women, have normal sexual organs, etc. They both identify as lesbians and have no sexual interest in 1980-men. They get in a relationship, then by 2020 move together, etc. In 2021 Maria comes out as Mario and claims to be a 2021-men. If Mario is correct, is Alice mistaken in her belief that she is a 2021-lesbian? (maybe due to a failure to grasp the meaning of the word). Alice has not made any mistake about any of the properties of Mario she found attractive, or generally the properties she finds attractive in people and on the basis of which she reckons she is a 2021-lesbian. Those properties include traits that can be perceived by the senses, and are not mental traits. Do they involve mental properties too?

Maybe: not only would Alice not feel equally attracted to a doll, but also preferences involving sexual organs might play a role in her (common we assume) usage of the term 'lesbian'. And maybe - just maybe - if people swapped bodies like in the movies, Alice would find that a 1980-man stuck in a 1970-woman body unattractive because of that, even if she finds some of her properties attractive. And maybe - further just maybe -, that is part of what she would take into account when assessing whether she is a lesbian (by her own intuitive grasp of the word), at least if she were to entertain the possibility of people jumping bodies, or some kind of metamorphosis, etc.

However, it seems very probable to me that in a realistic scenario, mental traits like having had a preference for trucks over dolls when a kid or whatever other 1980-man-like mental properties Mario may have would not be factored in when assessing whether Alice a lesbian (I might be mistaken, but at least that's how I have seen usage so far), either by Alice or by other people, when using the word intuitively, and even if they are aware of those mental properties of Mario. It seems to me that if 2021-lesbian means something like 'a 2021-woman who feels sexually attracted people for having the properties that make a person a 2021-women, whereas she finds properties that make a person a 2021-men not sexually attractive', then most self-identified lesbians are mistaken about their being lesbians, and similarly, most self-identified straight men, etc., are mistaken about their orientation - and their mistake does not seem to involve any failure in assessing the properties of their own minds of the minds of others, but failing to grasp the meaning of the words. But that doesn't seem right, since usage determines meaning.

Granted, my approximation to the meaning of 'lesbian' above is not particularly good , but my point here is that I haven't seen one that approaches usage and doesn't make usual trans claims (i.e., most) very probably false. And I surely do not think a 1980-woman should think maybe she's not a lesbian if, say, she found this person attractive, without error about any of...their properties (i.e., no hidden penis, etc., nor - perhaps - mind swapping, etc.). And the same for a 1980-man (am I bisexual? Well, if I am, I haven't seen any evidence of that, and I wouldn't count that as evidence ).

Sure, it might be that 2021-lesbian, 2021-straight man, 2021-gay man, etc. mean something related to 1980-women or 1980-men, whereas 2021-man, etc., mean something else. But that's one of the things: the classification of people between 1980-men, 1980-woman, and some rare remaining cases (and also some 'no fact of the matter' fuzziness somewhere) seems to be pretty good at mapping human sexual attraction. It would seem improbable that this classification were just abandoned, even when the Woke are trying to enforce a change - the Woke themselves seem to often go by common usage when not monitoring their own usage carefully.

Gender dysphoria is not enough to make you a woman; androgen-insensitivity is enough; and whether reassignment surgery is enough currently does not have an objective answer in common usage. So it remains a semantic question of what stipulative definitions people choose to apply; and they will choose not on any rationally defensible basis, but on the basis of gut feeling or political ideology or conformity to their peer group. Common usage's take on the question will be worked out gradually, as various cultures adjust their dialects to their new experience of having such people available to be included in the "those"s they find themselves talking about.

In the future, yes, I agree (well, maybe after genetic engineering if it's a human thing, but I'm assuming it's not).

But in the present, with respect to reassignment surgery, my impression is that it's not enough: e.g., if someone were to kidnap a non-trans person (no oddities in re sex or gender, either) and forcibly make the surgery, usage would say he or she is still a man or woman. So, it would have to be gender dysphoria + surgery (or + hormones) or something like that. But that would mean that the person was in the past a man (woman) and then stopped being so (by common usage).
I don't see social pressure going in that direction: social conservative activists generally will pressure people to deny that there was a change, Woke activists generally will pressure people to deny that there was a change (incurring contradiction often, but yielding to peer "correction"), non-Woke feminist activists will pressure people to deny that there was a change, and so on. Rather, it seems to me social pressure goes into either saying trans men are women before surgery and remain women after surgery, or that they are men before and remain men, and similarly for trans women, etc. (of course, the question of whether there is social pressure in that direction is different of course from whether common usage gives an answer for cases like GD+hormones+surgery, but pressure might have an influence in future usage).

