They/Them She/Her He/Him - as you will

[Emily Lake]

Furries: a category INVENTED through self-identification.

The purpose of categories is for the request of social treatment within publicly freely offered treatments.

The counter-argument: People are free to self-identify as furries as much as they like. That, however, does not obligate anyone else on the planet to pretend that they are ACTUALLY FOR REALSIES A TALKING ANIMAL. They are still, no matter how they self-identify, a person wearing an animal costume. A person whose fursona is a bear does NOT get to shit in public. Because they AREN'T a bear, they're a person in a bear suit.

 

[Emily Lake]

Is it? My tomboy / firecracker daughter is mistaken for a boy at times (she doesn't like that), and it is based almost exclusively on her behavior, very energetic and not quiet / refined. Heck, she's been decked out in pink and a skirt and gets called a boy!

In one case at the zoo, we got to the lions and she was roaring and bouncy. The guy next to her says to their own smaller child, 'look at that boy...' She replied, "I'm a girl". The father was taken aback, "But you were roaring..." His entire estimation of my daughter's gender was based on her behavior.

His entire perception of your daughter was based on regressive sex-based stereotypes. Ones that overwhelmingly limit girls and reduce their freedom and agency.

Roar away, girl, roar away. Do it louder, with more energy. Don't be quiet and refined and placid and accommodating.

 

[Emily Lake]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

 

[TomC]

Then you are in opposition to trans activist demands.

Where have you been throughout every thread about trans/cis issues on this forum?
Jarhyn thinks Emily and I are Nazis preparing death camps because we only agree with him 95% of the time on this issue.
Tom

 

[TomC]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

Key word there being "polite".

I would have no trouble asserting "Lia Thomas is being unfair to her teammates and competitors by bring her male physique to the swimming events."
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

Of course perception is based on the one who is perceiving. No one is claiming otherwise.

Perception is not based on sex (which, according to Metaphor, is what someone IS) but on the perceived sex (which correlates more to gender).

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

Which is the way most people in the world operate.

 

[TomC]

I think this change and thread is going to make Metaphor's head explode.

Is your gender field entry, an inanimate thing, a cue that you prefer being referred to as "it"?
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Is it? My tomboy / firecracker daughter is mistaken for a boy at times (she doesn't like that), and it is based almost exclusively on her behavior, very energetic and not quiet / refined. Heck, she's been decked out in pink and a skirt and gets called a boy!

In one case at the zoo, we got to the lions and she was roaring and bouncy. The guy next to her says to their own smaller child, 'look at that boy...' She replied, "I'm a girl". The father was taken aback, "But you were roaring..." His entire estimation of my daughter's gender was based on her behavior.

His entire perception of your daughter was based on regressive sex-based stereotypes. Ones that overwhelmingly limit girls and reduce their freedom and agency.

Roar away, girl, roar away. Do it louder, with more energy. Don't be quiet and refined and placid and accommodating.

Thanks for ignoring the point about perception and how pronouns are used based on perception not the Chromosomes.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You are mistaken. Rhea's obvious point is that identification and use of pronouns is typically based on the visual external perception not actual knowledge of genitalia. The accuracy of the identification is irrelevant to her argument. Hence, your argument is irrelevant to her position.

No, her reasoning was:

All through history, the use we have used most often is based on how someone presents because we are not privvy to their genitals.

So it is almost always about gender. The gender they present with.

The problem with that sort of reasoning is that whether a term T refers to - or is about, which is about meaning, not reference but my point is applicable to both - X does not follow from the fact that the fact that an object A has property X is usually used to assess whether T is applicable to some A. That blocks the inference if meant as deductive. If meant as a probabilistic assessment, it fails too because it is easy to construct counterexamples.

And of course, this is crucial when assessing whether pronouns refer to something, or are about something. It's a confusion between matters of meaning and/or reference, and epistemic matters (and perhaps also a confusion between reference and meaning, but I left that aside because that isn't entirely clear).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is a crap argument because it is imagining stuff instead of talking about actual transgender people. This type of person has always existed, and people are still struggling to come to grips with it, and addicted to labels. They are ignoring the human factors involved and nestling up with grammar as if it were some type of blankie.

I disagree with the sentiment of your post.

