Can We Discuss Sex & Gender / Transgender People?

[TomC]

I don't, and never have, used pronouns to refer to gender,

Why not?

Because pronouns refer to sex when used in humans and other animals and always have.

Nope.
For nearly all of human history sex and gender weren't distinguished. But that was then, and this is now.
Modern people have a more sophisticated understanding. Sex is one thing, gender is another. Pronouns are gendered, not sexed.

I see it as a simple matter of politeness.

I see it as a reordering of language, but with added gaslighting by denying that any reordering took place at all.

.
So is recognizing that the sun doesn't rise. The earth rotates.

Sorry that sophisticated modern understanding causes you problems with vernacular language.

Usually, an individual's sex and gender match. That makes it easy. But if someone identifies as a woman, why would you use masculine pronouns? It's just mean. Most people are more attached to their gender than their sex.

Because pronouns refer to sex when used in humans and other animals and always have.

Nope. They used to, but that was when we were too primitive to recognize the difference between sex and gender. That was then and this is now.

Why don't people refer to Rachel Dolezal as a black woman? Are they, too, "mean"?
I never referred to Dolezal until the race issue hit TFT. I didn't even know of her existence.

I think she was treated very badly by ideological extremists. That's based on what little I know.

Your gender extremism doesn't look any better to me.

Tom

 

[none]

Again, it would be nice if gender scholars could pinpoint the exact stage in the evolution of our species when our innate predispositions and psychological adaptions shaped by millions of years of sexual selection were magically erased.

Do you think you're making some sort of a point? And if so, what is it?

That saying you cannot reliably discern a person’s biological sex on appearance alone is inexcusably stupid.

yet you did the hook and switch, first it was a GENDER issue and your point was about SEX...
so let us all know about sex.

Gender is just another word for sex; as in common usage. This effort to constantly morph the commonly understood usage is simple mendacity.

hahaha

 

[Metaphor]

I don't, and never have, used pronouns to refer to gender,

Why not?

Because pronouns refer to sex when used in humans and other animals and always have.

Nope.
For nearly all of human history sex and gender weren't distinguished. But that was then, and this is now.
Modern people have a more sophisticated understanding. Sex is one thing, gender is another. Pronouns are gendered, not sexed.

I disagree that pronouns were 'gendered'. For nearly all of human history, pronouns were sexed. That's what they referred to: the sex of the human or other animal.

So is recognizing that the sun doesn't rise. The earth rotates.

Sorry that sophisticated modern understanding causes you problems with vernacular language.

Sophisticated? You have declared that pronouns always referred to gender and not sex, a claim that is completely false.

Nope. They used to, but that was when we were too primitive to recognize the difference between sex and gender. That was then and this is now.

What is 'primitive' about using pronouns to refer to sex? If we were wrong to do so, why?

I never referred to Dolezal until the race issue hit TFT. I didn't even know of her existence.

Do you think Rachel Dolezal is a black woman and should be referred to as such?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Nope. They used to, but that was when we were too primitive to recognize the difference between sex and gender. That was then and this is now.

What is 'primitive' about using pronouns to refer to sex? If we were wrong to do so, why?

Why do you have such a hard-on for he, his, her, and she? The trouble occurs when we stop ignoring that some people exist that don't neatly fall into simple but arbitrary constructs.

I mean, does the duckbill platypus piss you off too?

 

[TomC]

Gender is just another word for sex; as in common usage. This effort to constantly morph the commonly understood usage is simple mendacity.

No, it isn't.

It used to be. But it isn't now. We live in a society that is sophisticated enough to understand the difference, even though it only matters to a small number of people.

Sex and gender are not the same thing! Usually they match, for any given individual, but sometimes not.

And those people who differ from the norm are still humans, with inherent worth and dignity. Get over yourself and your primitive world views.

Tom

 

[Metaphor]

Why do you have such a hard-on for he, his, her, and she? The trouble occurs when we stop ignoring that some people exist that don't neatly fall into simple but arbitrary constructs.

Oy gevalt. I have already said, more than once, that as a polite fiction, I will use the 'preferred' pronouns that do not match sex with most people, if that's what they want, including singular 'they' (even though "non-binary", in my opinion, is a narcissistic signal that the person believes themselves to have ascended to a higher plane of existence).

I mean, does the duckbill platypus piss you off too?

No, monotremes do not piss me off. In fact, they can do Very Cool Things. But like any mammal, they cannot change sex.

 

[ZiprHead]

Why do you have such a hard-on for he, his, her, and she? The trouble occurs when we stop ignoring that some people exist that don't neatly fall into simple but arbitrary constructs.

Oy gevalt. I have already said, more than once, that as a polite fiction, I will use the 'preferred' pronouns that do not match sex with most people, if that's what they want, including singular 'they' (even though "non-binary", in my opinion, is a narcissistic signal that the person believes themselves to have ascended to a higher plane of existence).