Prediction is hard, especially about the future.

True.

 

[Bomb#20]

...I do not know that basic moral terms like 'bad monkey', or 'wrongful behavior', or 'guilty' are the only ones, though. Other candidates would be terms that track properties human ancestors instinctively cared about for a long time, long before language. It seems probable to me that when sufficiently complex language develops (as a species evolves smarter), there will be words terms tracking those properties. Candidates in addition to 'bad monkey', etc., would be 'ill monkey'...and perhaps 'female monkey', or something along those lines (where 'female' and 'male' would also be something complex, and certainly would not mean either of the things Dawkins said).

Now, there are some arguments that in some societies words with the meaning of 'woman' or 'man' did not exist. I am not an expert in that, so at this point I put some non-negligible weight on either possibility (i.e., culturally variable thing vs. human thing). Of course, data from actual usage also would weigh in on whether its a variable thing or a human thing.

According to Dr. Brown's list of human universals, there are no known human cultures that don't have concepts of sickness and sexual dimorphism. Every society has sex terminology; every society has words for father and mother; every society has sexual division of labor.

But the thing is that even conditioned to its being a culturally variable thing, I find the overall linguistic evidence to go against trans claims.

Well, 2021 trans claims. Granted, we've always been at war with Eastasia; but ideologies evolve. The way it's fashionable for trans people to describe what it is to be trans is no longer what it was when the topic first came to broader public attention.

Yet, the question for most trans claims - as I understand them - is not that they turn into men or women after receiving treatment. Rather, the usual claims are that trans men were already men, etc. That seems not to be in line with the usage I observe in the wild, even among the Woke when they're not thinking about their religion.

True that. The term "trans" itself doesn't make a lot of sense if one were to accept the premise that they were already men.

But for example, what do you make of the following scenario?...

Set yyyy-<word> for the word <word> by the meaning in yyyy, without making assumptions as to whether they have changed.

It's 2018. Alice and Maria are both 1980-women, have normal sexual organs, etc. They both identify as lesbians and have no sexual interest in 1980-men. They get in a relationship, then by 2020 move together, etc. In 2021 Maria comes out as Mario and claims to be a 2021-men. If Mario is correct, is Alice mistaken in her belief that she is a 2021-lesbian? (maybe due to a failure to grasp the meaning of the word).

I don't think so. Even if we hypothesize that "woman" means what we're currently being told it means, that doesn't mean "lesbian" tracks it. As you say, "Sure, it might be that 2021-lesbian, 2021-straight man, 2021-gay man, etc. mean something related to 1980-women or 1980-men, whereas 2021-man, etc., mean something else."; that seems a lot more probable than the theory that Alice being attracted to Maria/Mario means she's not a 2021-lesbian.

Alice has not made any mistake about any of the properties of Mario she found attractive, or generally the properties she finds attractive in people and on the basis of which she reckons she is a 2021-lesbian. Those properties include traits that can be perceived by the senses, and are not mental traits. Do they involve mental properties too?

Very probably. At any rate, when I contemplate Heinlein's scenario and imagine having the hots for Eunice, I expect being informed that Eunice was brain-dead and her body had been transplanted onto Johann's brain would be a major turn-off.

However, it seems very probable to me that in a realistic scenario, mental traits like having had a preference for trucks over dolls when a kid or whatever other 1980-man-like mental properties Mario may have would not be factored in when assessing whether Alice a lesbian (I might be mistaken, but at least that's how I have seen usage so far), either by Alice or by other people, when using the word intuitively, and even if they are aware of those mental properties of Mario.

