TomC said:
OMFG!
You poor thing.
Sorry to be sarcastic, but I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I only know of two episodes of "enforcement" concerning gendering on this forum, and both were when it was TFT. Maybe I just don't know about the enforcement concerning "false and unwarranted accusations of misgendering all around".
No, you are not sorry to be sarcastic - unfortunately, because you ought to, as it is so out of place.
But I will try to continue despite the hostility.
TomC said:
Maybe you know about issues that I am unaware of, but more plausible explanations for your post exist. Maybe having your personal genderizing norms challenged by others seems like an attack. I dunno.
No, the attacks come in several forms: some are easy to find in this thread and the other one: gross misrepresentations of what I said, false and unwarranted accusations, etc., either in this thread or
the other one.
It gets worse than that, though, because the Woke have all the power in some social circles, and unfortunately I cannot escape them.
But that aside, challenged? Think about it. What is the challenge? Is it a demand that I lie? Or is it a demand that I changed my vocabulary and stop talking about some properties that I intuitively (and instinctively, or close enough) distinguish - namely, that of being a NW-man or a NW-woman -, and instead talk of something else?
Imagine this: suppose that Religion X becomes dominant, and its enforcers that people change the way in which they use the words 'unhealthy', 'healthy', 'ill', etc., so that obesity is not an unhealthy condition/illness under the new language, or keep using the words to mean the same as before, but lie and claim that obesity is not unhealthy, but just another body shape (they might even demand that the term 'obesity' be abandoned in favor of 'big people' or something like that).
Now, there are different levels of enforcing, and this one is not as bad as others could be - like using actual physical force. This one is limited to things like online bullying, getting people fired, and - for now - only attempting to pass laws that would turn it to actual physical force. But the attacks against dissenters are increasingly powerful.
Would you understand why people would want to keep talking about illness, health, unhealthy conditions, etc., rather than some other property they do not care about?
Well, usually humans want to use words that pick out the property they care about - like illness, health, unhealthy conditions -, not some property that has little to do with it but which has, say, a 99% overlap or something. And it's particularly bad when the demand comes together with false and unwarranted accusations, enforcement, etc., even if in a milder way than physical force.
Now, it would usually be impolite to tell an obese person that they are ill, unhealthy, etc. However:
1. That is not always so. In particular, it is not so in a debate forum where matters for which this is relevant are debated.
2. There would be no obligation to not identify obesity as an unhealthy condition in blogs, forums, etc.
Now, it could be argued that obese people would feel bad if others say their condition is an illness - they can say it's who they are, their identity, etc. (note: you can look up something like this, though apparently fringe for the time being).
TomC said:
Here's another interesting aspect. A person's attitudes towards this subject are also social cues. As a reasonably competent adult I figure things out about other people based on a ton of different things. I use the term "cues".
Yes, but sometimes people believe they're reading cues correctly, whereas they are just making false and unwarranted negative assessments of out-group members.
TomC said:
A person who expresses the opinion that what matters more is another person's sex than their gender, the cue I take from that is that they view other humans as objects. A human body is an object, it will have a sex. A person is not only their body, they're vastly more. Sometimes that includes quirkiness like transsexuals.
And now you started it. No, you actually continued. The above is so wrong. Where do I start? Well, I'll start defending myself. But along the way, I'm going to make a number of decisive points. I hope you at least see some of them.
First, when did I say sex matters more to me than gender? And what do you mean by gender? And when did I ever say that no mental properties went into the meaning of 'man' or 'woman'? I explicitly said that that was a matter for further discussion and explained why.
But let me tell you a couple of things: humans, like chimps, cats, dogs, horses, dolphins, bears, whales, rats, mice, etc., instinctively distinguish between females and males of their species: if they failed to do so, mating would be a challenge. There are different ways in which humans (and others, but I will stick to humans) do that, but for example, there are plenty of cues that do not require looking at the sexual organs. Those cues are fallible, but they usually got it right.
Compare: humans, like like chimps, cats, dogs, horses, dolphins, bears, whales, rats, mice, etc., instinctively tell illness from non-illness. There are different ways in which humans (and others, but I will stick to humans) do that, but as before, there are plenty of cues, though not infallible ones.
Now, as humas have language, they tend to have words that pick some of the properties they instinctively care about. If say bears evolved into something with language, they would have words that pick properties (smart) bears instinctively care about.