Heavens to Murgatroyd you would not want to be polite. That would be terrible.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

This does not mean that you have a woman's brain. You have a gay man's brain.

I have a trans-woman's brain.

So....what?

Single-sex spaces are not predicated on the brain-states of the people in those spaces, but on the sexed bodies of the people in those spaces. Women don't use the women's toilets because they have 'ladybrains' but because their bodies are female.

So we're on toilets, now.

What? Toilets and bathrooms are synonyms in Australia for the room you go to ablute your doings.

I am aware of that, mate.

 

[TomC]

Sophisticated? You have declared that pronouns always referred to gender and not sex, a claim that is completely false.

I not only didn't say that.
I said the exact opposite. I said that in the olden days sex and gender weren't much distinguished. But that was then and this is now.

Here in the modern world we do make those distinctions. Primitive people didn't. We do.

Tom

 

[Metaphor]

Sophisticated? You have declared that pronouns always referred to gender and not sex, a claim that is completely false.

I not only didn't say that.
I said the exact opposite. I said that in the olden days sex and gender weren't much distinguished. But that was then and this is now.

Here in the modern world we do make those distinctions. Primitive people didn't. We do.

Tom

So, pronouns always referred to sex (since gender did not exist as a concept for humans or animals). But now that gender has been discovered, it is primitive to use pronouns to refer to sex.

Why is it 'primitive'?

 

[Metaphor]

This does not mean that you have a woman's brain. You have a gay man's brain.

I have a trans-woman's brain.

So....what?

Single-sex spaces are not predicated on the brain-states of the people in those spaces, but on the sexed bodies of the people in those spaces. Women don't use the women's toilets because they have 'ladybrains' but because their bodies are female.

So we're on toilets, now.

What? Toilets and bathrooms are synonyms in Australia for the room you go to ablute your doings.

I am aware of that, mate.

Then why did you say 'So we're on toilets, now' as if I changed the subject?

 

[TomC]

Sophisticated? You have declared that pronouns always referred to gender and not sex, a claim that is completely false.

I not only didn't say that.
I said the exact opposite. I said that in the olden days sex and gender weren't much distinguished. But that was then and this is now.

Here in the modern world we do make those distinctions. Primitive people didn't. We do.

Tom

So, pronouns always referred to sex (since gender did not exist as a concept for humans or animals). But now that gender has been discovered, it is primitive to use pronouns to refer to sex.

Why is it 'primitive'?

I didn't say that.

It's primitive to fail to recognize the difference between sex and gender.

It's also primitive to insist that pronouns are sexed, rather than gendered. They aren't. But you keep doing it.

How about we remain polite and use the (rather arbitrary) gendered pronouns we're stuck with as English speaking people? Most people are very gendered, even trans folks. How about we just remain civil and polite?

Why is that a problem for you? Why do feel entitled to annoy people with your ideological purity, insisting that referring to someone with the pronoun you prefer takes precedence over civility?

I think it's because you're too ideologically pure to care about other people and their feelings. Feel free to correct me, but that's the way I see your insistence that pronouns be determined by sex and ignore gender.
Because you're mean and self centered.
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

Sophisticated? You have declared that pronouns always referred to gender and not sex, a claim that is completely false.

I not only didn't say that.
I said the exact opposite. I said that in the olden days sex and gender weren't much distinguished. But that was then and this is now.

Here in the modern world we do make those distinctions. Primitive people didn't. We do.

Tom

So, pronouns always referred to sex (since gender did not exist as a concept for humans or animals). But now that gender has been discovered, it is primitive to use pronouns to refer to sex.

Why is it 'primitive'?

I didn't say that.

It's primitive to fail to recognize the difference between sex and gender.

I recognise the difference and I'm very careful about it. More careful than most, I would say.

It's also primitive to insist that pronouns are sexed, rather than gendered. They aren't. But you keep doing it.

Why is that primitive?

How about we remain polite and use the (rather arbitrary) gendered pronouns we're stuck with as English speaking people? Most people are very gendered, even trans folks. How about we just remain civil and polite?

Why are pronouns gendered and not sexed? How did you come to this conclusion?

Why is that a problem for you? Why do feel entitled to annoy people with your ideological purity, insisting that referring to someone with the pronoun you prefer takes precedence over civility?

Why is being forced to engage in fiction a problem for me? Why is using the force of State to punish me for pronoun use a problem for me? Why is coerced participation in somebody else's fantasy a problem for me?

I think it's because you're too ideologically pure to care about other people and their feelings. Feel free to correct me, but that's the way I see your insistence that pronouns be determined by sex and ignore gender.
Because you're mean and self centered.
Tom

I see the people who would force me to engage in fiction for 'validation' as the mean and self-centred. I see the people who think gender should supplant sex in every conceivable situation as the 'ideologically pure'.