According to my no doubt meager understanding of the currently fashionable trans claim, a preference for trucks over dolls doesn't really count as a "man-like mental property". That's a stereotype and a social construction of the patriarchy and yada yada; it's perfectly fine for a girl to prefer trucks while identifying as a girl. To be a woman is to identify as a woman, full stop. Of course, this fashion has the defect of being a circular definition of "woman". But any attempt to make it mean anything substantive by breaking the circularity will have to involve introducing some objective criterion for womanhood -- whether it's liking dolls, or having XX chromosomes, or having 1980-common-usage-womanness, or whatever -- and that would defeat the entire purpose of defining "woman" by self-identification. So either the fashion in trans claims will change again, or else the trans activists will have to just go on equivocating: continuing to use multiple meanings for "woman" while making believe they aren't doing that.

Granted, my approximation to the meaning of 'lesbian' above is not particularly good , but my point here is that I haven't seen one that approaches usage and doesn't make usual trans claims (i.e., most) very probably false. And I surely do not think a 1980-woman should think maybe she's not a lesbian if, say, she found this person attractive, without error about any of...their properties (i.e., no hidden penis, etc., nor - perhaps - mind swapping, etc.).

Well, this is one of those cases where gay-activist and trans-activist cultural agendas are bound to come into conflict. I can't see how the gay-activists are likely to lose this one. Sure, it would be in the general interests of trans people if gay people would be sexually attracted to them according to their desired genders; and there are any number of anecdotal cases of transwomen demanding that lesbians find them sexually appealing and accusing them of being transphobic bigots when they aren't. But you can't make others find you appealing either by renaming yourself or by name-calling them, and you usually can't even get them to see themselves as regressive bigots for it and self-hate. So it seems to me 2021-lesbian means the same thing as 1980-lesbian, and the prospects for making 2061-lesbian mean what 2021 trans-activists would like it to mean are not good.

But that's one of the things: the classification of people between 1980-men, 1980-woman, and some rare remaining cases (and also some 'no fact of the matter' fuzziness somewhere) seems to be pretty good at mapping human sexual attraction. It would seem improbable that this classification were just abandoned,

Bingo.

I don't see social pressure going in that direction: social conservative activists generally will pressure people to deny that there was a change, Woke activists generally will pressure people to deny that there was a change (incurring contradiction often, but yielding to peer "correction"), non-Woke feminist activists will pressure people to deny that there was a change, and so on. Rather, it seems to me social pressure goes into either saying trans men are women before surgery and remain women after surgery, or that they are men before and remain men, and similarly for trans women, etc. (of course, the question of whether there is social pressure in that direction is different of course from whether common usage gives an answer for cases like GD+hormones+surgery, but pressure might have an influence in future usage).

True; but there are two kinds of social pressure. One is the ideological pressure you're describing -- yes, all the cliques in the business of policing public usage currently seem to be agreed that medical transitioning isn't a change. But that type of social pressure could turn out to be just another Academie Francaise trying to order the tide not to come in, that gets overwhelmed by the collective social pressure of ordinary French speakers. If medical transitioning technology advances to the point where average lesbians find average non-self-identification-only transwomen sexually attractive, then that will supply countervailing social pressure.

The linguistics professors are in for some interesting natural experiments...

 

[none]

According to Dr. Brown's list of human universals, there are no known human cultures that don't have concepts of sickness and sexual dimorphism. Every society has sex terminology; every society has words for father and mother; every society has sexual division of labor.


Well, 2021 trans claims. Granted, we've always been at war with Eastasia; but ideologies evolve. The way it's fashionable for trans people to describe what it is to be trans is no longer what it was when the topic first came to broader public attention.

Yet, the question for most trans claims - as I understand them - is not that they turn into men or women after receiving treatment. Rather, the usual claims are that trans men were already men, etc. That seems not to be in line with the usage I observe in the wild, even among the Woke when they're not thinking about their religion.

True that. The term "trans" itself doesn't make a lot of sense if one were to accept the premise that they were already men.

But for example, what do you make of the following scenario?...

Set yyyy-<word> for the word <word> by the meaning in yyyy, without making assumptions as to whether they have changed.

It's 2018. Alice and Maria are both 1980-women, have normal sexual organs, etc. They both identify as lesbians and have no sexual interest in 1980-men. They get in a relationship, then by 2020 move together, etc. In 2021 Maria comes out as Mario and claims to be a 2021-men. If Mario is correct, is Alice mistaken in her belief that she is a 2021-lesbian? (maybe due to a failure to grasp the meaning of the word).