Here we need to be a bit careful with 'care about'. For example, you may in a usual sense not care whether the car in front of your house is blue or red. But to a point, you (or some part of your brain anyway) care about color classification, and classifies objects in that manner.
So, anyway, back to sex. You will find that in nearly all languages - not just NW-English -, there is a classification of people in men and women (or words translated usually as such,
and with the same or almost the same meaning). Just as there is a classification in conditions as illnesses or not illnesses, healthy or unhealthy, etc., or 'red', 'blue', 'green', etc. It's a matter for empirical studies how much of a diversity there is in those classifications across languages, but even when there is (e.g., there is some variation in color language; I would argue not so in illness), what you have is a classificatory system that closely match human intuitions.
Now, it is true that humans care also in general about minds, so that it might be that the concepts of 'man' and 'woman' in NW-English or in nearly all languages incorporate some mental properties too. Or it might not be. Again, it's a matter for further discussion, and we can talk about it - but of course, it is not actually discussed: the 'conversation' consists in misrepresentations + condemnation of dissenters.
However, what I am saying is that even if it includes some mental properties, it is not the mental properties that would make
this person a man, or not a woman. The point is that a human person who has:
1. A vagina, uterus, ovaries, etc.
2. A mind that has formed experienced having a vagina, uterus, ovaries, etc., all throughout their lives and,
3. A mind that has never experienced having a penis, testicles, etc.
is a NW-woman, and is not a NW-man, even if, say, she preferred to play with trucks rather than dolls as a kid, or finds human females sexually attractive but not males, or have some other male-like mental properties. The same applies to other languages, by the way. Now, we might discuss what happens if 1. obtains, but not 2. or 3.: if evil scientists put my brain in a female rest of the body, am I a man or a woman, in NW-English? Interesting questions, but
not really the point here, as these are not the cases at hand.
Second, you say "A person is not only their body, they're vastly more.". As there are no souls or similar, if I take that as face value, that is surely false. But sure, there are mental and non-mental properties. And of course, it is a very big mistake on your part to reckon that those of us who disagree with you somehow view other humans as objects. Why would you think that? You just condemned those who disagree with you, in a big way. But why? Have you not seen them care about people's
minds?
Do you really think they would care about the things in these threads if they treated others as objects?
I mean, seriously? Why are they fighting back against the Woke? Why do you think they care about whether "Penn teammate speaks out against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas"? How is that treating people as objects? If they treated people as objects,
they would not care about the situation of the objects consisting in the team mates of Lia Thomas. They surely would not care if those were P-zombies. It is so obvious that it's disappointing that I have to point this out. But it's all over the place, in this thread and others. No, people who disagree with you on this matter do not view other humans as objects. It's not good to demonize them and not see that. Furthermore, even if they believe that the man/woman classification does not involve any mental properties (aside for those required to be human of course, but I mean the distinction), that is a theory
about the meaning of the words that does not remotely involve viewing humans as objects (oh, and there
are classifications of people that clearly do not involve mental properties, like 'blonde', 'blue-eyed', 'brunette', etc.; using them or believing those classifications do not involve mental properties also is not an indication that a person views other humans as objects).
TomC said:
To me, the opinion that the sex of an object is more real than the gender of a human being, is a social cue. It tells me a lot about the holder of the opinion. It's not especially flattering, it implies primitive ethics and world views.
And you do that again, demonizing away. But you are the one doing that, and failing to read all the other cues that ought to show you that you are picture a comic-book-villain caricature of your opponents.
TomC said:
It implies other things. Do you think that white people treating black people as social equals is "polite fiction"?
And you do it again, demonizing away. But purely for example, if I say 'Blacks are not inferior to to Whites' I make a
true statement, whereas if I say 'trans men are men', I make a
false statement in NW-English. Furthermore, the former statement would be sincere on my part, the latter insincere.
TomC said:
This is an internet forum. I don't claim to know anyone well, I'm just going by the cues provided by little black marks on my phone.
No, you're not just going by those cues. It was obvious in pretty much all of their threads that they do not remotely view other humans as objects. You're just assuming very bad things of those who disagree with you. Unfortunately, in my experience the vast majority of people in online debates do just that: essentially demonize the opponent. Perhaps, a lack of direct visual or auditory cues - we just read text in the posts - makes humans more prone to this kind of demonization; I don't know, but it's an interesting matter for future psychology research, given how ubiquitous this sort of debate has become. Even so, it is possible not to behave in that manner.