Except that they are also incoherent. Do you think Rachel Dolezal is a black woman and should be treated and called as such?

 

[SigmatheZeta]

This does not mean that you have a woman's brain. You have a gay man's brain.

I have a trans-woman's brain.

So....what?

Single-sex spaces are not predicated on the brain-states of the people in those spaces, but on the sexed bodies of the people in those spaces. Women don't use the women's toilets because they have 'ladybrains' but because their bodies are female.

So we're on toilets, now.

What? Toilets and bathrooms are synonyms in Australia for the room you go to ablute your doings.

I am aware of that, mate.

Then why did you say 'So we're on toilets, now' as if I changed the subject?

Because we were talking about thoughts vs. neurobiology.

Ivanka Savic's research on transgender people's brains is particularly interesting. If you are a neuroscience fan, then she could keep you entertained for hours.

Some of the coolest research, though, is being carried out in Madrid, Spain. Just last year, they found a gene that might be related to why some of us are transgender.

Analysis of Four Polymorphisms Located at the Promoter of the Estrogen Receptor Alpha ESR1 Gene in a Population With Gender Incongruence

Gender incongruence defines a state in which individuals feel discrepancy between the sex assigned at birth and their gender. Some of these people mak…

www.sciencedirect.com

It's a polymorphism in the estrogen receptor alpha gene. I know that that doesn't mean very much to you, but whether you know it or not, this would affect someone's brain development even within the uterus, meaning that a person that had this gene would be more sensitive than most people, during their development, to estrogen fluctuations during their gestation. In other words, we would have a substantially higher likelihood, at birth, to be predisposed toward gender dysphoria.

Therefore, I actually was born different. Gender dysphoria is not anything so transient as a daydream in my head or an idea. It is actually something that is objectively different about me. I am literally not really the same thing as a cis-man. I am something different.

When you shifted back to talking about toilets, I was not opposed to talking about toilets with you, necessarily. We can talk about toilets, too, if you want to.

 

[TomC]

I recognise the difference and I'm very careful about it. More careful than most, I would say.

You also said:

I don't, and never have, used pronouns to refer to gender,

Tom

 

[Metaphor]

Therefore, I actually was born different. Gender dysphoria is not anything so transient as a daydream in my head or an idea. It is actually something that is objectively different about me. I am literally not really the same thing as a cis-man. I am something different.

But I haven't said there isn't something different about your brain compared to the brains of people who are not transgender-identified males. Your brain being a particular way does not change your sex. And when we form sex-segregated spaces, your sex is what matters, by definition.

 

[Metaphor]

I recognise the difference and I'm very careful about it. More careful than most, I would say.

You also said:

I don't, and never have, used pronouns to refer to gender,

Tom

I am correct on both counts.

Do you think Rachel Dolezal is a black woman and should be treated and called as such?

 

[TomC]

I recognise the difference and I'm very careful about it. More careful than most, I would say.

You also said:

I don't, and never have, used pronouns to refer to gender,

Tom

I am correct on both counts.

Correct about what?
Sexing pronouns, regardless of how impolite you're being? Or accurately sexing gendered pronouns, regardless of how impolite you're being?
Tom

 

[Metaphor]

Correct about what?
Sexing pronouns, regardless of how impolite you're being? Or accurately sexing gendered pronouns, regardless of how impolite you're being?
Tom

I am correct that I am very careful about the difference between sex and gender, and I am correct that I use pronouns to refer to sex in humans and animals.

Do you think Rachel Dolezal is a black woman and should be treated and called as such?

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Therefore, I actually was born different. Gender dysphoria is not anything so transient as a daydream in my head or an idea. It is actually something that is objectively different about me. I am literally not really the same thing as a cis-man. I am something different.

But I haven't said there isn't something different about your brain compared to the brains of people who are not transgender-identified males. Your brain being a particular way does not change your sex. And when we form sex-segregated spaces, your sex is what matters, by definition.

In my area, most people are willing to be accommodating toward somebody that has a neurobiological difference that makes it stressful or uncomfortable for them to comply with conventional customs. This is normal social behavior, and it is not really normal for people to make other people's lives difficult if they don't really have to. My experience is that people tend to treat me respectfully.

I told you already how people in my area dealt with the issue. They simply desegregated their bathrooms, and this has also started a chain-reaction all over the nation. By desegregating all single-occupancy bathrooms in the area, they have not just skirted around the so-called "bathroom bill," but they are really doing something even more revolutionary. They are abolishing the idea that single-occupancy bathrooms really have to be segregated. They are genuinely changing the whole world.

As a transgender person, I think it's kind of rad that we have acted as a social catalyst. I think that the good that desegregation does, for society, will extend beyond just ourselves.