I don't think so. Even if we hypothesize that "woman" means what we're currently being told it means, that doesn't mean "lesbian" tracks it. As you say, "Sure, it might be that 2021-lesbian, 2021-straight man, 2021-gay man, etc. mean something related to 1980-women or 1980-men, whereas 2021-man, etc., mean something else."; that seems a lot more probable than the theory that Alice being attracted to Maria/Mario means she's not a 2021-lesbian.

Alice has not made any mistake about any of the properties of Mario she found attractive, or generally the properties she finds attractive in people and on the basis of which she reckons she is a 2021-lesbian. Those properties include traits that can be perceived by the senses, and are not mental traits. Do they involve mental properties too?

Very probably. At any rate, when I contemplate Heinlein's scenario and imagine having the hots for Eunice, I expect being informed that Eunice was brain-dead and her body had been transplanted onto Johann's brain would be a major turn-off.

However, it seems very probable to me that in a realistic scenario, mental traits like having had a preference for trucks over dolls when a kid or whatever other 1980-man-like mental properties Mario may have would not be factored in when assessing whether Alice a lesbian (I might be mistaken, but at least that's how I have seen usage so far), either by Alice or by other people, when using the word intuitively, and even if they are aware of those mental properties of Mario.

According to my no doubt meager understanding of the currently fashionable trans claim, a preference for trucks over dolls doesn't really count as a "man-like mental property". That's a stereotype and a social construction of the patriarchy and yada yada; it's perfectly fine for a girl to prefer trucks while identifying as a girl. To be a woman is to identify as a woman, full stop. Of course, this fashion has the defect of being a circular definition of "woman". But any attempt to make it mean anything substantive by breaking the circularity will have to involve introducing some objective criterion for womanhood -- whether it's liking dolls, or having XX chromosomes, or having 1980-common-usage-womanness, or whatever -- and that would defeat the entire purpose of defining "woman" by self-identification. So either the fashion in trans claims will change again, or else the trans activists will have to just go on equivocating: continuing to use multiple meanings for "woman" while making believe they aren't doing that.

Granted, my approximation to the meaning of 'lesbian' above is not particularly good , but my point here is that I haven't seen one that approaches usage and doesn't make usual trans claims (i.e., most) very probably false. And I surely do not think a 1980-woman should think maybe she's not a lesbian if, say, she found this person attractive, without error about any of...their properties (i.e., no hidden penis, etc., nor - perhaps - mind swapping, etc.).

Well, this is one of those cases where gay-activist and trans-activist cultural agendas are bound to come into conflict. I can't see how the gay-activists are likely to lose this one. Sure, it would be in the general interests of trans people if gay people would be sexually attracted to them according to their desired genders; and there are any number of anecdotal cases of transwomen demanding that lesbians find them sexually appealing and accusing them of being transphobic bigots when they aren't. But you can't make others find you appealing either by renaming yourself or by name-calling them, and you usually can't even get them to see themselves as regressive bigots for it and self-hate. So it seems to me 2021-lesbian means the same thing as 1980-lesbian, and the prospects for making 2061-lesbian mean what 2021 trans-activists would like it to mean are not good.

But that's one of the things: the classification of people between 1980-men, 1980-woman, and some rare remaining cases (and also some 'no fact of the matter' fuzziness somewhere) seems to be pretty good at mapping human sexual attraction. It would seem improbable that this classification were just abandoned,

Bingo.

I don't see social pressure going in that direction: social conservative activists generally will pressure people to deny that there was a change, Woke activists generally will pressure people to deny that there was a change (incurring contradiction often, but yielding to peer "correction"), non-Woke feminist activists will pressure people to deny that there was a change, and so on. Rather, it seems to me social pressure goes into either saying trans men are women before surgery and remain women after surgery, or that they are men before and remain men, and similarly for trans women, etc. (of course, the question of whether there is social pressure in that direction is different of course from whether common usage gives an answer for cases like GD+hormones+surgery, but pressure might have an influence in future usage).

True; but there are two kinds of social pressure. One is the ideological pressure you're describing -- yes, all the cliques in the business of policing public usage currently seem to be agreed that medical transitioning isn't a change. But that type of social pressure could turn out to be just another Academie Francaise trying to order the tide not to come in, that gets overwhelmed by the collective social pressure of ordinary French speakers. If medical transitioning technology advances to the point where average lesbians find average non-self-identification-only transwomen sexually attractive, then that will supply countervailing social pressure.