Yes, people with gender dysphoria have always existed. But for the most part, nobody has trouble coming to grips with people who have extreme dysphoria.

Umm... bullshit!

It doesn't bother Emily Lake =/ no one is bothered by it. We only decriminalized gay sex two decades ago!

They've been around for pretty much all of recorded history. They've mostly been males who strongly and persistently identify as female, and there is likely a gestational trigger or a genetic component to that occurrence.

And they have, in the majority of human history, been accommodated and incorporated into society.

Really, because changing a pronoun here or there is making a number of people freak the heck out.

What people are not on-board with is...

Umm, you are speaking for A LOT of people here.

extending the entire concept to include self-declaration with no history and no reasonable definition of "transgender", whereby it can apply to anyone for any reason whatsoever. What people are not on-board with is extending it to include people who identify as non-human, or as no-sex, or as fictional animal characters, or as mythical beings... and who wish to be accommodated as such. What people often object to is the demand that everyone else pretend that this internal view of themselves is more important than, and should replace the reality of, sex... and should grant immediate and unquestioned access to sex-exclusive space or to services where sex is material and relevant.

You are stuffing so many words into people's mouths here, one would swear it was Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

[Metaphor]

This new format is hell for me to edit. I never claimed that pronouns only referred to gender. Pronouns refer to sex or to gender depending on the context.

My operating context is that pronouns always refer to gender in non-animal objects, and they always refer to sex in animals (in English).

Some activists and their supporters demand that the rules of engagement be changed, and that pronouns now refer to a person's 'gender' when that person has decided that's what they want (and some jurisdictions use the force of law to punish people who do not or cannot conform to this change). It is one thing to demand this change. It is another to assume that people who use pronouns to refer to sex are mean or thoughtless, and it is another again to gaslight people into thinking it was always thus.

And it is another to insist pronouns always and only refer to sex, and that people always use them to refer only to sex, so that one can be unkind or an ass.

BTW, your baby example is incredibly dumb. Most people when they encounter a baby, use a pronoun based on their perception of the baby's sex (i.e. the gender), not because they have viewed baby genitalia.

What is with the gender ideologue's obsession with genitals? When did I mention genitals?

Parents everywhere, in every culture (as far as I know), openly and freely reveal the sex of their children to all and sundry, in some cases starting from before the birth of that child. My own sex was revealed in that way, back when people advertised it in newspaper classifieds - my parent's names, the date of my birth, and the revelation that I was a baby boy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Perception is almost always based on sex. And it is ALWAYS based on the person doing the perceiving, not on the internal concepts of the person being perceived.

No matter how they self-identify, no matter how they feel inside... I perceive Eddie Izzard and Alex Drummond to be males. If I ever run into either of them in real life, I will engage in the polite fiction of using their preferred feminine pronouns. But inside my head they are both unquestionably men.

Your insistence that what is in your head matters more than what is in their head is absurd!

That you term is "polite fiction" is flat out arrogance. It makes it sound like they are playing D&D and it is just a game or a phase or an act.

This is their identity, who they know they are, who they had to struggle in our world to be openly. But it is so nice of you to pretend that you give a fuck how they feel.

 

[TomC]

Ships are called 'she', because in English, ships have the gender 'female'.

Actually, no. Sorry. The English language does not gender the noun, 'ship.' That's a nautical tradition, not a language rule.

Probably because the traditional male crew would rather "swab her decks", rather than "his". Or go for a cruise on "her", rather than "him".

Tom

Some of the male crew, I'm sure. Though I hear--and this might just be a rumour--there was some sodomy at sea.

Probably most of the male crew.

But the all male community of a ships crew or the Catholic priesthood will attract a statistically abnormal number of a certain sort of male.

Then there's the prison thing. Men will be boys...
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

If this is a joke, I freely confess I don't get it.

Admittedly it was.

But what was the joke? Are there people who think insects are not animals?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Is it? My tomboy / firecracker daughter is mistaken for a boy at times (she doesn't like that), and it is based almost exclusively on her behavior, very energetic and not quiet / refined. Heck, she's been decked out in pink and a skirt and gets called a boy!