The linguistics professors are in for some interesting natural experiments...

facetious?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

According to Dr. Brown's list of human universals, there are no known human cultures that don't have concepts of sickness and sexual dimorphism. Every society has sex terminology; every society has words for father and mother; every society has sexual division of labor.

Thanks for the info; I've seen some arguments that words like 'woman' and 'man' have different meanings from words that are usually translated as such from different societies - a sort of meta-sex relativism or meta-gender relativism -, and so I was placing some weight on both options.

I don't think so. Even if we hypothesize that "woman" means what we're currently being told it means, that doesn't mean "lesbian" tracks it. As you say, "Sure, it might be that 2021-lesbian, 2021-straight man, 2021-gay man, etc. mean something related to 1980-women or 1980-men, whereas 2021-man, etc., mean something else."; that seems a lot more probable than the theory that Alice being attracted to Maria/Mario means she's not a 2021-lesbian.

All true, but...lesbians - and straight men - usually would be inclined to say they're attracted to women, but not to men. Which is kind of odd if 'man' means something that includes trans men, etc., which I think provides some evidence that by 'men' they do not mean something that includes all trans men.

Very probably. At any rate, when I contemplate Heinlein's scenario and imagine having the hots for Eunice, I expect being informed that Eunice was brain-dead and her body had been transplanted onto Johann's brain would be a major turn-off.

Lol true. I think part of the turn-off would happen due to the body-brain transplant on its own (e.g., if the brain was that of another woman), but I do not think that's all of the turn-off. Yet, I think probably the mind component of the turn-off is related to matters such as the personal history of having a vagina vs. a penis, preferences involving such organs, and the like (i.e., things in which transmen are women-like, at least prior to surgery (and after that, they're not men-like, either)). I do not know whether there is another mental component, but at least, the truck-over-doll-liking business is probably not going to turn lesbians or straight men off, at least not in general (it might in the cases of some specific lesbians and straight men). Okay, that may not be a male-like trait by woke standards (well, except they're contradictory so they imply that's a male-like trait , but that aside), but I'm considering which mental properties are considered when a person assesses whether she's a lesbian - or, in a similar scenario, whether he's a straight man.

According to my no doubt meager understanding of the currently fashionable trans claim, a preference for trucks over dolls doesn't really count as a "man-like mental property". That's a stereotype and a social construction of the patriarchy and yada yada; it's perfectly fine for a girl to prefer trucks while identifying as a girl. To be a woman is to identify as a woman, full stop. Of course, this fashion has the defect of being a circular definition of "woman". But any attempt to make it mean anything substantive by breaking the circularity will have to involve introducing some objective criterion for womanhood -- whether it's liking dolls, or having XX chromosomes, or having 1980-common-usage-womanness, or whatever -- and that would defeat the entire purpose of defining "woman" by self-identification. So either the fashion in trans claims will change again, or else the trans activists will have to just go on equivocating: continuing to use multiple meanings for "woman" while making believe they aren't doing that.

(I'm not convinced your understanding is meager since you seem to always to the research before posting and also are making good points as usual, but that aside)

I reckon they'll probably just go on equivocating, at least most of them. In my experience, they ignore the obvious circularity even after it is pointed out to them. Some might just that say as a matter of fact those who identify as women are always women, etc., while avoiding a claim about what it is to be a woman, but they are in my experience also impervious to arguments along the lines of:

A1: No man ever becomes a woman, and no woman ever becomes a man.
A2: Every person who identifies as a woman is a woman, and every person who identifies as a man is a man.
Obvious observation: There are people who identify as a woman but not as a man (resp. man /woman), later as a man but not as a woman (resp. woman/man) (and some later switch again, just to add another case)
Conclusion: either A1 is not true, or A2 is not true.

True; but there are two kinds of social pressure. One is the ideological pressure you're describing -- yes, all the cliques in the business of policing public usage currently seem to be agreed that medical transitioning isn't a change. But that type of social pressure could turn out to be just another Academie Francaise trying to order the tide not to come in, that gets overwhelmed by the collective social pressure of ordinary French speakers. If medical transitioning technology advances to the point where average lesbians find average non-self-identification-only transwomen sexually attractive, then that will supply countervailing social pressure.

Good points, though I think there might be two difficulties:

The first is temporary, but might be long lasting: medical transitioning tech might take a while to make them look attractive.

The second one is more serious, and related to your point about Eunice: wouldn't a similar turn-off may well work for transwomen, at least if they have experienced having a penis even beyond puberty?

The linguistics professors are in for some interesting natural experiments...

True, though I wonder whether the Woke in academia will allow such research.

 

[repoman]

To say that a standard gestated and born XY male who even surgically and hormonally transitioned to a woman was always a woman is an ideology driven lie.

Those people who talk like that those are shithouse rat crazy.

 

[TomC]

To say that a standard gestated and born XY male who even surgically and hormonally transitioned to a woman was always a woman is an ideology driven lie.

Those people who talk like that those are shithouse rat crazy.

I don't think they're crazy. I think that they're brainwashed.

Believing that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman exactly like my mom is a woman makes no sense. But I don't think that it's crazy so much as terminally Woke. It's more like a disease than a characteristic.
Tom

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Believing that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman exactly like my mom is a woman makes no sense.

They also believe or have beliefs implying that Caitlyn Jenner was a woman even when Jenner was called "Bruce Jenner" and was having children with human females in the usual way human males do.

But yeah, they're not crazy. Most of the time, they behave rationally and understand reality. As do Born Again Christians.

 

[Politesse]

To say that a standard gestated and born XY male who even surgically and hormonally transitioned to a woman was always a woman is an ideology driven lie.

Those people who talk like that those are shithouse rat crazy.

I don't think they're crazy. I think that they're brainwashed.

Believing that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman exactly like my mom is a woman makes no sense. But I don't think that it's crazy so much as terminally Woke. It's more like a disease than a characteristic.
Tom

No, Caitlyn Jenner is not "exactly like your mom". Do you believe that all people assigned female at birth are "exactly like your mom"?

...

That goes a long way to explaining your homosexual tendencies. Freud would have a field day!

 

[Angra Mainyu]

To say that a standard gestated and born XY male who even surgically and hormonally transitioned to a woman was always a woman is an ideology driven lie.

Those people who talk like that those are shithouse rat crazy.

I don't think they're crazy. I think that they're brainwashed.

Believing that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman exactly like my mom is a woman makes no sense. But I don't think that it's crazy so much as terminally Woke. It's more like a disease than a characteristic.
Tom

No, Caitlyn Jenner is not "exactly like your mom". Do you believe that all people assigned female at birth are "exactly like your mom"?

Do you think Caitlyn Jenner is a woman? If so, what do you base your assessment on?

 

[Politesse]

No, Caitlyn Jenner is not "exactly like your mom". Do you believe that all people assigned female at birth are "exactly like your mom"?

Do you think Caitlyn Jenner is a woman? If so, what do you base your assessment on?

How is that any of my business? If she says she's a woman, I've no reason to refer to her any other way. I don't normally try to "assess the gender" of anyone, unless I have some particularly pressing reason to do so.

Some people are creepily obsessed with what other people's genitals do or did look like, I know. I'm not one of them, though. I don't want other people to get into my private business in that way, so I stay out of theirs.

 

[untermensche]

I don't think they're crazy. I think that they're brainwashed.

Believing that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman exactly like my mom is a woman makes no sense. But I don't think that it's crazy so much as terminally Woke. It's more like a disease than a characteristic.
Tom

Does any female have the same mind as your mother?

It seems we can say there is such a thing as a male mind and such a thing as a female mind.

Jenner is saying she has a female mind. She knows she has a male body.

Who can say she doesn't have a female mind?

What is a mind? What does it mean to associate with a gender in a mind? What genes create a mind?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

How is that any of my business?

That is not an answer. This is a discussion board. Discussions about the meaning of the words are within the rules, as are discussions about the mental properties associated with mental conditions such as gender dysphoria. You may choose to participate or not. However, you pretty much chose to participate by replying to TomC.

If she says she's a woman, I've no reason to refer to her any other way.