Yes, it is. And you are now making the same mistake. The properties used to assess whether a person is a boy need not be the same as the properties that 'boy' refers to, or the properties the term 'boy', by its meaning, attributes when used. The point is that your daughte is not a boy, and the people who mistake her for a boy at times would not classify her as a boy if they had all of the relevant information at their disposal. They would be ready to realize they are mistaken, even if they are speaking NW-English.

In one case at the zoo, we got to the lions and she was roaring and bouncy. The guy next to her says to their own smaller child, 'look at that boy...' She replied, "I'm a girl". The father was taken aback, "But you were roaring..." His entire estimation of my daughter's gender was based on her behavior.

His estimation was about whether your child was a girl or a boy. Is that 'gender'? (I ask because 'gender' seems to be a word of confusion).

That aside, your example illustrates the mistake in Rhea's (and now your) reasoning very well: notice that he used a behavior - roaring - as a means to ascertain whether a person was a boy or a girl, but his assessment was erroneous, and it would be a mistake to think on the basis of examples like that that the term 'boy' refers to children who roar, or is about whether a child roars. Rather, some people use roaring behavior as an indirect means of ascertaining whether a child is a boy, though they are willing to modify their assessment on the basis of more evidence.


By the way, as one can tell from Metaphor's posts, he is aware of the fact that humans generally can nearly always correctly ascertain the sex of a person without ever looking at the genitals. There is no point in arguing otherwise. What he is saying is that pronouns traditionally refer to sex, not to gender.

 

[laughing dog]

This new format is hell for me to edit. I never claimed that pronouns only referred to gender. Pronouns refer to sex or to gender depending on the context.

My operating context is that pronouns always refer to gender in non-animal objects, and they always refer to sex in animals (in English).

Some activists and their supporters demand that the rules of engagement be changed, and that pronouns now refer to a person's 'gender' when that person has decided that's what they want (and some jurisdictions use the force of law to punish people who do not or cannot conform to this change). It is one thing to demand this change. It is another to assume that people who use pronouns to refer to sex are mean or thoughtless, and it is another again to gaslight people into thinking it was always thus.

And it is another to insist pronouns always and only refer to sex, and that people always use them to refer only to sex, so that one can be unkind or an ass.

BTW, your baby example is incredibly dumb. Most people when they encounter a baby, use a pronoun based on their perception of the baby's sex (i.e. the gender), not because they have viewed baby genitalia.

What is with the gender ideologue's obsession with genitals? When did I mention genitals?

Don't know what your obsession with genitalia is.

Parents everywhere, in every culture (as far as I know), openly and freely reveal the sex of their children to all and sundry, in some cases starting from before the birth of that child. My own sex was revealed in that way, back when people advertised it in newspaper classifieds - my parent's names, the date of my birth, and the revelation that I was a baby boy.

Cool story. Not relevant as to how people perceive the gender/sex of someone else.

 

[Metaphor]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

 

[Gospel]

But what was the joke? Are there people who think insects are not animals?

The joke was that if people have issues with Gender identification in relation to sex in humans then why stop with humans? Let's tell the asexual worms to knock it off and accept a male or female identity, or cardinal birds stop being both male and females at the same time... Get it now? It was meant to trigger laughter but I failed. It's all good.

 

[laughing dog]

You are mistaken. Rhea's obvious point is that identification and use of pronouns is typically based on the visual external perception not actual knowledge of genitalia. The accuracy of the identification is irrelevant to her argument. Hence, your argument is irrelevant to her position.

No, her reasoning was:

All through history, the use we have used most often is based on how someone presents because we are not privvy to their genitals.

So it is almost always about gender. The gender they present with.

The problem with that sort of reasoning is that whether a term T refers to - or is about, which is about meaning, not reference but my point is applicable to both - X does not follow from the fact that the fact that an object A has property X is usually used to assess whether T is applicable to some A. That blocks the inference if meant as deductive. If meant as a probabilistic assessment, it fails too because it is easy to construct counterexamples.

Nothing blocks an inference - it may block the accuracy of the inference. So, your reasoning is fallacious.

 

[laughing dog]

But nothing you wrote dispels the basic notion that pronoun use is most often based on perception not actual body identification.

Then there cannot be any misgendering. If I perceive somebody to be of the sex 'male', I use 'he'.

Nope. Perceptions can be wrong.