Generally, there is a reason not to assert things that are, on the basis of one's information, certainly or at least probably false. That reason is defeasible, but it is a reason. In light of that, in order for Jenner's claim that Jenner is a woman to make it so there is no reason for you to refer to Jenner in any other way, Jenner's claim would have to give you conclusive evidence of that. Were is the evidence?

Additionally, what do you make of previous claims made by Jenner that Jenner was not a woman? Was Jenner in error about whether Jenner was a woman?

I don't normally try to "assess the gender" of anyone, unless I have some particularly pressing reason to do so.

But given that humans reproduce sexually, given the behavior of other primates, and given the behavior of humans, it would be pretty improbable if humans did not normally and instinctively assess the sex of other humans, in an intuitive sense of 'sex'. And that sense seems to match whether a person is a man or a woman.

But leave that aside and say that does not happen. Even then, words such as 'woman' and 'man' are ubiquitous, and humans who speak English will intuitively assess (even assuming it's a cultural based intuition) whether a human they see is a woman or a man. Even if you do not try, it would be extremely improbable that you do not do it intuitively and without trying.


All of that aside, you actually replied to TomC and to me implying that Jenner is a woman, so it looks like you just assessed Jenner's gender. Can you use instrospection to try to figure what property or properties of Jenner triggered your intuitive assessment? If it was Jenner's claim, then how do you figure given the other properties of Jenner - properties by which English speakers normally would reckon that say at least when he went by "Bruce" he was a man -, that Jenner's claim that Jenner is a woman is conclusive? And what do you make of previous claims made by Jenner that Jenner was not a woman? Was Jenner in error about whether Jenner was a woman?

Some people are creepily obsessed with what other people's genitals do or did look like, I know. I'm not one of them, though.

True. You are a person who implicitly accuse those who disagree with you of being obsessed with what other people's genitals look like, while you dodge engaging in an actual debate to defend your position, though you probably do not do this deliberately.

I don't want other people to get into my private business in that way, so I stay out of theirs.

The question of what property or properties make a person a woman or a man - generally, the meaning of such words - is no one's private business. Neither is the question of the differences between the minds of transwomen, women, men, and so on. The case of Jenner was brought up by another poster, but it's an example that can be used to discuss the matters at hand. And it is surely not a private matter any more than a claim that a person has a personal connection to the creator, or speaks in tongues, etc., would be. It's a public claim, not something that a person claims in her or his own head.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Jenner is saying she has a female mind. She knows she has a male body.

1. If Jenner has a male body, Jenner has a male brain, then a male mind.

2. Jenner has experienced, for decades, having a penis. Jenner has preferences involving a penis. Jenner has had sex using Jenner's penis. Jenner has never experienced having a vagina. Jenner has no preferences involving Jenner's non-vagina. In all of the above respects, Jenner has a male mind, and not a female mind.

Who can say she doesn't have a female mind?

I can (see above). Jenner certainly has some male mental properties. Jenner may or may not have some female-like mental properties. But whether Jenner is a woman involves also questions about the meaning of the word 'woman', not just about Jenner's mental properties.

 

[untermensche]

Jenner is saying she has a female mind. She knows she has a male body.

1. If Jenner has a male body, Jenner has a male brain, then a male mind.

Doesn't follow.

There are hermaphrodites.

What brain do they have?

If there is a male mind and a female mind you can't say what mind a person has by looking at their body.

You are claiming to be able to look at minds.

What a joke!

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Jenner is saying she has a female mind. She knows she has a male body.

1. If Jenner has a male body, Jenner has a male brain, then a male mind.

Doesn't follow.

There are hermaphrodites.

What brain do they have?

If there is a male mind and a female mind you can't say what mind a person has by looking at their body.

You are claiming to be able to look at minds.

What a joke!

No, I am pointing out that the brain is part of the body. Hence, if Jenner has a male body - which you claim -, in particular Jenner has a male brain. Now if Jenner has a male brain, pretty obviously Jenner has a male mind - that last part is based on empirical observations.

 

[TomC]

You are claiming to be able to look at minds.

I don't think it's [MENTION=123]Angra Mainyu[/MENTION]; or me claiming to look at minds. Quite the contrary, you are.

I can look at physiology, behavior patterns, and such. But that's not the same as looking at anybody's mind.
Tom